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Overcoming Doubts - Doing Business

Guest post by: Keith Thirgood

Article Overview: Prospects have doubts; they get cold feet. Doubts are barriers to doing business. One of the best uses of your time is removing those barriers. It's a tough job but, in marketing, you've got to do it.

Overcoming Doubts - Doing Business

Prospects have doubts; they get cold feet. Doubts are barriers to doing business. One of the best uses of your time is removing those barriers. It's a tough job but, in marketing, you've got to do it.

Take a look at much that passes for marketing, and you'd be forgiven for believing that the mantra for overcoming doubts is "When there's doubt, jump and shout." Not true, gentle reader. Not necessary. Not when there are several good tools you can use to help prospects get past their natural apprehension.

Tool #1: The Testimonial. These come from satisfied customers.

To be of any real value, a testimonial must be attributed. A testimonial signed "A.V., Boston" is not credible. (Who was that, your late uncle?) A good testimonial comes from someone real - "Helen Kohn, Vice-President, Heart of the Kitchen". They can look her up. Generally, people don't bother. But knowing they can gives them confidence that a real person is willing to align themselves with your product/service.

You have a real winner if a well-known player in your prospect's industry has given you a testimonial. The better known, the greater the value.

Look for testimonials from well-known people in your own industry. Often, you can "swap" testimonials. You endorse their product/service/book/newsletter, and they'll endorse yours - you scratch my book, I"ll ..... Win/win.

The right approach to a testimonial is to speak of the value the client received. For example, a weak testimonial would read: "Webmart was great to work with, I'd recommend them to anyone." More impressive would be: "Webmart's cost-saving plan was terrific. We did better than we expected." Better yet: "Thanks to Webmart's cost-saving campaign, our expenses were reduced by 25% over target. Outstanding!" Measurable results are the best.

Tool #2: The Marketing Case Study. Marketing case studies work like testimonials on steroids. There are typically two kinds of marketing case studies, attributed and disguised.

Again, attributed are the most powerful. However, some clients are understandably reluctant to have you publish a case study that reveals they ever a problem, even though the problem has been solved. This is where the disguised case study comes into play: "Company C had a distribution problem that was cutting into their profits..."

With either approach, there's a simple formula to writing a marketing case study. 1. Present the situation. 2. Your solution. 3. The results. (For some examples of case studies we have used, visit our website at capstonecomm.com/casestudies.html)

Don't make a marketing case study too long, nor put in too much detail. Your goal is to ease the prospects' doubts, not to teach them how to solve the problem themselves.

Tool # 3: The Guarantee. It's the most famous doubt alleviator and the longest-lived. Everyone is familiar with guarantees on retail products. However, a guarantee works just as well with services and B2B products.

Some business owners do worry they'll be taken advantage of if they offer a guarantee. In fact, studies have shown it's highly unlikely. Many B2B and service companies have had their guarantees in place for years, with nobody taking them up on them. (Even in the retail environment, less than one percent of purchasers ever invoke the guarantee.) But a guarantee does give the prospect a greater sense of comfort about making the approach.

More to the point, a guarantee doesn't have to follow the retail tradition: "Total satisfaction or 100% money back". You can guarantee delivery. Guarantee quality. Guarantee friendly service. Guarantee that you will provide what you say you will. And your guarantee doesn't have to be the 100%-money-back version. You can guarantee to keep working until the client is satisfied. Or not even include the ‘result' in the guarantee.

If you're in an industry where you have good reason to worry about unscrupulous clients taking advantage of you, you can guarantee you'll live up to some published "Standard of Quality". We had one client who guaranteed 100% money back if their work didn't meet the guidelines of the "MossData Standards Committee". MossData was simply a registered company that did no business. It simply published a set of guidelines on a website, had an e- mail address for complaints and stated they would investigate and rule on any complaints against any member company. In three years, they never received a complaint, so they never had to rule if their own work met the rules. (Personally, I think this was a bit shady, but the customers of their industry were notorious for trying to rip off suppliers. It happens.)

Any ethical guarantee goes a long way towards easing your prospects' doubts. Assuming you aren't planning on producing shoddy service/products, there is little chance of your guarantee ever being challenged. And if it is, look at it as an opportunity to prove what a great company you are, by honouring your guarantee to the letter and beyond.

It's often during hardship that a client gains the most respect for a supplier. Guarantee your product/service, and blow away your prospects' doubts (and your competition) with your amazing customer service.

Doubts are barriers. Remove them and get ready to do business.

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Article Tags: case study, doing business, doubts, guarantee, marketing, prospects, testimonial, tough job



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