I have no doubt at one stage or another as you have been receiving my  emails, you have asked yourself:

“Is this Bywater guy full of hot air”

Not that I blame you. Like all of us I’ve been duped before into investing in things which were high on hype but low on delivery.

And guess what – so have your customers.

And that’s why you need to get as many testimonials as you can and share them with your prospective clients.

I’ve started doing it recently as you can see at http://www.scottbywater.com/proof

If you click on that link and read it, you will no doubt get a sense of what I am all about and how it can increase your credibility.

The key is using real results rather than “John is a nice guy” and if you can get the testimonials in audio or video this is far stronger as it overcomes the objection that the testimonials may be made up.

So make sure YOU do this in your own business.

While we are on this topic, you have no doubt seen me mention my http://www.morecustomersmadeeasy.com program on a number of occasions.

Well, one of the reasons you probably haven’t purchased because you are sceptical of my promises.

So I thought I’d give you an example of a testimonial which might just help you overcome this objection.

Here’s an email I received the other day from Julie Carter in Sydney who runs Speedie Graphics and a magazine called Antiques and Collectables for Pleasure and Profit.

Read it and notice the effect it has on you. Then think about how you can apply this same strategy to your business…
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Hi Scott,

I just thought I’d drop you a line to let you know the way in which I have implemented one of the suggestions in More Customers Made Easy, that has resulted in a 25% increase in advertising revenue for our magazine.

The section I found so useful is the part in which you explain about sending several letters to prospects. We were already sending a free back issue of  our magazine to people who requested one, either via web site or free postcards that were handed out in antique shops. After reading the MCME section on the follow up letters (lesson #4) I implemented a three-letter system with a special offer, including a lot of the wording suggested in your files, and began using it for all new prospective magazine buyers. It was reasonably successful and I was quite happy with the results, compared to previous.

Then I thought about using the same system for prospective advertisers in the magazine. The biggest plus was that by sending numerous follow-up letters,  the sales person was never calling cold. So I adapted the system. I identified
an area with plenty of businesses whose interest dovetailed with the magazine, and sent them a copy of the current magazine with a personalised cover letter detailing a special we were planning for the area, along with a rate card –
but not as a ‘hard sell’. The following week, I sent another personalised letter reminding them about the upcoming special, and including details of the benefits of advertising with us – including another of your ideas, which was the ‘cheque’ (lesson #7) allowing them money off (we offered 2 free $50 ads, and made the $100 cheque out to each business separately).

Then the next week I sent the last letter, with repeat information on the special and the deal we’re offering,  the business card of the salesperson who was going to call (all letters were also personally signed by her), and the rough dates on which she would call.

The result is that by the time our salesperson contacts the prospects, they are fully aware of the magazine, the offer, the proposed feature, the cost of advertising and the benefits to them. And they know she’s going to call them. There’s still some salesmanship involved in turning them into advertisers, but in using this method, this one particular salesperson has increased our revenue by 25%. And it’s quantifiable, because this is her only sales area for us and this is the only method we use with her.

In using the ‘specials’ hook and the sales system, we’ve also tapped into the heritage accommodation market for each area, which broadened our scope of prospects. And the added benefit has been repeat advertising from each of the three specials we’ve run so far.

Sorry my message is a bit long! But the system has been so successful for us, I just wanted to let you know.

Cheers,

Julie
Speedie Graphics Pty Ltd
Antiques and Collectables for Pleasure & Profit
—

Nothing more to say in today’s message other than this:

a) Thanks for your feedback Julie. Appreciate it

b) In this email Julie refers to just two of the lessons in http://www.morecustomersmadeeasy.com – imagine what you could do if you implemented all of them.

c) Notice just how powerful real testimonials are and start to solicit them in your business. After all, as one of my early mentors once said to me

“When you say it, your customer doubts it. But when someone else says it, it’s believable.”

Offer something for free to bring people into your funnel because every marketer will say this – the money is in your list.  The money is in your list.  The money is in your list.  So the money is really in your e-mail list or mailing list or whatever.  Let’s say you are looking for an accountant  You see an ad and it says, “Bob’s Accountant, call me.”  Are you going to call them?  Probably not.  I wouldn’t.  Most people wouldn’t unless you’re really needing an accountant.

