RECOMMENDED READING

I awoke early yesterday morning to re-runs of Larry King Live and the Glenn Beck show at 4 a.m.  Sometimes fate steers us in the right direction (esp. when we say our prayers the night before – something I try to remember to do).

These days, I can only seem to take about 30 to 60 seconds of Glenn Beck and his erratic, “political historian” stammering and posturing, so I very quickly ended up on CNN – while my brain rebooted after Tex-Mex and margaritas the night before…

Larry King was interviewing Jerry Weintraub, a famous Hollywood producer and serial entrepreneur.  I was soon absorbed and mesmerized by the short stories of Jerry’s amazing success promoting stars like Elvis, Frank Sinatra, George Clooney, John Denver and many rock bands including Led Zeppelin – among so many others.

I could quickly tell from this interview that what I was seeing was merely the tip of an iceberg – one that went much deeper beneath the surface – someone I simply had to know more about…

In the interview with Larry King, Jerry talked about how he learned from his father how to take seemingly regular things and “repackage” them into something special, then promote them effectively to the masses as an “event.  Well, as a product launch guy, this repackaging and event marketing stuff hooked me right away. I definitely had to know more – a lot more…

Jerry talked briefly about how he came back from the brink of death one day, and decided it was time for him to share his life story while he was still able, so he recently published his autobiography.  I was hoping Amazon.com had the Kindle e-book version available for download, so I could check it out while it was still fresh on my mind.

Fortunately, they did.  So I bought the e-book for $12 and downloaded it to my PC moments later (I don’t have an actual Kindle, just the free Kindle for PC and iPhone readers, which I like just fine).  I grabbed another cup of coffee and before I knew it, I looked up and it was almost 9 a.m.

I had already spent 3 and a half hours reading one of the most fascinating success stories around – a kid who went from the Bronx to the top of the world, creating movies like Oceans 11 through 13, Oh God!, The Karate Kid, Vegas Vacation and many others – and who discovered and made stars like John Denver and many others what they became (among hundreds of other success stories).

One of the most important lessons in business and in life Jerry sums up toward the end that is absolutely true:

“Most important, I was never afraid to fail, which meant I was never afraid to try.  I was never afraid to look silly, which meant I was never threatened by a new idea.”

Jerry exemplifies these statements when he describes how he managed to go from being a relative “nobody” to taking Elvis on his first cross-country national tour – and after that six-week tour, became a self-made multi-millionaire and launched his career as a world-class producer.  After being told No, in no uncertain terms, for 364 days straight – every single day by Colonel Tom Parker – he finally got a call back saying Yes – and the rest is history…

I wonder how many of us could believe in ourselves and our vision of what is possible enough to be told no that many days in a row, and wake up the next day, looking forward to being that much closer to getting the Yes we know we need.

I highly recommend you take a moment to download and get your own copy of Jerry’s latest autobiography and learn from his experience, persistence and ability to forge lasting, profitable relationships and sell almost anything.

Believe me, it’s the best $12 investment I have made in a very long time.  I finished my first reading in just two sittings – probably a record for me lately.

One of the things I like most about Jerry is his fearlessness, his belief in himself and an impeccable tenacity for success – traits that are absolutely essential for anyone to succeed in today’s hyper-competitive world.  His life is filled with a series of tremendous successes, along with some failures, that were all predicated on his ability to establish new relationships, and then leverage and monetize those relationships to the maximum extent possible, while at the same time forging real, lasting friendships.

Jerry’s Lifelong Success Formula: (my interpretation)

1. Clarity of Vision - Having clarity of vision around what can and needs to be accomplished (that others often cannot see themselves as clearly)
2. Identifying the Path - Figuring out who holds the keys to the stepping stones for fulfilling that vision
3. Leveraging Relationships – Breaking through all obstacles to establish the relationships with key decision makers and influencers, which provides the necessary leverage to cause and sustain profitable change
4. Communicating a Shared Vision – Making clear, bold statements about what can be done to help the other party accomplish and achieve a shared vision (once in front of the decision maker)
5. Telling Persuasive Stories - Using master storytelling as an effective persuasion tool to sell the vision
6. Packaging – Effective “packaging” – positioning and naming things so they have extremely high perceived value (even when the intrinsic value may be very low)
7. Launching – Turning opportunities into “events” and then promoting those events effectively as a launch
8. Delivering – Doing whatever it takes to actually deliver the promised results as expected
9. Disruptive Innovation – where appropriate, changing the way things are traditionally done by replacing the “old way” with a new, improved approach that better serves customers (business models, distribution models, pricing models, etc.)

