Why People Don’t Buy From You and The Small Business Strategies That Show You What to Do About It
Do your customers cling to their wallets with a death grip because they don't trust you?
Hey you,
It’s #2.
Today I wanted to share a late Christmas gift with you that an internet marketing whiz by the name of Jason Fladlien.
If you’ve never heard of Jason before now, today is you’re lucky day. I and the Chief personally own most of his products. When you type his name into Google, you’ll see his mini-sites take up every link of the first page. He knows internet marketing and knows how to get the money.
Included within his $500.00 Membership Site Course, was a special report titled, “Marketplace Mind States & The Trust Factor”. I blasted through it in no time and was grateful I’d spent the time absorbing the gems within and couldn’t wait to pass it on to you.
I feel Jason’s message will be incredibly valuable to you. With that said, have fun fixing any holes you have in your marketing by discovering…
Marketplace Mind States & The Trust Factor
Outside of internet marketing, I don’t have much of life.
I practice total market place immersion. As such, I have a pulse on exactly what the market place wants, an intuition for giving it the solutions it demands, and systems for allowing me to offer the most to that marketplace in the least amount of time.
As such, everyday I gain a new valuable insight which I implement into my business. One major insight I’ve come to realize lately is Marketplace Mind states
Marketplace Mind states Explained
I have identified 4 “mind states” every marketplace cycles through. Knowing exactly what “mind state” the marketplace at large is experiencing at any given moment is critical to your success, because it affects the tone of all your marketing communications.
Case in point: When the internet first became mainstreamed, any opportunity was interesting, because it was a whole new vehicle where no opportunity previously existed. Thus, the novelty factor was good enough to get leverage, and had you capitalized at that time with good fundamental marketing, you’d have made a good deal of cash.
This is the first mind state a marketplace experiences, which is “Novelty Mind state”.
Then, the marketplace shifted. Once the opportunity seekers came in and pillaged the internet, soon the novelty of offering opportunity wore off. Now, it had to be opportunity tied to very specific and tangible results.
I call this “results orientated” mind state.
A quick side point. In any market place, all four mind states exist to a certain degree. However, at any one given time one mind state will be more dominate than the others. So while novelty still has leveragability when it comes to making your sales argument, it doesn’t have as much leverage as “results orientated” communication, if the marketplace is in its second phase of evolution.
It’s not enough to present the opportunity of getting rich, losing weight or picking up women. You must show you how to make $100,000 in 60 days without a list and on a shoestring budget. You must show how to lose 21 pounds in 6 months without diet pills or starvation. You most show how to be able to get 3 out o5 5 women’s phone numbers every single time you go out to a club.
However, even these appeals lose their power of a while. It’s important to understand why marketplace mind state shifts occur. See, 95% of your market will never get the results they are promised. A big part is that they will never leave their comfort zone to use the information you show them. Another part is most marketers are good at marketing and little else. The result is there’s a big mess of crappy products out there that over promise and under-deliver, and a large quantity of people consuming those products who aren’t going to take any action anyway.
However, no one wants to admit this. So the marketplace lies to itself. It makes excuses.
Of course it didn’t work before, because of ________. But now that this new thing is out, I have a chance again!
That’s the typical line of reasoning. That’s why appeals change, because the marketplace gets burn out on one appeal since it almost never delivers what it promises to deliver, based on the circumstances described above.
So after the marketplace burns out on “results orientated” marketing, it goes into the third mind state, which is “Proof” mind state Now, it’s not enough to tie your opportunity to a specific result with a reasonable amount of proof…
You need a preponderance of proof!
Preponderance means superior in weight, force, influence, numbers and power. In other words, over kill.
So now the biggest sales argument you need to make in your marketing communications is the emphasis on proof. Headlines stressing proof. The use of social proof in the pre-launch phase before you even make the offer public. Etc.
