Proof Will Get’em Every time

I have a copy of Dan Kennedy’s Ultimate Marketing plan sitting on my shelf and started reading it the last couple of days for a project that I am working on. I have to say, when I purchased it a couple of months ago I thought I knew everything I needed to know about marketing a product until I ran into the situation of proof. Before I get into the story let me tell you the joke Dan Kennedy says in the book, I thought it was pretty funny.

He said..

“A father puts his three- year-old son up on the fireplace mantle and holds out his hands and urges him to jump saying to the child “I’ll catch you,” he promises. After saying it enough times, the kid gets enough strength to jump only for the dad to step back and let him crash to the floor. He leans over to his son and says “you just learned your first great lesson for life- don’t trust anybody.””

Now, some of you might think it was cruel and not a funny joke but the message of don’t trust anyone has been taught to all of us in some way or fashion which brings me back to my proof story.

I have been marketing my product Facebook for sales for sometime now and it has been going pretty well. One of my coaching students told me “Gloria, I have my product that I am sharing with people and I believe I have a good offer but no one is buying?” 

Now, usually when people tell me that, I always ask them if what they are offering is something that your prospects want. That is first and foremost. If you are marketing a product they don’t want, you can offer them the moon and they still wont buy. So, we solved the market question and yes it was something his market wanted. Next, we had to look at what he was offering.

I took a look at his offer and he definitely thought about everything, he had some great bonuses to go along with his course as well as some coaching and additional personal training he was offering at a good price. Everything seem okay but of course something was missing and that was proof.

No where on his sales letter or video did he have proof that what people where about to purchase actually produce some results. He said “why do I have to show my personal stuff where all the information they are going to get is already valuable.”

Then I had to tell him the truth which is, people don’t believe guarantees anymore especially in our industry. We also have the thought in the back of our heads like “yeah right this is to good to be true”, or “there must be a catch along the way because I know it is not totally free.” A lot of people have been scammed or purchase things that they didn’t need and was stuck with it so they have their guard up. So he said “what can I do to show proof if I don’t have a lot?” here is what I told him:

1. Allow other people to review your product- this is the best way to get a lot of testimonials from people in your industry. Talk to a couple of people who you feel might be interested in your topic and let them review it. After, ask them to do a testimonial for you. Try to get a video, they work the best
2. Go to events and take pictures with elite marketers- might sound cliché but it really works, some marketers buy your product off of people you might know and have relationships with. The best place to meet them is at events
3. Use pictures and screen shots- if you have been successful in the past and you have statements, take a picture with a camera or do a screen capture to put on your site.

So he followed my advice and now he sells at least 1 product a week just by making that small change.

There are many many more ideas I can give you but this article is already long and if you made it this far then I want you to go to my website and join my mailing list so we can continue the conversation. Here is the link http://www.gloriaward.com. You are welcome to share this article with your list and friends. See ya soon.