It’s easy enough to understand, but a formula that takes courage, relentless persistence and a healthy dose of creativity and a willingness to “do whatever it takes” to succeed and win – that should be every entrepreneur’s credo.

Finally, and perhaps most important, Jerry is a master storyteller.  Stories provide the carrier wave for our messages that people will actually listen to, absorb and internalize – then make decisions upon.

Packaging the story up and then selling it as an “event” is the vehicle for actually delivering the end sales and generating millions in sales.

Much of what Jerry is actually a master at doing is what we now commonly refer to as “launches”.  Instead of launching products or websites, he launches and builds the careers of stars, movies and performers like bands and musicians.

Boy – just when you think you know a lot about something like launches, you find out just how much more there is to learn…  I’d sure like the opportunity to meet Jerry and learn even more about his fascinating journey someday.  I wonder if I can break his record of 364 days?

Related posts

• Story marketing: Why it works and why you should try it (6)
• ALL BUYERS ARE LIARS: Stories we tell ourselves to get what we want (3)
• Your Relationship Development System – Profiting or Costing You? (3)
• Story: Struggling organic farmer saves the family farm (1)
• Psychology of Social Product Launches – Part 3, Storytelling (10)
• It’s good to be King (3)
• How To Create Stories That Sell, Part 2 (2)
• 14 Best-Kept Killer Hook Secrets That Grab Your Audience And Hook Them (7)
• The 7 Rules Bestselling Authors Use To Hook Their Readers (1)
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The Relationship Development System

In prior posts, I have talked a lot about how important relationships are to making money online and how our sales process needs to include a Relationship Development System.  When a website visitor arrives at our website, blog or reads our article the first time, we are effectively strangers at the onset.  When things are structured properly, this visitor undergoes a series of relationship development stages, as shown below.

Let’s look at a visitor’s online pre-sales relationship and how it develops over time until that first sale is consummated.

Our journey begins with the Awareness phase, where the visitor becomes aware of their need and your product or site as a possible solution or information source. This could involve one or more exposures to our product—through word-of-mouth, social media, search engine ads or results,  radio, TV and the like. This is where your marketing reaches prospects and they go from unaware to an aware state.

For example, we become aware that analog TV signals are no longer available, which causes us to decide it is time to get a new high-definition TV set. We become aware of a need and something triggers us into bringing this TV need into the “foreground” in our life.

High-definition TVs have been around for many years, but for whatever reason they remained in the “background” for many of us—until recently. So, we begin noticing ads for HD TVs. We actively look around at them online and at stores, and we begin discussing them with our friends and family. This is awareness.  These ads and devices have been around for many years, but suddenly we begin to actually take notice of them.

In the next phase, our marketing creates Interest in what we have to offer. Interest results when your marketing grabs the prospects’ attention and often is the direct result of an initial offer (e.g., a money magnet offer) that captures their attention. We must create interest, or we will never get the prospects to progress any further toward buying.

It is very tempting to try and “short-circuit” the process and jump straight to the close… FAIL!  How many times our impatience comes back to bite us.  Good things cannot be rushed – and a sale is a very good thing!

Continuing our HDTV example, our presentation of benefits and features, cool-looking pictures and demo videos trigger increased interest, because we realize we can now watch sports in high-definition, and then the seller really grabs our attention with a great price for a nice HD TV unit. You need to create the same level of incremental interest with your online marketing processes.

Interested prospects become open to learning more about what you have to say and offer. If your messages and product offerings resonate with the prospects, Desire begins to build in their mind. They are now evaluating various aspects of what you have to offer and they now have decided that they “want it” but aren’t yet ready to buy—they still have questions and concerns that you must address.

At this stage, they will likely be involved in various “self-talk” about where they’d put that new HDTV, how they are going to justify spending the money on it, and where that money will actually come from.  It is very important not to disrupt this thought process.

In the next stage, we begin a Bonding process with the prospect. We begin to create strong associations in their minds that bond them to the product. For example, GoDaddy.com uses NASCAR racing and high-profile racers like Danica Patrick as one way of bonding with their target audience. Racing has absolutely nothing to do with domain names, but it has everything to do with bonding and credibility (and sex sells like nothing else through association).