And that appeals works great for a while. But, the status quo remains the same. 95% of people still don’t get the intended results. So the “proof” mind state eventually burns out as well, and it is replaced by the last mind state of the marketplace, which is the…
“TRUST” Mind state
Right now the overall mind state of the internet marketing community is “Trust”. Now, more than ever, trust is needed if you’re really going to close the sale on the highest number of visitors.
At this point, there is more opportunity than ever. There is more “results orientated” options than ever before. More proof than ever, social or otherwise. However, the most scarce asset being offered to the marketplace is trust.
And that’s one of the reasons why it’s become such an important factor in your visitor’s buying decision.
How to Build Trust
How do you get a complete stranger thousands of miles away from you who you have never talked with or dynamically interacted with to trust you?
It’s hard.
First, you need to deliver on your claims. This is an art. If you study my copy, you notice I make pretty bold claims, such as “how to write an article in 7 minutes” and “how to become a $40 an hour ghostwriter in less than 7 days”.
I know that most of my customers won’t be able to achieve this goal. However, I also have insight into buyer psychology. Most people who buy have a “low self esteem” factor that enters into the buying equation.
The typical line of thought goes like this:
“Well, yeah of course Jason can do it, he’s had all the practice, knows all the secrets, has all the opportunities, and probably got lucky to boot. And yes, maybe those people in his case studies did it to.
“But I probably won’t. Things usually don’t go right for me, I tend to procrastinate a lot, hesitate, or just plain be timid about it, or not understand things right away. However… if I only get a fraction of the results that Jason promises, it will still be a killer deal for me…”
I know full well that the average person who lands on my “How to be a $40 an hour ghostwriter in less than 7 days” website thinks “Well, gee if I can get there in even 3 months, that’s a killer deal”. Or they think “Well, hell if I only make $20 an hour after two weeks, that’s more than I’m making now at my day job with my asshole boss.” Etc.
And I know in my heart that a person in the right circumstances with a reasonable amount of dedication and effort can achieve my claim. I know because I did it, and I’ve taught several others to do it as well.
I don’t get trust on that initial sale. I get faith. That’s why I sell that particular product at only $17. Trust comes after they consume the product. Even if they don’t get the results, they’ll be able to see that they could get the results if they applied my stuff. The point is, they knew I delivered on my end.
So when I come through with my next offer, if it’s something that’s of interest to them, they will be more inclined to say yes to it because I have established trust with them.
So step one is to deliver on your claims. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make bold claims. But it almost doesn’t mean putting crap in a nice shiny and beautiful box.. Perceived Value should come as close to matching Actual Value as much as possible.
Do It AND Teach It
The second way to get trust is to do what you teach. You’d think this shouldn’t need to be stated, but it does. So many people sell information that they themselves don’t follow! What you get is a well researched encyclopedia on the topic, not a practical system or method.
It’s easier to talk it than to walk it. That’s why it happens. But the biggest leverage point you’re going to get is by selling experience more so than information.
Here’s what I do now: I isolate skills that I know my clients want to possess. Then I go out and create a systematic process for mastering those skills myself.
When I’m done, I have a refined system to share with them, and experiences to guide them.
I almost never do any “research” when I create my products. When I do my high end group coaching, I create the curriculum 30 minutes before the class, because it’s all in my head. I don’t have to prepare, I just have to organize. I am giving them information through experience, not from research.
That’s the difference between intelligence and knowledge. You can be intelligent at just about anything if you read 10 books on it. But you can only be knowledgeable about something if you’ve had experiences with it.
Sell knowledge, not intelligence
Exercise Authority
The third thing you need to develop trust is to exercise authority. When my coaching clients get me live and in front of them giving them answers and solutions to their needs and problems, they know that I believe in the effectiveness of my advice 100%.
Communication is largely non-verbal anyway. Even printed communication. It’s more of the style of delivery than anything else. And the style you must adopt is 100% confidence in your ability to give your clients what they desire.
