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
Setting the Rule on Your Guarantee how to Turn this Tricky Strategy into a Point of Distinction - To learn more about this author, visit Kim Castle's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
 |
Related Businesses - Evan Elite Authors |
|
Accessible Business Consultants
Dave Turkin, President, of Accessible Business Consultants is a full service business consultant that has over 32 years of experience working with small-medium size businesses. Dave has designed and implemented numerous business and marketing plans, designed internal programs for accounting and operational procedures. He has analyzed businesses and prepared strategic plans setting budgets for growth, expansion and business restructuring.
He currently sits on the Board of Directors of various corporations as an advisor. For many years he has been the Business Coach to many executives offering advice and guidance from old and established companies as well as new companies just getting started.
Dave has the ability to analyze a business quickly and get a strong indication as to the necessary steps to improve operations, productivity and profitability. - Visit Accessible Business Consultants's Website |
|
Anne Barr
Anne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations,
networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business
ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
|
Leanne Hoagland-Smith
Are your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales success or one of the many who have failed to change? So what are you doing to change those results? Let’s be honest, with companies moving globally and at lightening speeds, the traditional business solutions are outdated and dead. My approach moves your business out of its comfort zone and secures your competitive advantage now. If you are seeking to increase sales, build customer loyalty, create a culture of great attitudes or just achieve some sleep filled nights, then we should talk because my clients have experienced exactly those types of results. Learn more about customer loyalty at http://www.processspecialist.com/customer-loyalty.htm Give me a call at 219.759.5601 for a free strategy session. P.S. If you are seeking a motivational speaker, sales trainer or small business expert that will leave your audience smiling and remembering, please feel free to contact me at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
|
George Ludwig
George Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance.
Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson.
His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more.
George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
|
The Evan Elite Authors program is currently in beta phase. For details please contact us.
|
|
|
Kim Castle
(Visit Kim's Website)
With nearly two decades in the advertising
and design business, with clients like
Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV,
Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave
Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products,
Disney, and Paramount, as well as
thousands of entrepreneurs around the
world define, structure, communicate, and
position their business for greater
profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle
and W. Vito Montone discovered that
entrepreneurs could experience the same
power that big brands command for a
fraction of the cost with the world's only
process-based results-drive Integral
approach to business creation.
BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow
with the power of extreme clarity from
idea...to brand...to market(TM) and
helping one million entrepreneurs become
successful and whole so that they can make
a difference in the world. Are you one of
them?
If you want to experience clarity all the
way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com.
|
|
|
|
![[Get Copyright Permissions]](http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.gif){kind=small}