You can bond with your prospects in a variety of ways: by entertaining or amusing them, by giving them free stuff they enjoy and get immediate value from, and by sharing stories they identify with, among other ways.

What you are really doing during the bonding phase is anchoring positive, motivating associations between you, your site and/or product within the prospect’s mind. This is incredibly powerful when done correctly, as it begins to create a “preference” for you and your product vs. the prospect’s alternatives.

Remember that metaphorical “Bridge of Trust” across the “Chasm of Doubt” we talked about earlier? In the next phase, your prospect will reach a critical state of Trust for you—at least enough to consider buying from you. Everything you have done up until now has either created trust, eroded trust, or had no impact on trust development at all.

Avoid any marketing that causes suspicion or detracts from your prospects’ trust in you. For example, have you ever received an email from a marketer where the email subject line says something designed to grab your attention and get you to open that email? So, you open it. Inside the email, the content has absolutely nothing to do with the subject line and there’s some vain attempt to bridge from that subject line to the actual email content.

How do you suppose this makes your prospects feel?  When it happens to me, I feel tricked. Tricking your prospects is not a way to build a trusting relationship!  In fact, it says you care more about getting your way (making that sale) more than you do about your prospective customer.  This is not lost on most people.

Instead, our actions need to build trust and reinforce that we are trustworthy. Many aspects of our marketing can act together so that prospects begin to trust us.

Creating trust is a complex topic. Fortunately, there are many proven ways to develop trust and help your prospects across the Chasm of Doubt.

At some point, it is time to pitch the prospect. Now that they desire our product, have bonded with us and prefer our product, and trust us enough to do business with us – then we can close the sale.

So, you enable your prospect to engage with your online sales process as a buyer. We call this the Activation phase, because the prospects are now actively entering a buying mode. They decide to invest some of their time and actively pursue a solution.

Various triggers can activate your prospects. Before going deeper into activation, let me ask you something. What do suppose would happen if your prospects hadn’t bonded with you and didn’t yet trust you and you tried to force activation too soon?

Once they are activated into a buying motion, you’d just be yet another option for the prospect to choose from.

Moreover, if they trust someone else more than they trust you, they will probably make their purchase elsewhere.

They might actually look at and consider you as an alternative, but their fears and concerns about doing business with a stranger or someone less trustworthy could easily cause them to steer away once they are engaged in an active buying motion.

Have you ever bought something from Amazon.com without looking for a better price elsewhere?  There’s usually a better price if you just look.  But we don’t usually look, do we?  It’s because we have bonded with Amazon.com as a brand and prefer to deal with a known quantity vs. going through the entire RDS process as a buyer with someone new. And Amazon.com does a great job making it better to stick with them, with customer reviews and even access to those cheaper 3rd party deals through Amazon!

We can trigger activation of prospects by making them an offer they simply cannot refuse. This offer is compelling enough to overcome “procrastination inertia.” Procrastination occurs when people avoid taking action on something they know they want to do or even should do, but continue to delay for various reasons.

They might say (in their minds or to their spouse): “I’m just not sure.” “It’s a lot of money.” “Maybe I’ll find a better one if I keep looking.” “I’m too busy right now” or “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

When you activate your prospects, you essentially light a fire under them to take action now. You give them multiple reasons to act now; e.g., discount pricing, time-limited extras/bonuses, special financing terms, limited quantities, and such.

This is a critical moment.  At this point, the prospect is serious about buying from you, but very likely still has questions and possibly some objections.  It is important they be able to find answers to the remaining, burning questions and get them answered completely.

Activation can create buying momentum that is sometimes sufficient to overcome our prospect’s procrastination inertia – and possibly even enough to get them to dismiss their remaining questions and tell themselves something like – “it comes with a money-back guarantee – what do I have to lose?”.

Activation causes them to begin actively going through your sales process. During activation, your prospects become “buyers”. They begin looking at their options and are about to make a purchase – from you.

The online selling process answers their questions, overcomes their objections, and motivates them to buy from us and to buy right now, before they change their mind, or the phone rings, or the dinner bell rings…

The prospects then decides to buy, and they press that magical button.

That single click represents their buying decision (Buy Now button, Add to Cart button, Join Now button).

Once the buyer completes the checkout process, the Sale is consummated and you now have a new customer.

The Relationship Development System (RDS) is a proven process that increases online sales conversion rates.

