All Selling Aside With Alex Mandossian

Consider this story: in the 13th century, there was a Turkish trader who would go to the border with the Orient. When the border guards asked what he was smuggling, he’d shrug and point at his donkey. The border patrol burned the hay in the donkey’s cart and search the donkey closely to figure out what he was smuggling. When they found nothing, they let him pass. Later, he returned empty-handed, without a donkey. The next day, the same thing happened. Over the course of 30 years, he became a wealthy trader. After this time, the retiring chief of the border patrol asked the trader what he was smuggling and swore not to punish him. Only then did he admit to smuggling... donkeys. Do you see what he did there? He was so transparent, and did his smuggling in such plain view, that everyone was too busy looking deeper to see what he was actually doing. When we tie this back to today’s three insights, you’ll see that the trader was also designing his offer first, before focusing on being as transparent as possible. W