Building trust with machine-like consistency
“WANTED: Slightly obsessive ADHD person with 2-5 years experience in as many of the following fields as possible: Alchemy, Multi-Tasking, Creative Writing, Strategic Planning, Project Management, Salesmanship, Website Design, Pay Per Click Advertising, Direct Marketing, Quality Control, Purchasing, Product Development, Management of Psychotic People, and Herding of Cats. Apply between 10:30 pm and 2:30 am any weeknight….”
As best I can guess, that’s pretty much YOUR job description right now, as it would appear in a classified ad.
Right?
Only an entrepreneur would be crazy enough to apply for such a job.
One of the things that I like most about online marketing is blending the systematic regularity of processes, systems and machines with the quirkiness and total irrationality of real human beings.
And one of the most interesting ideas of all is that you can build a machine that earns peoples’ trust 24/7/365. This machine both sells and sets the stage for selling; it teaches prospects and customers tidbits of knowledge and draws them into your world.
It can even sort the tire kickers from the serious practitioners and skim the creme de la creme off the top for you.
Isn’t it ironic that a machine can do that?
Every time I go to a seminar, I’ll be having a conversation with someone and out of the corner of my eye I’ll see someone do a double-take and walk over and say to me, “Hey, I know that voice, you’re on my iPod.”
It’s kind of freaky.
They probably don’t know that the way they got that MP3 file was through an Autoresponder message.
In my opinion, Autoresponders are at the heart of this magical machine.
Because trust can almost never be built in an instant. It takes a week, a month, a year. I’ve had customers who had never bought a single thing in 3 years suddenly spend $7,000 – because trust had been built over time and then suddenly a need presented itself.
I want to encourage you that one of the very highest leverage things you can possibly do is have a sequence of 5, 10, 20 or more autoresponder messages that reach your customers in timed sequence.
How long does it really take to write 20 email messages?
You’ve probably already written and sent them, but the sending of those messages was a one-time event, not part of a process. You might just need to dust them off and put them on the assembly line.
Question for you:
“What if you were the most trusted vendor in your marketplace – and while others struggled and labored to build trust over time, your trust was built automatically?”
Think about that.
Perry Marshall
P.S.: I have applications in hand for the 4-Man Intensive June 24-25 that I am not finished processing yet. If you get yours in the stack there’s a slim chance you can come – and slim down that choking Google bill on your credit card every month. http://www.4ManIntensive.com
About the Author
Entrepreneur Magazine says: "Perry Marshall is the #1 author and world's most-quoted consultant on Google Advertising. He has helped over 100,000 advertisers save literally billions of dollars in Adwords stupidity tax."
He is referenced across the Internet and by The Washington Post, USA Today, and the Chicago Tribune.
Last 5 Posts by Perry
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Perry,
Do you have any stats on how long it takes someone to buy from you?
How many (weeks, years or emails) on average does it take to build the trust?
For the White Papers course the trust happens in a few days. Some people buy immediately. Some people take years. For most businesses a half dozen touches is a real good start.
Perry, speaking of trust, I found a website using an interesting technique to build trust. It detects the location of the visitor and then changes the headline to the name of a local newspaper.
For example I live in Utah, so when I visit:
http://www.dailytribunes.com/
I see “Salt Lake City Herald” at the top.
If I visit it through a proxy site, it says
“The Houston Herald”
Also in the headline it says “Trust Sources” – so maybe you don’t have to do an email list and write to gain trust, you can just pose as a newspaper