Why do you suppose long form sales pages are structured the way they are?  Because they are designed to take the reader on a rapid RDS “journey” through the entire process.  However, in reality it often takes several visits to a typical website and sales page before a buying decision is made – unless the RDS process has taken place beforehand (via email, a blog, a video or some combination of RDS actions).

Without a functioning RDS in place, the best you can probably expect in direct-selling of visitors to your site is perhaps 1% to 2%. With a high-performance RDS in place, your aggregate conversion rates could well reach 5% to 10% (or more when prospects are “referred” by someone they already trust).  This is why an auto-responder follow-up system is so critical to every online business’ profitability.

Of course, developing and nurturing relationships takes time. Fortunately, this can all be automated so it is taking place 24/7. For the most part, it is a hands-free set of activities managed by the auto-responder, except for adding new offers and occasionally freshening (and testing and optimization).

Whatever combination of technologies you choose to use, follow the RDS steps more deliberately and you will make more sales.  I might suggest an “RDS Audit” of your existing selling process – to identity and fill any holes or sticking points that may be present.  Of course, you should always A/B split-test any change you make and measure the actual effects over time.

You will know when your RDS is working because the sales ticker will speed up and that “cha-ching” sound will happen more often – and your bank balance will go up more often than down (if you control your spending).

In 2008, I documented this entire process in The Online Leadership Guide.  There is also a free 5-part mini-course available where you can learn more.

I hope you have an effective RDS in place for each of your products and sites.  If not, what are you waiting for?

Related posts

• It’s good to be King (3)
• When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead: Useful Stories (9)
• Psychology of Social Product Launches – Part 2, Proof (1)
• Crossing the Chasm of Doubt (1)
• Groundhog Day Website Marketing (7)
• Email Lists – The key to sustainable online profitability (4)
• B2B Lead Generation (0)
• The New Rules of Launch (11)
• The importance of the campaign revenue goal (5)
• Product Launch Manager Interview with Jeffrey Pezzella (2)

Today is groundhog’s day, 2010.  And one of my favorite movies was on TV this afternoon – Groundhog Day with Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell.

As it turns out, I have been doing some website sales process audits and optimization for several clients over the past few days… or is it the same day, just repeating over and over and over again?

In the movie, Bill Murry figures out that he’s trapped doing the same things over and over again, with no apparent ramifications for his actions.  So he goes on a destructive binge, hognapping Punxsutawney Phil and driving off of a cliff.  Unfortunately, this scene reminded me of the website sales processes I seem to see day after day…

Cluttered home pages with so many choices to make that it’s easier to just make no choice at all – and hit the Back button to keep looking.

No compelling offer – to cause a visitor to register and become a lead that the website owner can follow up with, build a relationship with and, someday, make that first sale to when the time is right.

Direct links to product catalogs, with no sales process in place to explain what the product is, its benefits and key capabilities or answer common questions and objections prior to asking for the sale. The “Buy Now” and “Add to Cart” buttons do not close sales, in case you were wondering.

Like Bill Murray, I suddenly realize this as an opportunity – to improve the quality of life of the owners of websites (and their visitors). Instead of feeling trapped living this same dreadful day over and over again, perhaps it would be better to help everyone I can and do my best to improve myself where possible, under the cirsumstances – so here we go…

What I described above are what are commonly called “brochure sites” – websites whose design originally aimed to dispense information instead of generate leads and make sales.  Unfortunately, many of these website owners believe their sites are more than brochure sites, because they have added a product catalog and some cute graphics.

One thing they know for certain – their sites are not making them many (if any) sales at all – and most have no idea why.  These site owners have all kinds of reasons why their sites don’t sell, but in reality, when I speak to them I find they seem surprised by the realities of what’s actually going wrong.

The formula that works to escape this Groundhog Day of Website Marketing isn’t all that complicated, but it involves applying skill sets that still seem to escape many (most?) web developers today; otherwise, wouldn’t these sites be fixed and structured properly by now?

Here’s the formula for escaping Groundhog Day Website Marketing and making money:

1. Focus the home page on the most important three things you want people to do on your site – not two, not five – three.  Three is the magic number of choices that works best anytime you can keep things that simple.

2. Make at least one of those three options a compelling offer – something your ideal customer (someone who buys your product) could not possibly leave your site without. The purpose of this “money magnet” offer is to generate the gravitational forces of desire so strong that it sucks your visitors into clicking on it to learn more and take advantage of this intriguing offer.  Clicking on this offer link takes the visitor to the offer landing page.

