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Setting the Rule on Your Guarantee how to Turn this Tricky Strategy into a Point of Distinction
Written by: Kim CastleArticle Overview: Once you reach that place in business when you are sure of the products and services you sell, you are confident they are clearly being communicated to your customers, and sales are starting to flow in, you will come to a fork in the road, a deciding point, that sends the faint at heart fleeing: that place is a "guar*antee". Should you or shouldn't you — that is the question. The answer comes from you — and setting the rule on your guarantee.
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Setting the Rule on Your Guarantee how to Turn this Tricky Strategy into a Point of Distinction
Should you or shouldn't you — that is the question. The answer comes from you — and setting the rule on your guarantee.
What's fascinating about this heralded strategy is that from:
• a customers perspective — it makes you feel all warm inside
• a business owners perspective — often you're damned if you do dammed if you don't.
A guar*antee puts your prospective customer at ease, giving them an eas*ier decision to buy from you. After all, if you don't stand behind your product or service 100%, why should they buy from you?
On the other hand, with service-based businesses such as consulting, programs or products where your customer has to apply themselves to get results, it's much harder to guar*antee results.
Let's look at what a guar*antee really is?
• something that assures a particular outcome
• a formal promise that a product will be repaired fr*ee of charge if it breaks or fails within a stated period, or that substandard work will be redone
• a formal promise by one person to take responsibility for the obligations of another person if that person fails to meet them.
• to promise something or make something certain.
Large brands and stores that sell products usually offer mon*ey backed guar*antees like:
Mon*ey Back or Satis*faction
Price Match
Within a Certain Time
Internet marketers typically adopt this practice as well by betting on the fact that people often forget what they buy online — even to a point of putting it on a shelf without using it. They bet on numbers and the hassle it takes to return something.
Mon*ey back based guarantees can work well if you sell products, especially if you subscribe to the “numbers theory”, or you deeply believe in the quality of your physical product. Plus, you can always get the product back to sell again. Bottomline: in the words of actor and director Clint Eastwood, “If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster.”
But what if you don’t sell a product?
What if your results are completely linked to the effort your customer puts in? This is where a mon*ey back guarantee gets tricky.
If you put in the time and you deliver the services you promised, if your customer changes their mind, how can you get them back? It’s like eating an entire meal at a restaurant... then deciding it wasn’t what you wanted.
In this case, you can either decide to forego a guar*antee and concentrate on selling with the aid of referrals and testimonials, OR, you can decide to offer another kind of guarantee — which is what I do in my guided programs and events.
Since branding is an extremely clarifying process that a client has to go through, in entirety, to experience its powerful results, I offer something more valuable than mon*ey — I offer myself — and my sixteen years experience with brands large and small.
I offer a “Personal Satisfaction Guar*antee” which is inline with my brand’s value and core promise:
...the only path to multi-million success is held in taking full responsibility for ALL the results in your business. That means you.
The type of work that is done in this process in such short-periods of time requires a person’s entire focus to complete it. They run the risk of not committing themselves fully to the process, if they hold the thought in the back of their mind that they can withdraw for any reason, and get their mon*ey back.
Building a business doesn’t work that way, either a person is committed or... they’re not! Actor Morgan Freeman said it perfectly when he said, “The best way to guar*antee a loss is to quit.”
Instead, my commitment is to hold my customers accountable for turning their business vision (the idea) into a reality, at least for the time they have chosen to work with me.
What I offer instead is extra attention and my time, to make sure they walk away with what the product or program delivers.
To save you from jumping in on the guar*antee bandwagon just because everyone is, answer the following:
1. Do you sell a product that is solid on its own?
2. Do you off a service that works without your customer?
3. Do you offer a service that relies on your customer’s involvement for results?
4. Can you really “assure a particular outcome” ?
5. Are you willing to “take responsibility for another person if that person fails to meet them” themselves?
6. Are you prepared, as a business, to shoulder whatever happens even if you’ve answered no to quest*ions four and five above?
If you still decide to offer a guar*antee, turn to your internal brand value and core promise to decide what kind. Your power as a business, no matter what the strategy, always resides there.
Fortunately in over 15 years, I have only come across a handful of unsatisfied customers who didn’t like my guar*antee philosophy. Usually it’s because of self-responsibility and/or mon*ey challenges. And I have to admit it makes me said that I couldn’t help them — every single time.
