Mass Persuasion (part 17): Sincerity: put together better offers

mass persuasion large crowd rock concert

Add value by delivering
quality over quantity:

Just value their time as if it were your own

In our last post before we pulled over at the lookout point, we discovered why sincerity is so important:

Commercialization: relationships have been eroding as society becomes more commercialized. Instead of a genuine human being, everyone looks like a possible customer. Instead of genuine values, we get the appearance of concern for others. Instead of “How to win friends and win influence people,” we get “How to influence people by pretending we’re friends.” The reaction to this “I’m just a potential revenue source” emptiness by everyone in society? A craving for reassurance, an acute need to believe, a flight to faith. To satisfy that deep emotional craving, people start emphasizing sincerity, by judging sellers whether if “they really mean what they say.”

3 views of competition: (1) Praise yourself: businesspeople compete with one another by trying to praise their own commodity more persuasively than their rivals. (2) Bash the competition: politicians compete by slandering the opposition. And so do some businesses. (3) Don’t compete: rise and remain above the level of competition.

By treating people as humans rather than ranched human livestock … by consistently doing what you say you’ll do to prove your word is your bond … and by rising and remaining above praising yourself while competitors bash you, you automatically build sincerity. As a result of this sincerity, something much more powerful happens for you:

Your prospects, customers, and other stakeholders will praise you and protect you against those who try to bash you.

Next time, we’ll dig into the strategy of how to get around the important need for testimonials, showing buyers happily using your product, and other forms of “proof.”

For today, let’s look at using sincerity to put together better offers by treating your customers like executives. Because everyone values their precious time:

Putting together better offers:
Your customer is an executive

Instead of talking about how to structure a great offer to generate leads, who you offer upsells and downsells to, and how to price all of them to maximize your revenue, we’ll kick it up a notch and focus on the mindset of who your customer really is, which in turns affects what you offer.

So you really get it, let’s put you in your customer’s shoes . . .

Talk is cheap, and there are lots of businesses making claims all the time.

Some of them do offer great value for free, especially in the bonuses that accompany your purchase.

Yet, some of those bonuses are overwhelming in the commitment you need to make in order to extract the gold that does exist within them. By commitment, I simply mean your most precious asset: time.

Have you ever purchased an internet information product, such as an internet marketing product from one of those “online marketing gurus”? Yes or no, here’s usually how it works:

You buy the main product. Maybe you end up satisfied by the value you get. Maybe not. Usually the main product is overflowing with value
You get bonuses, usually too many. From their perspective, they’re helping people say YES to buying the main product by adding value to the deal. From your perspective, the bonuses might hold great potential you can extract, just like a gold mine where you go in to dig up and refine gold ore. Their overriding concept is “more is better — quantity is quality”

If you buy the main product, you get $2999 in the form of bonus ebooks or videos that might take up 40 to 100 hours of your time. Where do you find that extra 40 to 100 hours? Do you hire someone at $15 per hour just to go through these bonuses for you? Or pull your existing staff off high-priority projects? That’s costing you real money: $600 to $1500 just to pay an outside contractor to examine free stuff.

What really happens? All these valuable bonuses — which are sucessfully offered separately to customers who really want the gold in them — end up in your virtual trash. Maybe they’re worth $2999 to someone, but not to you.

How can you solve this with your own bonuses? Here’s how:

include the bonuses — don’t strip the value!
invest a little more time in creating an “executive summary” for each of the bonuses, and connect them with your main product. And if you can’t find a strong connection, ask yourself: “Why in the heck am I including this?!”

Some of you are executives; I suggest the rest of you think like executives. By that, I mean, become constantly aware that your most precious treasure is time. Then turn around and assume your prospects are executives and their most precious treasure is also time.

If your only way to offer value is to steal your customer’s most precious treasure while they’re here on Planet Earth, then you’re a thief, plain and simple. They gotta invest their own time, or hire someone who needs to take up their time. Either way, you’ve taken time from them.

Remember, ultimately, any offer can be remotely connected to your main offer. By thinking like an executive and assuming your customers are executives, you have an easy way not to make that mistake.

Next time, let’s dig into the strategy of how to get around the important need for testimonials, showing buyers happily using your product, and other forms of “proof.” In fact, it’s the exact strategy I used to sell shares of stock in one of my partnerships. In our next post covering Mass Persuasion.

Bookmark It