Bitesize Business Breakthrough

...in the time it takes to drink a cup of tea


 
 
 
 
 

How to double, treble or quadruple the sales opportunities for your business with little or no cost...

©Christopher Brewer/Shutterstock

Most business owners are frustrated by a shortage of high-value sales opportunities.


As a result they don’t enjoy the peace of mind and confidence that extra sales revenues, profits, and capital value can bring them.

The thing is, most businesses don’t know what to do to double, treble or even quadruple their sales opportunities.

Here you’ll find one business breakthrough you can start implementing today.


When you do you’ll be on the road to doubling, trebling or maybe even quadrupling the number of sales opportunities you get for your business.

IN A NUTSHELL

Strengthen your offer.


If your prospective customers doubt your product, your service or your firm, they will not enquire…they will not buy.


This is a good thing for your business! It’s good because the same ‘doubting Thomas’ approach applies to your competition too.

Start with your next steps to build proof or read on for the full Bitesize Business Breakthrough. Use your device's back arrow to return to this point.

Here's a way to win...

Build proof and you reduce doubt. 


When you invest 20/30 minutes a week improving your four sources of proof you'll out-play all your competitors. 


Chances are you'll increase your volume of sales enquiries.

Here's the proven solution for you...

Answer the following question brilliantly and blatantly…

Why should a potential customer believe you'll deliver on the promise you make for your product more than your competition do?

The more proof, the more evidence, the more reasons-to-believe you provide…

the more enquiries you’ll get and the more sales you’ll get.

Consider this...

Two men are abandoned in the African Plains.


The men catch sight of a lion as he stalks his way out of the undergrowth towards them, licking his lips.


One man sits down and quickly changes his shoes.


The other asks “Why are you putting running shoes on? You’ll never outrun a lion.”


He replies, “I don’t have to, I just have to outrun you.”

If your competition has built more proof, more evidence and more verification about the usefulness and value of their product or service, you’ll lose (there’s a lion after you!).

However if you make more use of the four sources of proof you'll win the race for more sales opportunities.

Are you in any doubt about the sales impact of 4-star and 5-star recommendations on Amazon?


And how much more certain do you feel when there’s 266 4 and 5-star recommendations?


Proof and lots of it helps you radically improve the number of sales opportunities you achieve. 


Just like it does at Amazon.

©Dmitrydesign/Shutterstock

Doubting Thomas OR Trusted Friend?

In a perfect world there’d be no reason to disbelieve your claims about your products and services.


All products and services would do what they claim to do.


Honesty would rule and customers would trust everyone.

But customers don’t trust everyone. Instead buyers lean towards distrusting all marketing claims.

Therefore, you must prove you’re worth trusting, prove you’re worth buying from (more than your competition).

Here's four forms of evidence you look for...

Let’s assume you’ve got a new, fresh, cold potential buyer considering your product or service.

Perhaps a Google searcher finds your website OR a prospective buyer has wandered into your store or onto your exhibition stand.

Perhaps they’re considering calling you OR they have opened your direct mail letter OR have found your advert and you want them to read more.

You have seconds to impress, and a lot of ground to cover if you’re going to get them to respond.

Time to put your four forms of evidence to work:

  1. 1
    Statistical Proof
  2. 2
    Testimonial Proof
  3. 3
    Case Study Story Proof
  4. 4
    Guarantee Proof

Share more proof and better proof than your competition and you’ll stand a good chance of doubling your sales leads. 

TIME TO DISAGREE

You talk about proof, why should I believe in this ‘proof’ concept?” 

Let me explain in more detail...

1. Statistical proof you can believe in…

How would you grade the quality and quantity of proof you have about your business, your products and your services? High, medium or low?

In Doug Hall’s book “Jump Start Your Business Brain” you’ll find hard-nosed research statistics on the power of proof.  There's more on this at the end of this report.

The research suggests:

Level of belief

Probability of Success

High Reason to Believe

43%

Medium Reason to Believe

29%

Low Reason to Believe

18%

As you can see, if you and your product have low proof and you go up against a competitor with high proof you’ll lose.

2. Testimonial proof you can believe in…

When buying from Amazon chances are you’ll check out what the recommended comments are to help determine whether you buy or not.

When you see a poster advertising a new movie what do you almost always see? Star ratings from magazine reviews supported by testimonial quotes from the review.

Open a direct mail sales letter and you’ll be bombarded with sample testimonials. You too can use testimonials to help reduce doubt and increase enquiries for your product or service.

3. Case study proof you can believe in…

You’ll be familiar with the way charities focus on a specific story about a specific named child or individual.


Charities use such a personal case study story because it works better than any other fund raising strategy.

You too can share specific stories about specific successes to demonstrate you’re worth trusting too.


You’ll get more enquiries when you share your case study stories.

4. Guarantee proof you can believe in…

“Hot fresh pizza in 30 minutes or it’s free”

Domino’s Pizza was a stuttering business until they introduced this guarantee to their offer in 1973.


They now have over 1000 outlets in the UK alone.

Marks & Spencer is a trusted brand because of their willingness to exchange goods, no questions asked.

Can you see how a guarantee (risk reversal) can reduce doubt and increase trust?


It can do the same for your business.

TIME TO DISAGREE

COMPETITORS AREN’T FOCUSED ON PROOF:

“I don’t see my competitors obsessing about proof the way you suggest, so why should I?”

The issue isn’t whether your competitors have or have not got proof.


The issue is do you have more proof than them, better proof than them?

Buyers do not make a decision about your product in a vacuum.


Buyers are comparing your offer to other offers.


You make your offer much stronger by having a preponderance of proof.