3. Use an offer landing page as a lead-generation tool that provides more details on the compelling offer, closing the next step, which is the user providing their Name and Email address details – becoming a lead.  The leads are added to your email auto-responder, then your visitor is redirected to either: a) a page that provides what they just registered to receive (free report, video, etc.) or b) a solutions page that explains more about the various solutions the site offers to solve the prospect’s pain, needs or desires.

4. The email auto-responder consists of a follow-up sequence that delivers what was originally promised for registration, then email #2 reminds the user a few days later to “consume” what they registered for (so they actually get the value you’re delivering). Emails 3 through 5 delivers additional value, in the form of tips, strategies and useful information that moves your prospect closer to achieving the goal they seek; e.g., losing weight, landing a date that will lead to a relationship, learning how to win at poker, train the dog, train the husband, or whatever the primary job to be done is for your client.  This sequence demonstrates your expertise, builds authority and shows you are trustworthy.

5. The sixth email in the sequence makes your prospect an offer to buy – a special offer they can’t refuse if they are a qualified prospect.  This email makes a brief summary of the offer, then “sells the click” to the sales page.

6. The sales page is a long-form sales letter that closes the sale. The purpose of this sales letter is as old as direct response marketing and selling itself – to make a sale.  It hooks the reader on the primary benefit and differentiation of your product (i.e., your Unique Selling Proposition), establishes rapport with the reader and then promises to deliver a primary benefit, along with a number of secondary benefits.

The sales page then provides proof that what you say is true, in the form of testimonials and other forms of “evidence” that cannot easily be ignored and which exudes truthfulness and transparency.  Then the sales page addresses each and every major question and objection that a reasonable prospect is likely to ask and require an answer to in order to make a buying decision.  Since there is no other way to get answers to these questions (there’s not a live salesperson there), the sales page must completely answer every question and objection a buyer has – or no sale will be made.

Finally, a summary of everything you’re going to get, what it costs, the guarantee and reasons to buy today are all made in order to close the sale.

And then it snows outside and we wake up to a new day – with a website that makes sales from that day forward – a website that only needs additional sources of traffic to generate even more profits each day than the day before it.

That’s the dream I awake from after each successful client project – a new day dawning where what was once a brochure site is now actually a real e-commerce site, making the site owner the money they have expected all along, but didn’t get from their original web developers, who were long ago fired and never heard from again.

So the next time you hire a web developer who shows you a great-looking design that blows you away, before approving the project for completion, ask them who’s going to actually finish your site by providing what’s outlined in steps 1 through 6 above.

Meanwhile, I have some “errands” to go run with my existing clients, because it’s still Groundhog’s Day somewhere.

P.S. I am not complaining about Groundhog’s Day Website Marketing, because we are in business to help our clients put those steps 1 through 6 in place. It’s easy to write the outline and even understand why each step is necessary, but it’s quite another to actually put a proper sales process in place.  As online marketers, this is what we do – work with website owners and web developers to turn good-looking websites into moneymakers.  Learn more about how we can help here.

Related posts

• It’s good to be King (3)
• How Successful Email Marketing Is Done (2)
• Crossing the Chasm of Doubt (1)
• Your Relationship Development System – Profiting or Costing You? (3)
• Email Lists – The key to sustainable online profitability (4)
• B2B Lead Generation (0)
• Your most important needs for 2011 – addressed (2)
• When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead: Useful Stories (9)
• The New Rules of Launch (11)
• The importance of the campaign revenue goal (5)

Check out this video on how successful permission-based email marketing is broken down into 4 essential steps:

1. Quality Opt-in Database – build an opt-in database of quality leads, using double opt-in best practices
2. Timely and Relevant Messages – use good lead nurturing techniques with timely and relevant content and messages, developing a relationship and trust with your prospects
3. Segment your Database – segment your lists into targeted, topic-focused sub-lists with similar interests
4. Advanced Email Software – use an advanced email auto-responder system that manages ISP relations for you and run your email marketing campaigns using these integrated systems.

It’s really not too surprising that the average ROI on email marketing investments is about 57 to 1; i.e., $57 returned for every $1.00 invested into email marketing.

Finally, for a better idea of what kind of ROI you can expect from your next email campaign, try this free email campaign ROI calculator.