So-so advice delivered with 100% confidence and congruence is better than exceptional advice delivered with 50% confidence. By far.
Remember, there are two things that affect us when we process information: The information itself, and how we feel about it. of the two, how we feel is going to influence our behavior more.
If you feel unsure of the information, when you transmit that information, you’re also transmitting your feelings with it. These are often “caught” by your recipients, and will influence their behavior.
In the first week of my copywriting class, one of my students just saw how I carried and handled myself as I presented the information, and then “caught” that attitude and went out and closed a $21,000 consulting deal.
People trust authority. It’s human nature. Read the Milgrim Study if you really want to know how much we are dependent on authority. In it, you’ll find normal, every day people like you and I would almost shock a complete stranger to death under the right authoritative circumstances. And we would do so willingly, with no coercion or threats.
You need to be the authority if you want trust. The funny thing about authority – no one will give it to you. You have to claim it yourself.
Case in point – I’m not a certified teacher. Yet I make more money teaching webinars than 90% of all teachers in the United States. Those teachers had to go through at least 4 years of college, and earn a degree just to be legally able to attempt to teach.
Not me. I’m teaching a skill that less than a year ago I didn’t even possess. All because I knew I could. So I decided to “certify” myself as the authority. And I’m glad I did, because otherwise I would’ve did my clients a great disservice. You should see all the positive feedback I got.
You’re dealing in the real world here. The marketplace doesn’t care if you’re certified or not. They are much more pragmatic. Their lives and money are at stake. The want a solution, not a certificate.
Confidence Is A Choice!
Being confident has nothing to do with past results. It has everything to do with choosing to be confident. Abe Lincoln had never won anything in his life. Every political office he tried for, he lost. His first political win was the presidency of the United States.
I love that guy. What guts he must of had. Never won a thing in his life, yet still chose to be confident instead of miserable And I’m glad he did, because he was one of the greatest presidents the United States ever had.
Sharing Yourself
The final factor for building trust is to share parts of yourself with your segment of the marketplace. I stumbled on this by accident. People want to buy you as much as they want to buy whatever you’re selling.
It took a tragic event in my life to figure out this lesson. But when I opened up and showed people that behind the product there was a living, breathing human being who was dealing with everyday life struggles just like anybody else, it really created a deeper relationship.
First, it helped showed that I’m not perfect. Far from it. Some of the completely idiotic mistakes I make I can’t even begin to fathom. It’s only through specialized systems and carefully groomed habits that I’ve become successful. Anyone can do that. And my clients see that specifically because of all my other frailties.
At the same time, it makes the relationship dynamic and interactive. Think about it. People have given a little of themselves to you when they’ve parted with their money to get what you were offering.
They made the first step to initiate the relationship. Now it’s up to you to take it to the next level. Every so often, share something personal with them. It doesn’t have to be a deep dark secret. It could just be something superficial, but that gives insight into who you are and how you live your life.
In the end, we are social creatures, and we need to feel we belong to something greater than ourselves. We seek to find others who are like us, because it validates our choices, and comforts us. I love this part of the human condition. It makes our experiences all the more wonderful.
But if you don’t allow others to glimpse into your world, then they’ll never get that validation from you. They’ll never resonate with you on a deeper level. And when someone else comes along that can offer them not only a solution to their current, outward problem (whatever that may be), but also the solution to the inner dilemma WE ALL face, then you will lose them.
Don’t let that happen. When it’s all said it done, it’s not the money you make that defines you, but it’s the people you influence.
But before you can influence them, you must first win their trust.
Something to think about.
-Jason Fladlien
I hope you enjoyed that tight bit of wisdom as much as I did.
Talk to you again soon,
Note Taking Nerd #2
PS. Go see this post to go even deeper on this topic…
P.S. Stay tuned for “Part 2 of Selling With Emotional Impact”. It will definitely dive into detail of how to implement all of Part 1′s steps and what was discussed here today.
Why People Don’t Buy From You and What to Do About It
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