Profit Strategy #5 – Prove What You Say Is True And People Will Buy

We live in a world of consumer skepticism. Customers are much smarter and more wary of claims, discounts and guarantees than ever before.

Bill Glozner is a car salesman. The most distrusted of all professions. His office walls are covered with Polaroid snap-shots of Bill’s customers standing with their car, with their names and dates of purchase written on them. Bill out performs all other car salesmen at his dealership — yet none of the others have photos on their walls.

Jon Michael, a retail clothing store owner in Melbourne uses the same technique. Photos of the famous, and not so famous, customers, in his suits, adorn his walls.

According to Dan Kennedy (a famous marketer in the diet industry), there is a sales rep who carries just one sales tool with her everywhere she goes. A giant, life size blow up of herself . . . 54 pounds heavier than she is now. She unrolls the poster and stands next to it, and the sale is made.

This ‘before’ and ‘after’ approach works very well for a lot of products, especially in the form of a testimonial.

You can use testimonials (or the new fancy term – social proof) to sell any product or service. Are you using them in your marketing?