And while I couldn’t make them happy in the short run, I believe I have helped them raise the bar on themselves as a business leader in the long run. That is a price I’d gladly pay, over and over and over.
© Castle Montone, Limited
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Book: Secrets of Six Figure Women
- Secrets of Six Figure Women: Surprising Strategies to up your earning and change your life
Barbara Stanny, 2002
Jacket:
Maybe you've noticed - a subtle trend is gathering steam. Quietly and steadily, the number of women making six figures or more is increasing, and it continues to rise at a rate faster than for men. From entrepreneurs to corporate executives, from white collar executives to free lancers and part timers, women are forging careers with considerable financial success.
Through extensive research and hundreds of interviews, including dialogs with more than 150 high earners whose annual incomes range from $100,000 to 7 million, Stanny discovered that ...they all had certain traits in common:
1) a profit motive
2) Audacity
3) REslience
4) Encouragement
5) Self-awareness
6) Non-attachment
7) Financial knowhow
She amplifies on these in the book itself.
Table of Contents
Intro: Welcome to the era of the six-figure woman
1. The Queen in the Countinghouse
2. The Lowdown on low earners
3. Raising the bar
4. Strategy 1: The Declaration of Intention
5. Strategy 2: Letting go of the ledge
6. Strategy 3: Get in the Game
7. Strategy 4: Speak Up
8. Strategy 5: The Stretch
9. Strategy 6: Seek Support
10. Strategy 7: Obey the rules of money
11. Claiming our power
Appendces:
Resources and websites
Tips for getting out of dent
Investing Basics: Wealthbuilding 101
Franchising & Licensing Can Be The Same Thing
- FTC Rule 436 defines franchising as anyone offering an Agreement that contains these 3 things:
1. Licensing a "Mark" - which can be a trade name, service mark, commercial symbol, slogan, etc.
2. In the body of the Agreement, there contains, significant controls and assistance.
3. The licensee is paying the licensor in excess of $500 within the first six months of the actual offering of the business.
Licensing and Franchising can mean the same thing today. If you do not decide to franchise and comply with FTC Rule 436, you may be in violation of Business Opportunity Laws that exist in 24 individual States.
Re: your personality type?
- Hi Michelle!
If you are the present-moment focused, this is your result. If it doesn't seem spot on, I'll give you the big-picture focused result.
The Enjoyer of Life. You enthusiastically enjoy experiencing the five senses, creative pursuits and social harmony in the here-and-now. You are independent, socially upbeat, and enjoy creating a positive and happy atmosphere. Despite your outgoing “persona,” you are a private person and few people truly know you well). #1 Strength:
Comfort Creator #2 Strength: Expressing Social Feeling
1) Comfort Creator -- Creating a comfortable physical environment. Feels the ?ve senses vividly. Adept at using objects, or ?nding or building objects, to make a physical space the most soothing to all ?ve senses. Also organizing so objects are easily found in a convenient way. Both the physical comfort of self, and others, is important. Often feel a need to ensure those close to them are warm enough, fed, rested, etc. Will easily offer help to others in these areas, lending a jacket, or offering a snack.
2) Expressing Social Feeling Setting an emotional tone, vibrant, energetic, or serious, etc. Concerned with the emotional environment as it?s happening -- the vibe of people at a party, the tone of a situation, other people?s responses. Setting the tone -- dramatic and serious, or lighthearted and a celebration. Emotional displays are important for knowing how others are feeling, whether bad or good. Someone talking in a monotone about feelings seems insincere. Feels should be shown, so they can be read by others.
Your best type would be:
The Conceptualizer. You are an inventive creator of logical systems of possibilities that you use to create processes,
products or strategies. Socially, you are sometimes quiet, but also find yourself acting as the life of the party,
especially when you get caught up in a debate or entertaining topic of conversation. #1 Strength: Generating
Future Possibilities #2 Strength: Systematic/Rule Logic
Show the Benefits
- Offer a free test drive of the Product or Service with a Money Back Guarantee - Take the Risk out.
This will help them make the decision but you have to work with them to realize it by explicitly state the benefits they are receiving.
Re: What can you do if your franchise is hit by a scandal?
- GT - Brilliant Strategy...
What can I add? I'm at a loss for words...so I'll shut up now...
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