The second ad is, “Bob’s Accountant.  Call me for a free consultation.”  Are you going to call him?  Maybe, but it’s going to take an hour of your time.  You’re going to feel that obligation at the end of it, to do something because you’ve used this guy’s time and you’re not really sure he’s the guy.

The third one says, “Free report reveals how any business owner can save up to 37 percent on their tax this financial year.”  This is just an example.  Yours could say something totally different and this will apply to most businesses.  If you’re saying, “This won’t apply to me.  My business is different.”  Stop that thinking and ask instead how this applies to me.

The free report will pull in far, far more leads and then what you need to do is develop the relationships with that database.  It’s called two step marketing.  Bring people in and then feed information, education, education, education rather than hard sell, hard sell, hard sell.  And a percentage of people end up becoming customers.

And it also gives you a real unfair advantage because think about it, if you want to sell your home and you see an ad in the paper and it says, “Free report reveals how anyone can sell their home for more money and faster.”  You’re not going to sell home for 10 months.  But you think, “Oh I’ll get this free report.”  So you get this free report.  A month later you get a real estate tip which is really useful.  Another month later you get another real estate tip.  Another month later you get another real estate tip and it’s this guy, he’s got personality, he’s fun.  You’re starting to trust him.  10 months later when you sell your home who are you going to sell your home through?  The guy who’s got an ad in the newspaper or the guy who’s got the free report on offer?  I can almost bet you you’re going to go for the guy who’s been mailing you for the last 10-months in the majority of cases if he’s developed rapport and trust with you over all the other guys.  So it’s a way of developing relationships without having to do so personally because you’ve  developing relationships very, very quickly in a very, very leveraged way.

Let’s say I’m starting up a business as an insurance broker.  I’ve purchased a database of two and a half thousand clients.  What system or method should I use?  Direct mail then follow-up with SMS and then phone call.  What I would do if I had a limited amount of people that I was going to contact?  The one thing I would do is take that list and send out a three-step sales letter sequence.  So what I mean by that is the is three letters sent out over 20 days.  That’s the first thing I would do.  And the letters would basically say, “Hey this is who I am.”  You would obviously have a strong offer or a strong benefit, and a strong call to action.

After the three letters I would do a follow-up with regular customer newsletters on a monthly basis, particularly if you’ve got a limited market.  I think this is really, really critical.  Because it’s about sales but it’s also about developing the relationship and when the current supplier lets them down you are the next choice so to speak.  So let me just go into this a little bit more detail.

So I’m an insurance broker and I’ve got two and a half thousand clients.  Let’s say they’re business people.  The first letter would go out talking about the potential problems they could face as a business person without insurance.  And then I would offer a free consultation or a free report or whatever.  The second letter would go out saying, “Hey you didn’t respond.  I’m not sure why.  I thought it might be for a number of reasons.  I thought you may have some questions.”  And then I would go through and answer the questions.  So question one might be, “I don’t believe in insurance.”  And then you have the answer.  Question two might be, “I don’t think it will happen to me.”  And then you have the answer.  Question three is, “Why should I choose you?  I’ve got so many people to choose from.”  And then you have the answer and so on.

So that’s a really powerful process.  And then the third letter might be, “Hey this is the last offer.  These are the benefits you’re going to get from talking to me.  These are the disadvantages you’re going to get from not dealing with me and this limited time offer will expire in 10 days,” and stick to that.  And then what you can do with the follow-up newsletter is make it more relationship building and you might have other offers within those relationship building messages.  So it’s quite a powerful process by doing that and then following up with just regular contact to that group of two and a half thousand people.

I would encourage you, if you don’t have a lot of resources, rather than sending out to two and a half thousand at once you might send 50 at a time and that way it fits within your budget and it becomes self-funding.  So you send out 50 at a time.  You send the three letters.  You follow up with a phone call and say, “Hey you got the three letters.”  If you follow up with a phone call you’ll probably increase responses significantly.  I would say by as much as five, six, 700 percent.  So that’s the strategy which I would take if I was an insurance broker.