Which one do you want to be – the one with the most proof or least proof?


You know who’ll win…

WE ALREADY HAVE PROOF:

“We already use proof and it doesn’t seem to make any difference”

Yes many businesses already use testimonials. A few use case studies, guarantees and statistics too.

But please forgive the repetition here -


The issue isn’t whether you have or have not got proof. The issue is – do you have more proof than your competition?

In short: Do you have enough high-quality proof?

For example: Do you have a ‘New York, New York’ testimonial or case study? Let me explain.

You remember the Frank Sinatra song lyric: “If you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere…”

Share your ‘New York, New York’ proof and people will then see you can “…make it there” and reduce their doubt about using you and increase enquiries and sales.

Who’s the customer or critic or industry expert recognised by your buyers as the most demanding, sophisticated, expert or substantial user of your service?


Can you get their positive comment or case study experience to share with other buyers?

NOBODY WANTS TO GIVE ME ANY PROOF:

“I can’t find any worthy case studies and can’t get any statistics or testimonial quotes about our services.”

If you CAN say ‘hand-on-your-heart’ your product is one of the best then a little creativity can help you get more proof.

  • Call or visit some of your ‘raving fan’ customers and interview them about their experience of your product.
  • Use Facebook, LinkedIn or other social media sites to nurture comments about your services.
  • Use a survey (email, phone, LinkedIn) to solicit comments and find raving fans who will talk about you positively

No marketing can give you sustainable success if your product is inferior to your direct competition.


Invest time/energy improving your product/service before you go hunting for proof.

YOU’VE JUST STARTED UP:

“I’ve only just started my business and I have no proof”

You must do everything you can to get some proof.

Proof is even more important in a start up situation.

You’re up against established suppliers.


Buyers have greater doubt about startups, they trust them less, so proof is even more important.


If you’re truly confident in your new product then an outrageous guarantee can kick-start your sales and kick start your portfolio of proof.

Get very close to your early customers and do everything you can to impress the heck out of them.


Then share their experiences about how good you are wherever you can.

I DON’T HAVE A MARKETING BUDGET:

“We have very little cash available to spend on marketing so all this work on proof is pie-in-the-sky.”

What’s neat about building a proof library is how little it costs.


It just requires some of your time.

If you have no marketing budget simply invest time in the four forms of proof and you’ll build a powerful offer.


Share your proof with everyone and you’ll build a flow of opportunities too.

What’s also neat is the more proof you have, the less money you need to spend on convincing buyers to buy. Greater proof reduces marketing costs and boosts your profits.

Sales leads is an important number to track in your business.

If you want to discuss how to better measure lead generation or how to use proof in your company please contact us – find the details in the footer below.

ALLOCATE TIME FOR BUILDING PROOF EVERY WEEK:

Spend 30 minutes every week, as part of your weekly marketing activity, and you’ll build, over time, a preponderance of proof for your business.


Use the suggestions coming up and use the extra resources available to download at the end of this Business Breakthrough to help you.

Your next steps:

Here are two steps to help you build more proof so you can reduce doubt, increase trust and generate more sales opportunities for your business.

Collect examples:

1

Statistical Examples

  • “More 5-star reviews than any other musical in west end history” – from the recent poster promoting the show ‘Merrily We Roll Along’
  • “8 out of 10 dentists recommend Colgate”

2

Testimonial Examples

  • “Make no mistake, one of THE GREAT MUSICAL PRODUCTIONS of this or any other era” – The Independent. From the same poster promoting the show ‘Merrily We Roll Along’
  • From the advert promoting Carling Cider: “Gold Award Winner International Cider Category 2013”

3

Case Study Story Examples

  • Google ‘Regus case studies’ and you’ll find excellent examples of ‘New York, New York’ case studies!

4

Guarantee Examples

  • Avoid a weak and watery guarantee. The energy company SSE don’t really make their guarantee strong enough: “We’re the first energy firm to go above and beyond the regulator’s Guaranteed Standards and offer our own £20 Guarantee”
  • When you Google ‘better than 100% money back guarantee’ you’ll find over 44m pages. Go figure! Go and copy.

2. Adapt and adopt:

As you and your team collect more and more examples of proof from other businesses and sectors you’ll start to see how you can build more proof for your business.

Here’s a few hints and tips to help you:

1

Statistical Hints:

Start with simple statistics about you – your number of customers, how often you’re used, your years of experience and so on.

You can then compare your numbers with industry benchmark data.

2

Testamonial Hints:

Start by speaking with or interviewing your favourite customers - You’ll be amazed how eager and willing they are to help.

Record what they say, share it with them and ask them if you can quote them. 

Chances are they’ll say yes!

3

Case Study Story Hints:

Checkout the supporting resources at the end of this business breakthrough and you’ll find a process for creating world-class case studies of your own.

NB don’t get customers to write them for you (they most likely won't find the time) – you must do the leg work and then ask their permission to use them as a case study.

4

Guarantee Hints:

Start slowly and gently. Then as you get more knowledgeable you can be braver. If you can, test your guarantees with a segment of your customers or prospects.

The key is…give it a go!

Want to know more?

Jump Start Your Business Brain

Doug Hall


In Doug Hall’s book “Jump Start Your Business Brain” you’ll find hard-nosed research statistics on the power of proof.


A study of 26,000+ new products and services over 27+ years analysed the value of proof, of ‘reason-to believe’.

YOUR SUPPORT TOOLS ARE HERE:

Go to the link below and you'll find a selection of practical support tools to help you get a deeper understanding and develop greater skills in building proof.

Find the support tools to help you

 

This report is shared by

Ruth Dorans
Ruth Dorans, Director

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