I’m neither the first, nor the last, to make this claim…
We make our purchasing decisions with emotion, and back them up with logic.
Our buying decisions are made in our heart and our gut, and justified in our head.
There are two reasons anybody buys anything: the reason they’ll tell you (logical) and the real reason (emotional).
And so on, and so forth.
All of these things point to not one, but TWO important truths:
- In order to sell, you have to make a compelling promise that will sway the emotions. This can be a promise of a positive outcome, or a promise to avoid something negative. Either way, you paint an emotional picture that moves them at the heart and gut.
But here’s the thing. If that’s ALL you do, that little voice of doubt and skepticism will start screaming inside their head. “You’ve been burned before. This is another ‘too good to be true’ promise. Don’t do it!” And so even if you made a convincing promise, they won’t buy — because they trust that voice more than you. Unless you cater to the second truth…
- To close the sale, you have to prove and back up every claim and promise with powerful proof.
Proof is the secret of the world’s best salespeople…
Considering how my latest control hinged on one incredibly powerful piece of proof, this training alone could make your tiny investment in BTMSinsiders membership back 100X over, and then some.
Let me show you exactly how this works, using a few examples…
Prove it with a demonstration…
Let’s imagine you’re selling a kitchen knife. This isn’t just any kitchen knife. This is a kitchen knife custom-engineered of ultra-strong steel that is designed to stay sharp through 10 years of near-constant use.
But you can’t capture 10 years of constant use in an infomercial — or other sales presentation. So you have to find another way to show the use and abuse your knife’s sharp blade will withstand.
So you imagine something ultra-tough that nobody would ever cut with a knife. Say, a car tire. And so to demonstrate how well your knife stays sharp, you actually cut through a car tire with the knife — and then use it to perfectly, easily slice through a tomato.
Or how about Blendtec, who sells high-end, $500+ blenders?
They created a breakthrough with their “Will it Blend?” series of videos on YouTube.
They’ve blended iPhones, pool cues, paint balls, digital cameras, metal toy cars, golf clubs, and more.
Not only are these perfect demonstrations of just how powerful their blenders are… They’re also incredible viral marketing pieces, with their videos racking up over 284 million views on YouTube, to date.
And if you’re someone who is sick and tired of replacing cheap blenders you’ve run into the ground… Well, just a couple clicks through their videos will convince you their blenders can do ANYTHING.
Of course, my recommendation yesterday of how you can get on the phone with a potential client and close the sale by giving them advice that demonstrates your expertise is yet another kind of demonstration that works in selling.
Demonstration is one of the most powerful kinds of proof there is.
You’re saying, “Don’t just take my word for it — let me show you.”
And yet, it’s far from the only kind of proof…
Case studies are another powerful form of proof that can be used in many selling situations…
I once wrote a promotion for a gold stock newsletter, where the editor had a track record of identifying gold miners that were good takeover targets.
I looked back through years’ worth of past issues, looking for any and all stocks that had been acquired after his recommendation.
And for those, I looked back at all he’d written, looking specifically for mentions of the stock being a takeover target.
I don’t remember exactly how many I found, but the trend was there: nearly every stock in his portfolio that got taken over had previously been named as an ideal takeover target by this editor.
It was uncanny.
We put together a report of future takeover targets, listing — I think — seven potential candidates. And for the sales pitch, I simply laid out all these case studies of previously-named takeover targets, the takeovers that actually occurred, and the stock gains that happened as a result (typically a takeover bid causes a stock’s price to spike).
One after the other, I showed how this editor had called a stock a takeover target, how it got a takeover bid, and how that led to overnight profits for his subscribers.
You can do the same with all kinds of sales pitches.
If you’re selling services that solve a problem, you can show what caused your clients to come to you, what solution you implemented, and what result they got.
If you have a product that has multiple applications, maybe you have case studies of customers using it in all those different ways.
And so on, and so forth.
It’s one thing to simply promise all these things. It’s another thing entirely to show how you’ve done it, over and over again (especially for people just like your prospect).
One more: the proof power of before and after…
Again, I’ve identified and created training covering 26 types of proof and credibility — including what they are and how to use them in your selling messages.
If you’re not yet a BTMSinsiders member but you get paid based on your ability to close sales, this alone will make it worth signing up.
But I’ll give you one more example here.
And perhaps you’ll recognize it from the weight loss industry, where it’s almost a requirement to sell anything.
It’s before and after pictures. Before this diet, I looked like this. After, I look like that.
But it’s certainly not limited to that market.
For example, think about the home renovation market. If you’re selling home renovations, you might want to show a picture of your past work. And that’s certainly a great idea.
But now imagine that you showed two pictures. One is the kitchen before your remodel. The other is the kitchen after. Suddenly your work looks even more attractive, when juxtaposed against the “before.”
Before and after is especially powerful when you use it visually — that is, when you can take a picture of the before, and a picture of the obvious, and show them side-by-side, with the results of your product or service being visually obvious and desirable.
And yet, you don’t have to limit it to the visual.
For example, in my Proof, Credibility, and Believability training for BTMSinsiders, I revealed how a 2-page, text-only letter that generated over $1 billion in sales was a perfect execution of “before and after” — even without an image to back up the claim.
You’ll have to watch the video for that one, but suffice it to say this is powerful stuff.
Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr
