I don’t know Michel Fortin personally, we’ve never so much as exchanged an email, yet he reads my blog.
Well, at least he tweets about it periodically.
Why does this matter to you? For two reasons, neither of which is the one you think I’m going to say.
The first is, I’m a big fan of Michel Fortin, I read his blog, and so should you. (I’ve picked up more than a dozen conversion boosting secrets over the years)
But the second reason is more important.
You see, I’ve spent a lifetime taking note of “credibility boosters” I could leverage, authority I could borrow… things I could immediately add to my resume. (Yes, I know that’s due to a lack of attention and praise as a child, and yes, it’s not the most well-adjusted thing for a psychologist to do,… but hey, it’s really served me well as a marketer!)
The astute reader will note I didn’t say Michel Fortin endorses me. He’s never sent me a testimonial, I’m not sure if he owns my products, and for all I know he might sit around the campfire with his family saying “I sure wish that bastard Glenn Livingston would just go away!”
But he DOES read my blog, and, if you know who he is, just knowing that makes you a little more curious to dig deeper into what Glenn might have to say, doesn’t it?
Which leads me to my point.
When people first get started in a market, they rarely have testimonials.
And the FTC is putting all sorts of pressure on the kinds of testimonials we can actually use as proof.
Which leads many people feeling like there’s just no way to PROVE their credibility.
As if testimonials were the only form of proof… as if they were the ONLY way to get people to believe and trust you.
But what about association? What about proving your worth with valuable content over and again? What about using multi-media follow ups to help people know, like, and trust you? What about using a stronger guarantee?
There are literally dozens of ways to overcome the “no testimonials yet” conundrum. In fact, I’ve got profitable products in the market right now WITHOUT A SINGLE TESTIMONIAL… in markets where no one knew me from Adam.
I’m not saying to stop going after testimonials… they’ll always be powerful, and we should all continue to gather as many as we can get, printing them on our t-shirts and on the back of our jeans so people can say “wow, they really said that about you” while we walk down the boardwalk.
In the coming year, Terry Dean, Sharon, and I are going to be launching a radical new program on CONVERSION… and we’ll cover PROOF in ways you’ve never even dreamed of before.
So what I’m saying in the meantime is, let’s all stop singing the “testimonial blues” and get down to work.
All my best,
Glenn 🙂