The Five Things The Brain Won't Delete
Scary, strange, sexy, free and familiar — and only the last two are available to almost everyone.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 94%
Priestley's model of attention begins with deletion. Walk down Oxford Street and your limbic system deletes everyone; stopped at the end, you cannot remember a single person or what they wore. That is precisely what markets do to marketing. Five things escape the deletion filter. Scary — the news has run on this for decades, if it bleeds it leads. Strange — you will remember the man dressed as a giant hot dog. Sexy — and most businesses cannot pull it off even if they wanted to. Priestley's point is that those first three are unavailable to most businesses, either because they are inappropriate or because they cannot be executed. The two that are genuinely available to everyone are free value and familiarity. Free value means something people would otherwise have paid for, beautifully packaged — jewellery in a plastic bag reads as fake or stolen; the same item in a wrapped box reads as a thoughtful gift. Familiarity is simply clocking up 7-11-4. He runs Bartlett through the model live and concludes he is scoring on all five: expensive free episodes, extreme consistency, a distinctive appearance, occasional genuinely frightening conversations, and a book called Happy Sexy Millionaire.
Origin
Priestley developed the model to answer the differentiation question he gets asked constantly. Rather than treating differentiation as positioning, he grounds it in what actually survives the brain's deletion filter, using the Oxford Street walk as the demonstration that deletion is the default state of a crowded market.
Core principles
- 01Deletion is the default; standing out is the exception.
- 02Scary, strange and sexy are real but unavailable to most businesses.
- 03Free value and familiarity are available to anyone.
- 04Free value must be something people would otherwise have paid for.
- 05Packaging is part of whether free value registers as value at all.
How to run it
- 1
Accept that you are being deleted
Priestley's Oxford Street thought experiment: thousands of people, and you remember none of them, not one outfit. Your marketplace does exactly this to your marketing.
Pro tip Starting from deletion rather than from your message reframes the whole differentiation question.
Watch out Assuming your message is being weighed and rejected is the wrong model — it is not being processed at all.
- 2
Rule out the three you cannot use
Scary works for news but few businesses want it. Strange works — Bartlett's oversized hat became part of his brand at conferences, events and on LinkedIn. Sexy is available only to a lucky few who can pull it off.
Pro tip Priestley calls the strange lever peacocking, and Bartlett confirms it worked for him at 18 without his realising it at the time.
Watch out Most businesses cannot stand out on any of these three, which is why they conclude they cannot stand out at all.
- 3
Give away genuine value, beautifully packaged
Anyone who gives real value away immediately stands out. Two conditions: it has to be something people would otherwise have paid for, and it has to be beautifully packaged.
Pro tip The jewellery test — the same item in a plastic bag reads as cheap or stolen; in a wrapped box it reads as a thoughtful gift.
Watch out Priestley pushes back on Bartlett here: everyone thinks what they are doing is value. The paid-for test is the check.
- 4
Become familiar by clocking up 7-11-4
Familiarity is the second universally available lever, and it is simply the accumulated dose from the 7-11-4 model — consistency over time across multiple platforms.
Pro tip Free and familiar reinforce each other: free value is what people are willing to spend the seven hours on.
Watch out Familiarity without free value is exposure without a reason to engage.
In the wild
Priestley runs the audit live: Bartlett spends tens of thousands of pounds per episode with high production value and expensive guests and makes it free — enormous standout value. He is consistent, so 7-11-4 is clocked. He is also strange, per the hat.
→ Bartlett adds the other two himself — the nuclear bomb conversation covers scary, and Happy Sexy Millionaire covers sexy. Priestley's verdict: you've got all five going on.
Priestley's illustration of strange: if you saw someone walking down the street dressed as a giant hot dog, you would remember the guy dressed as a giant hot dog.
→ It survives the deletion filter purely on strangeness, with no message required — which is why peacocking works even when nothing else about you is distinctive.
Common mistakes
Believing your value is value
Bartlett interjects that it has to actually be value and Priestley agrees emphatically — everyone thinks what they are doing is valuable. The test is whether people would otherwise have paid for it.
Giving free value away badly packaged
The jewellery-in-a-plastic-bag problem. Unpackaged free value reads as cheap or suspicious, and destroys the standout effect it was supposed to create.
Trying to be sexy without the ability to pull it off
Priestley says only a few lucky people get to use this lever. Attempting it without the ability produces neither differentiation nor credibility.
Is it for you?
Best for
Businesses in saturated markets trying to work out what differentiation is actually available to them.
Not ideal for
Regulated categories where free value or distinctive presentation are constrained.
From the transcript
“your brain is extremely good at deleting messages and this is what's happening in our marketplaces”
“the last two are the ones that are most useful and that is providing free value”
“free and familiar are the two things that anyone can apply”
From the episode
The Money Making Expert: The 7,11,4 Hack That Turns $1 Into $10K Per Month! This 90 Day Rule Will 10x Your Income! Daniel Priestley
Daniel Priestley