Ah, I actually only started experimenting with hard-selling when I sent the emails above for my current Experience Poverty fundraiser, the last of which I sent just before posting. I’ll report back later here and in the spreadsheet! (Though it’ll be hard to tell the results, especially via emails to people I won’t see in person—I have come up with a few ideas for how to tell, not replicable by others.)
I sent 66 of these emails, and may send a few dozen more. I’ve had a trickle of replies already, all positive and around half strongly so (saying “Yes it is a strong sell but it worked on me!”, or that they’d share the info with their friends—the only significant action that I heard of).
Before this I’ve mainly done weak sells, and a handful of mid-strength ones. I’ve recorded some of these in the spreadsheet and may add some more. Broadly my experience has been that some people are receptive and others aren’t, and that going up to a mid-strength sell doesn’t affect this (except in one case, where I convinced someone to pledge 5% from being quite sceptical).
Cool. For what it’s worth, I tried doing similar things in college for a while without very much lasting effect—people would come to a couple events or otherwise be initially positive but not really sustain interest or motivation. After a while I noticed and stopped being so vocal and only mentioned EA when it came up naturally (events, HCEA-related stuff, etc.). A couple years later, a bunch of the people I tried to sell on it earlier got interested of their own accord.
Our samples of people probably differ a lot, and obviously the long game isn’t practical for people you don’t see frequently—just mentioning this as another anecdotal datapoint.
Looking forward to the results! Definitely would be interested in seeing this replicated for other people—maybe I’ll get the courage to try it myself. Could also try randomly varying the magnitude of the sell.
Ah, I actually only started experimenting with hard-selling when I sent the emails above for my current Experience Poverty fundraiser, the last of which I sent just before posting. I’ll report back later here and in the spreadsheet! (Though it’ll be hard to tell the results, especially via emails to people I won’t see in person—I have come up with a few ideas for how to tell, not replicable by others.)
I sent 66 of these emails, and may send a few dozen more. I’ve had a trickle of replies already, all positive and around half strongly so (saying “Yes it is a strong sell but it worked on me!”, or that they’d share the info with their friends—the only significant action that I heard of).
Before this I’ve mainly done weak sells, and a handful of mid-strength ones. I’ve recorded some of these in the spreadsheet and may add some more. Broadly my experience has been that some people are receptive and others aren’t, and that going up to a mid-strength sell doesn’t affect this (except in one case, where I convinced someone to pledge 5% from being quite sceptical).
Cool. For what it’s worth, I tried doing similar things in college for a while without very much lasting effect—people would come to a couple events or otherwise be initially positive but not really sustain interest or motivation. After a while I noticed and stopped being so vocal and only mentioned EA when it came up naturally (events, HCEA-related stuff, etc.). A couple years later, a bunch of the people I tried to sell on it earlier got interested of their own accord.
Our samples of people probably differ a lot, and obviously the long game isn’t practical for people you don’t see frequently—just mentioning this as another anecdotal datapoint.
I had essentially the exact same experience.
Looking forward to the results! Definitely would be interested in seeing this replicated for other people—maybe I’ll get the courage to try it myself. Could also try randomly varying the magnitude of the sell.