hey {firstname}

Sean Ferres posted about how if your cold email starts with "Hey Sean —" he ain't reading that...

(And who also is completely right because this is getting so generic and so overused…)

He didn’t mean not to use it in the subject line though… He’s attacking the FIRST LINE OF THE EMAIL BODY (the opener), not the subject line.

The man himself hit on something profound:

People hate generic. People hate something when they see it over and over and over again.

I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHY PEOPLE STILL DO THIS!

But who cares!

IT IS PSYCHOLOGICAL FODDER … AND HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY EATS GENERIC BULLSH*T FOR BREAKFAST LIKE JAPANESE PEOPLE EAT RICE, FISH AND RAMEN!

(lol but I actually love how he just straight up said "I ain't reading that shit" 🤣 like thanks for 100% calling out the lazy marketers)

Seriously though:

There is a curious phenomenon here.

Something which history has friggin’ PROVEN over and over again.

Which is this:

Why do humans reject the generic and crave the exclusive?

I mean…

Since the dawn of civilization, people have been drawn to something new, unique, not known by others…

We try to hide something. We love it when we are the only one or only a few people know about something and we are in that group of a few people, AND we don't like others to get access to or to have easily access to it.

Even in gaming communities, you'll notice this pattern.

When you're part of something exclusive — something hard to get — it feels GOOD.

When you have access to something others can't get, or it is super, super, super hard to obtain…

That's when the magic happens.

I have seen this pattern throughout ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY.

... where research shows humans systematically overvalue things that are rare or hard to get.

... from survival standpoint, this makes sense. Scarce resources were life-or-death valuable. Our brains evolved to compete for anything limited.

Humans define themselves by what groups they belong to — and crucially, by what groups they DON'T belong to.

If you look at any civilization — purple dye in Rome was restricted to emperors. Spices drove entire economic systems. Knowledge was hoarded by priests and scribes.

And I always wonder…

Are freelancers just cold outreach masochists?

Do they just like sending the same "Hey [NAME]" waffle … and then wondering why it’s not tickling anybody?

It truly boggles the mind.

Unfortunately, most marketers seem to be fizzling out of good ideas, and their open rates are tanking … so I'm not sure they're going to survive much longer if they keep up this low-effort, generic baloney.

But I sincerely thank Sean Ferres on behalf of everyone who's tired of generic outreach for this opportunity to understand why humans crave the exclusive, the rare, the hard-to-get.

Today's insight has been brought to you by thousands of years of human psychology — which shows that if you want people to pay attention (nail the first line), you better make it exclusive, unique, and worth their foockin’ time.

You can stop being generic by understanding this fundamental truth:

HUMANS REJECT THE COMMON AND CRAVE THE RARE.

Arigatou!

P.S. And if you wanna go even deeper on this idea of not sounding like every other peanuts-cutter marketer on the planet...

I just wrote something about why your outreach needs to be unhinged, not polite.

It’s here: "Kill your darlings" (and your boring cold emails)

What's the most exclusive thing you've ever wanted just because other people couldn't have it?