At the last edition of Inbound, a cool sales event that took place this year in San Francisco, I attended a lecture by Nancy Harhut that really stuck with me: “9 Counterintuitive Tactics Smart Marketers Can Exploit”. What caught my attention the most was how she showed, in a very practical way, something we sometimes forget: the human brain loves mental shortcuts. And when we know how to use them strategically, we can transform not only the way we communicate, but also our conversion rates.
One of her first provocations was about the fear that many professionals have of bringing any negative aspect to communication. The logic is almost always the same: show absolute perfection, impeccable reviews, maximum scores. But the real effect is usually the opposite. When a product or service displays only five stars, the consumer’s brain triggers a suspicion alert. It seems too good to be true. A 4.8 rating, accompanied by an honest and well-placed review, conveys authenticity. And authenticity, in the end, is what brings people closer. Controlled vulnerability can be more persuasive than artificial perfection.
Another point that struck me was the use of the Von Restorff effect in titles and calls to action. In other words: when a word stands out — whether by being in uppercase, in brackets, or even written in an unexpected way — it captures attention disproportionately. Our brain is trained to look for what deviates from the norm. It’s the same mechanism that makes you immediately notice a red object among several blue ones. In marketing, this detail can be the difference between an email being opened and one being ignored.
And Nancy went further: she showed that even a “mistake” can be strategic. A word used unexpectedly, or even a deliberately incorrect spelling, has the power to break the automatic flow of reading and force the brain to pay attention. It sounds crazy, but it’s not — it’s biology and psychology in action. The brain doesn’t resist what breaks patterns.
These were just some of the ideas that struck me the most, but the central point is clear: when we understand how people really think and decide — and not how we rationally assume they should think — we open up space for more human, more creative, and much more effective communication.
In the end, Nancy’s lecture left a lesson that is valuable for any professional: behavioral science is not just theory. It is a practical tool. And when applied intelligently, it completely changes the way we sell, connect, and influence.
