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Michael Lynch

Michael is the founder and principal of Highly Persuasive, a brand strategy and positioning practice built on how buyers actually perceive, evaluate, shortlist, and decide. We help companies close the distance between how good they are and how easy they are to choose. Brand, strategy, positioning, messaging, identity & marketing systems for professional services firms, industrial companies, hospitality businesses, and any company growing faster than their brand has kept up with.

May 20 2025
how to unlock the unspoken rules of luxury clientele

How To Unlock The Unspoken Rules of Luxury Clientele

By Business Strategy & Positioning, Conversion Optimization & Sales Psychology, Influence & Consumer Psychology, Luxury & Hospitality Marketing, Luxury & Premium Brand Strategy
When Premium Buyers Evaluate Your Distance Before Your Offer HP Field Notes | Highly Persuasive A private equity partner needed an operational assessment for a portfolio company in Southeast Asia. Three consulting firms made the shortlist. All had relevant experience. All proposed similar methodologies. All quoted within 15% of each…
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May 20 2025
You’re Not Just Selling Expertise — You’re Selling 'Epistemic Trust'

You’re Not Just Selling Expertise — You’re Selling ‘Epistemic Trust’

By Business Strategy & Positioning, Conversion Optimization & Sales Psychology, Influence & Consumer Psychology, Marketing Strategy & Growth
Why Technical Capability Loses to Interpretive Authority HP Field Notes | Highly Persuasive An industrial automation supplier spent 18 months building a case for their predictive maintenance platform. They had superior sensor accuracy, better algorithms, and a lower total cost of ownership than the incumbent. The technical comparison wasn't close.…
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May 19 2025
We Judge Brands Like We Judge People on a First Date

How Buyers Judge Your Brand in the First Few Seconds — Before a Single Word Has Been Read

By Branding & Identity, Conversion Optimization & Sales Psychology, Marketing Strategy & Growth, Thought Leadership & Authority Building
How Buyers Judge Your Brand in the First Few Seconds — Before a Single Word Has Been Read HP DemandSignals™ | Highly Persuasive In 1992, a team of Princeton researchers showed participants photographs of unfamiliar faces for exactly 100 milliseconds — less time than a blink — then asked them…
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May 19 2025
3 Phrases That Quietly Destroy Your Brand Authority

3 Phrases That Quietly Destroy Your Brand Authority

By Lead Generation & Demand Creation, Branding & Identity, Business Strategy & Positioning, Influence & Consumer Psychology, Marketing Strategy & Growth
3 Phrases That Quietly Destroy Your Brand Authority HP DemandSignals™ | Highly Persuasive There's a sentence buried in almost every B2B company's standard communications. It appears in proposals, in follow-up emails, at the end of client presentations, and in introductory calls. It sounds professional. Accommodating. Even thoughtful. It's destroying your…
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May 19 2025
Is Your Brand Voice Too Perfect to Be Believable

Is Your Brand Voice Too Perfect to Be Believable?

By Business Strategy & Positioning, Messaging & Communications, Thought Leadership & Authority Building
Is Your Brand Voice Too Perfect to Be Believable? In 2009, Domino’s Pizza ran advertising that most companies would have rejected in horror. Their CEO looked directly into the camera and said their pizza wasn’t good enough. Customers were shown in focus groups on screen describing the crust as cardboard,…
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May 14 2025
The Emotional Palette How Brands Can Trigger Complex Feelings Without Saying a Word

How Brands Can Trigger Complex Feelings & Emotions Without Saying a Word

By Business Strategy & Positioning, Branding & Identity, Conversion Optimization & Sales Psychology, Influence & Consumer Psychology
How Brands Trigger Complex Feelings Without Saying a Word HP DemandSignals™ | Highly Persuasive The buyers evaluating your company are not processing your brand the way you think they are. They are not reading your case studies, forming views, then revising them as they read more. They are not comparing…
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May 12 2025
skeptical buyers seek clarity in b2b, saas and pro services

Why Clarity Feels Like Luxury to a Skeptical Buyer

By Marketing Strategy & Growth, Business Strategy & Positioning, Conversion Optimization & Sales Psychology, Influence & Consumer Psychology, Thought Leadership & Authority Building
Why Clarity Feels Like Luxury to a Skeptical Buyer HP DemandSignals™ | Highly Persuasive In 2013, Slack launched into a market already crowded with workplace communication tools. The obvious angle was features — real-time messaging, integrations, file sharing. Slack had all of these. So did several competitors. What Slack did…
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May 12 2025
b2b influence and persuasion for lead generation and sales cycles - highly persuasive.png

How to Build Influence & Persuasion Systems in B2B That Help You Dominate Your Category

By Business Strategy & Positioning, Branding & Identity, Influence & Consumer Psychology, Marketing Strategy & Growth
Why Influence in B2B Has Nothing to Do With Persuasion Tactics HP DemandSignals™ | Highly Persuasive The B2B companies that consistently close the most complex deals have something in common that isn't usually visible in their sales process. They don't appear to be selling. Their buyers describe the decision to…
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