Related posts

• Crossing the Chasm of Doubt (1)
• It’s good to be King (3)
• Email Lists – The key to sustainable online profitability (4)
• Free Email Marketing Campaign ROI Calculator (2)
• B2B Lead Generation (0)
• Effective Tactic for Email Relationship Development (3)
• List Building Secrets E-book (11)
• Groundhog Day Website Marketing (7)
• Email Marketing Campaigns (0)
• Why don’t businesses invest more in online lead-generation? (0)

Here’s a few excerpts from an excellent post by Brian Carroll, CEO at InTouch and author of Lead Generation for the Complex Sale and the Start with a Lead blog.  For more information on the source article, check out the Lead Generation Checklist blog post.

In this particular post, Brian summarizes the 6th in an an 8-part series called the “Lead Generation Checklist”, a comprehensive approach for helping organizations optimize their lead generation processes.  Brian outlines a complete system for companies to use in generating leads, as discussed below:

To be successful at generating leads for a complex sale, marketers can’t rely on one specific tactic but rather they need to leverage a portfolio of channels. To illustrate, I created a mind map of what multi-modal lead generation looks like (click image to enlarge).

Related posts

• Crossing the Chasm of Doubt (1)
• It’s good to be King (3)
• How Successful Email Marketing Is Done (2)
• Email Lists – The key to sustainable online profitability (4)
• Effective Tactic for Email Relationship Development (3)
• Your Relationship Development System – Profiting or Costing You? (3)
• When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead: Useful Stories (9)
• Internet Marketing Forensics: Coming this week (0)
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• Groundhog Day Website Marketing (7)

It’s been said that on the Internet “Content is king.” Well, if content is king, then relationships go cha-ching!

Of course, cha-ching is the sound of the cash register ringing—the sound of making money.

Another popular online marketing adage is “The money is in the list”—meaning if you have a list of prospects and customers, the money is in farming the list.

In reality, the “Money is in the relationships,” including relationships that are embodied within mailing lists.

No relationship = no money.

Great relationships = great money.

These “Circles of Trust”, as illustrated at the top of this post, are where the real money is made. Get inside one of these major circles, and you’re in the money.  And the more of these circles you become a part of, the easier it becomes.

Tapping into these circles of trust is probably the biggest untapped potential for social networks to create tangible value for online businesses.

One of the fastest and most reliable ways to make money online is to build relationships and then turn them into money.  Sounds simple enough…

RELATIONSHIPS = MONEY

For example, let’s say you have a friend or business associate that has a newsletter and blog in your target market. Let’s assume this person has built a following of 30,000 newsletter subscribers and 20,000 regular blog readers per month.

These aren’t uncommon numbers on the Internet; in fact, these are relatively small compared to many people I know personally.

So, you convince this person that it would be in her subscribers’ best interest to know about your new product. As an added incentive, you agree to pay her a 20% commission on every sale you make from her subscriber base and blog. Never mind exactly how we will track those commissions (it is easy) for now.

I am going to use this concept of a “Trust-O-Meter” (below) to depict how much trust a prospect has developed in us. The following Trust-O-Meter shows how much our associate’s audience trusts her:

Like a thermometer, the Trust-O-Meter represents the level of trust and relationship strength, in a simplistic way, so we can conceptualize it better.  As we see above, our friend’s audience not only trusts her, they like her.  We might even consider extending the scale further to the right by adding “Respected” (not shown here).

Why Affiliates and Bloggers Are Trusted

Continuing the affiliate example above, since most of her audience has been with her for some time, they have not only developed a high degree of trust in her, but they also like her. Going beyond trusted to liked is a sure way to make more sales—a lot more sales.

So, we were introduced by our friend and associate to her audience. What is our Trust-O-Meter reading with them at the start?

Because we were introduced by a person the audience (those on the affiliate‘s list) both trusts and likes, we get the benefit of the doubt and begin in a semi-trusted state with her audience.

We will have to earn the rest of their trust…

Together, you and your friend come up with a strategy for communicating and involving the subscribers:

• An initial email and blog entry that introduces you to her community
• A free teleconference where she interviews you about a hot topic of interest
• A recording of the free teleconference posted on the blog site and a brief email note sent to the subscriber list
• A free giveaway item you provide that is relevant to her audience
• A “special offer,” a time-limited discount on buying your product!

Assuming your product can interest the majority of the 50,000 audience your associate has just introduced you, guess what just happened from the above steps?

First, a foundation of trust and respect existed between your associate and her subscribers and readers. Second, she introduced you to them. You are no longer considered a stranger, so you instantly became semi-trusted.

