Making people feel smart

When selling smart products, you need buyers to feel smart about buying them. 

Don’t simply tell people things, work patiently with people to ensure they understand, internalize, and feel comfortable acting upon the information you convey. Encourage, acknowledge and reward their progress as they move from abstract idea to cognitive internalization to meaningful realization.

Allow, indeed encourage, people to see the idea as their own. Let them forget whose idea it was. Encourage them to take your insights further by building them into their own. Help them see not only your product’s smartness, but the way that smartness will translate, through newly inspired actions, into more meaningful outcomes (e.g. a better life, a more successful business, a stronger society, a cleaner planet).

Your business can help people feel smart by making complex ideas and propositions more approachable, digestible and relevant. Use the key drivers of understanding: simplicity, clarity and example. Don’t baffle them with science, charm them with it. Understand how your audience sees the world, what they value, and what they truly need. Caste your offering in the light of those insights.