Charlie Brown knew it every time. Yet, next time he bought Lucy’s trick regardless. Every. Single. Time. It’s heartbreaking to see. We wanna shout: “Noooooooo!” We want to shake Charlie.
The Lucy approach is devilish. It’s one promise broken after another. And again. And again. But because Lucy’s joy in pranking Charlie Brown is limitless, her effort is as well. Her eloquence in tricking him once again is off the charts.
The Lucy approach is built on a deep sense for what resonates with Charlie.
It‘s the same art and craft that gets salespeople of the Lucy-style the deal. They substitute Charlie with their customers and they have limitless joy in tricking them into the deal, not really caring for what happens thereafter.
Of course, one of the things that Lucy’s approach doesn’t earn you is trust. In fact, it erodes trust. Drip by drip. Time after time. And that is the reason why your effort will never decrease. Either you’ll need to find new customers over and over again. Or you’ll need to trick the existing ones ever more creatively.
And that’s the irony. While the Lucy approach might be fun – and likely a lot easier to get you quick wins, it’s so much more tedious in the long run.
While communication that’s built on trust gets easier each time you use it, the Lucy approach gets harder each time you try it.