Next, your free teleconference gave those who attended an opportunity to learn firsthand what kind of person you are and to ask you questions and see how you responded. In effect, you became an authority who is operating at nearly the same level as your associate, and perhaps even at a higher level in your particular area of expertise.

Incidentally, everyone who actually registered for and attended that teleconference just became qualified leads for your product, since they invested some time with you.

Next, everyone else who listens to the recorded teleconference audio also trusts you more (assuming you didn’t blow it during the interview by trying to sell something!) Notice how you have moved up in the Trust-O-Meter!

Next, you gave away some of real value to her audience. This shows what a stand-up kind of person you are, someone who cares and is trying to help.

Finally, she pitches the special offer for your product to the subscribers and audience. In this pitch, your friend is effectively endorsing you and your product, which confers an even greater amount of her trust equity onto you.

I call this “transitive trust,” since her audience now implicitly trusts you primarily because you have been endorsed and approved. Why do you think companies pay so much to get celebrities to endorse their products?  Because they are both trusted and liked by so many.

Now, let’s run some numbers to put this example of ours into the proper perspective.

Out of 50,000 subscribers, only 50% are even mildly interested in what you have to say or offer them, leaving 25,000 potential prospects.

By the time she makes these 25,000 the offer, around 40% have enough interest and familiarity to open the email and learn more (This is your email “open rate.”) That is 10,000!

Out of those 10,000, about 25% click through to get more details on this special offer— that is 2,500 qualified prospects that now show up at your website (instead of her blog).

Let’s assume your offer is truly special and motivating to the buyers who have an immediate need and budget, and now trust you enough to buy from you. Let’s assume that 20% end up buying your product over the next 30 days as a result of this campaign.

So you make 500 sales! About 1% of her total subscriber base ended up buying your product. Not bad for a brief campaign with this associate of yours. Let’s say your product sells for $100. You just generated $50,000 in sales.

Let’s say your product sells for $995. You just generated $497,500 in sales!  Now you are talking!

What just happened here? You went from zero to half a million in sales and 500 new customers in a matter of a few weeks. That is what happened. What other business do you know of where those kinds of results are possible?  It happens somewhere on the Web every single day.

The truth is, this happens in online businesses all the time. In fact, I’ve seen product launches orchestrated with multiple partners who have large subscriber bases sell many thousands of units in less than 24 hours—generating millions of dollars in just hours.

All of this is only possible when you have the right relationships in place.

Remember what I said:  Relationships go cha-ching! It’s so true.

And, it’s good to be King!

Related posts

• Crossing the Chasm of Doubt (1)
• How Successful Email Marketing Is Done (2)
• Email Lists – The key to sustainable online profitability (4)
• B2B Lead Generation (0)
• Your Relationship Development System – Profiting or Costing You? (3)
• Psychology of Social Product Launches – Part 2, Proof (1)
• Effective Tactic for Email Relationship Development (3)
• When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead: Useful Stories (9)
• Network Influence IS the Launch (2)
• Groundhog Day Website Marketing (7)

TRUST

The number one reason people don’t buy from us online (besides price and no need) is the fact that we’re strangers and they don’t know us and don’t trust us.

We’re all taught from childhood not to trust strangers. This carries over into business, because most of us have been burned at one time or another by someone we didn’t know.

The old saying that “trust must be earned” is very true.

Big brands like Amazon.com or EBay do not face this same barrier, as they’ve already earned their trust in the market. Unless you have the wind of an established brand blowing behind you, you will certainly have to face and overcome this trust issue. Even if you have a brand, it may not be enough to carry you, especially in new markets.

The other reason people do not believe or trust you is because they realize you are trying to sell them something. In addition, they often have developed an instinctive distrust for sales people because of experiences buying things (and being “hard sold” on things that turned out not to be in their best interest or of value to them).

Lack of trust and belief is probably the single biggest cause of online selling failure (probably offline, too). Fortunately, you can do plenty about this.

When people do not trust or believe us, there is a gap or chasm between us and them. Notice my use of the term “us and them” here. They do not trust us.

To maximize our online sales, we must change this “us vs. them” perspective.  We do this by building an online relationship – that eventually blossoms into a customer relationship.

Every relationship begins with a Chasm of Doubt between the two parties. This chasm is often filled with fears, anxieties, questions, misperceptions, and other forms of doubt.

