Reverse-Engineer Your Own Buying Triggers
Study what actually makes you buy, then build your own marketing around that same trigger.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 62%
This method treats your own purchases as primary market research. Instead of trying to invent a persuasive 'marketing voice,' you deliberately opt into other businesses' email sequences, ads and offers and pay close attention to the specific moment you personally decide to buy. That moment usually follows a clear pattern: an internal problem becomes vivid and named, and then a credible solution appears at the right time. Once you can see that pattern in your own buying behaviour, you translate it into your own messaging — describing the buyer's problem in the words that would make it vivid to them, and positioning your offer as the solution that arrives at that moment. The mechanism only works if you stay honest about your own voice; the failure mode is copying tactics without understanding why they worked on you, producing marketing that just sounds 'weird' rather than persuasive.
Origin
Extracted from Modern Wisdom — described as a habit picked up from a colleague who opts into every marketing funnel he encounters, framed as 'if you observe how you buy things, that teaches you how to sell,' drawn from experience helping personal trainers build online businesses.
Core principles
- 01How you personally get sold to is real data about how selling works
- 02People fail at marketing when they adopt a fake 'salesperson voice' instead of their own
- 03The trigger is the moment a problem crystallises in the buyer's mind, not the marketing copy itself
- 04Participating honestly in other people's funnels beats studying marketing theory abstractly
How to run it
- 1
Opt into other people's funnels
Sign up for email lists, follow ads, and let yourself be marketed to by businesses in and outside your niche.
Pro tip Don't filter to 'relevant' businesses only — buying triggers are often the same across unrelated categories.
- 2
Catch the moment you decide to buy
Pay deliberate attention to the specific instant you shift from browsing to 'I'm buying this.'
- 3
Name the problem that surfaced
Work out what problem or fear became suddenly vivid to you right before that decision — that's the real trigger, not the discount or design.
- 4
Translate the trigger into your own words
Write down the language that made the problem feel real to you, in terms your own audience would use.
- 5
Rebuild your messaging around it
Rewrite your own offer's marketing so it surfaces the same problem-then-solution sequence, in your natural voice rather than a borrowed 'sales' tone.
Pro tip The business should reflect your actual personality — that's what makes it unique, not the funnel mechanics.
Watch out Copying someone else's exact tactics without understanding your own trigger produces marketing that reads as inauthentic.
In the wild
One host described deliberately staying opted into dozens of coaches' and businesses' email sequences and ad funnels, treating every one as a live lesson in what does and doesn't move him to buy.
→ He credited this habit with making his own marketing for personal trainers noticeably less awkward than trainers who invent a fake 'sales voice' from scratch.
The hosts described a recurring pattern in coaching clients: personal trainers moving online for the first time suddenly write in a strange, overly formal 'marketing voice' instead of their normal one.
→ Clients who instead studied their own buying triggers and wrote in their real voice produced far more effective, natural-sounding marketing.
Common mistakes
Copying funnel tactics without understanding the trigger
Mimicking another business's structure without knowing why it worked on you produces marketing that feels imitative rather than persuasive.
Writing in a fake 'salesperson' voice
Abandoning your natural tone for a generic promotional register is the single most common mistake first-time marketers make, and it undermines trust.
Assuming your buying triggers generalise perfectly
Your own psychology is a useful data point, not a complete audience research process — it should inform, not replace, listening to actual customers.
Is it for you?
Best for
Solo founders, coaches and personal trainers writing their own marketing for the first time.
Not ideal for
Large teams with dedicated marketing/CRO functions who need audience research beyond one person's buying psychology.
From the transcript
“if you observe how you buy things, that teaches you how to sell”
“looking for a solution and finding who is able to solve that problem for you and then you buy”
“the opting into marketing funnels and email lists and things can be valuable in itself”
From the episode
End Of Year Review: 2021's Lessons, Hacks & Fails - #416