There are those risk-takers who will simply leap right across this chasm, but more often than not, they are the exception instead of the rule.

To attract the big, mainstream part of almost any market, we must convince risk-averse people that they can safely do business with us.

Consider the following picture of the chasm.  How many people will put themselves at risk to jump across it?

It is as if we are standing on one side of the canyon or a large gorge, and our prospect is on the other side looking across at us.

He can see us and hear us but isn’t ready to try to jump across this dangerous-looking chasm to join us on the other side, where we can help.

Yet to sell to him, we must somehow help him across this Chasm of Doubt onto our side, where we can have productive conversations about his desires and his needs and how we can best help and serve.

So how are we going to help our prospects cross to our side?

By building a metaphorical Bridge of Trust across the Chasm of Doubt – by removing the perceived risks of being on the same side with us – and avoiding the risky-looking jump we see here.

This “chasm” has been written about before, so this isn’t really new.  Remember Jeffrey Moore’s famous “Crossing the Chasm”?  Another place I saw this concept being applied to email marketing was Michael Cheney, an accomplished Internet Marketer, who portrays this chasm in his River of Doubt metaphor.

To get across this famous chasm, we must build a  ”Bridge of Trust” and get our prospects to start walking across the bridge to reach us on the other side –  one-step at a time.

You might be wondering: what can we use to build such a bridge?

Trust is built one step at a time.

It begins by being honest and sincere about helping the prospects get the results and achieve the positive outcome they seek.

Each step of the bridge must be built. We provide the prospects with something that causes them to consider us as trustworthy.

They then take a step closer to being on our side of the Chasm of Doubt.

Here are some examples.

We offer the prospect something valuable for free (perhaps a free offer that attracted them to us  in our original advertisement), and then we deliver it to them.

We ensure they will be satisfied with what we give them. Gift giving has long been a good way to help build a relationship, and it is no different online.

Next, we give them something else that is completely unexpected for free, like a free video, report, or something else even more useful.  These gifts must not be self-serving, with embedded sales messages, links to buy your product or service, etc.  Real gifts aren’t Trojan horses – they’re honest to goodness useful, valuable things that can be appreciated.

By giving useful, free stuff to our prospects, we are accomplishing several important steps:

• We’re demonstrating that we are trustworthy by trying to help them
• We’re proving that we are interested in them and their needs
• We’re showing them that we actually do have something valuable to offer them
• We’re helping them along the path toward solving the ultimate problem (our product can fully resolve)
• We’re staying in front of them and keeping our company/product in the foreground (vs. not following up with them at all and allowing them to slip into the ether).

Another way to gain their trust is to confide in them by letting them in on something special, telling them a secret, or even sharing something personal with them. When people confide in you, they are signaling that they trust you. Therefore, you should trust them in return.

Think of all the ways you would go about building a relationship with someone and evaluate whether that same approach could work in building bonds of trust with your prospect.

Sometimes it is easy to forget all the stuff we learned when selling to people in the offline world—how our sales people go about their process of selling.

It begins by establishing rapport, finding common ground and establishing some nominal amount of trust that the sales person has your best interest at heart.

It is no different online.  Our brand (if we are an established company) helps to bridge the trust gaps somewhat.  If you’re like most small businesses, you don’t yet have an established brand in the eyes of your prospect, so that’s not going to help.

Instead, we must invest the time and effort required to develop the relationship and bonds of trust with our market. Then when our email arrives in her inbox, she will open it and actually read it more often than not.  When we recommend something, that recommendation will be taken seriously and not pre-judged as just another sales pitch.

So if developing these relationships is this straightforward, why don’t more companies do it?  Because it takes time, work and a sincere interest in our market and customers.  It takes doing things that aren’t in our own selfish interests and instead investing our time for someone else.  And that’s not nearly as much fun as building more stuff to sell…

So the next time you’re wondering what you can do to increase sales in your market, step back and ask yourself this question.

Which side of the chasm is my market waking up on today?

Related posts

• It’s good to be King (3)
• How Successful Email Marketing Is Done (2)
• Email Lists – The key to sustainable online profitability (4)
• B2B Lead Generation (0)
• Effective Tactic for Email Relationship Development (3)
• Your Relationship Development System – Profiting or Costing You? (3)
• Psychology of Social Product Launches – Part 2, Proof (1)
• Groundhog Day Website Marketing (7)
• Why don’t businesses invest more in online lead-generation? (0)
• When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead: Useful Stories (9)