Preneur Marketing - The Blog of Entrepreneur Pete Williams

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People act in line with their commitments. Cialdini in his great book Influence, states that we have a ‘nearly obsessive desire to be (and to appear) consistent with what we have already done.’ This is the theory behind those competitions that you’ve probably seen where you have to state in 25 words or less why you like a particular product. The rationale is that if you make people write down why they like you or your business, they will then subconsciously want to keep their word, so next time they have to choose they will select your product.

This principle means that people will feel a sense of obligation to you if they have told you they like your product or that they would find it useful. Once people make a commitment, especially in public, they will usually make an effort to stick to it.

Using commitment and consistency in your business

You can use the type of competition mentioned above to create a sense of commitment to your business. Run a competition where entrants have to state in 30 words or fewer why your frozen yoghurt is better than all the other frozen yoghurts on the market. This makes them think about why they like your product, and will also encourage them to buy from you because they feel they have decided that your yoghurt is the best and they will want to be consistent with this. Use the entries as testimonials — with permission, of course.

You also now know the reasoning behind running such a competition, rather than just doing it because you’ve seen others do it — which is never a path to success. Here’s an example of a business that doesn’t seem to understand why these types of competitions are run. At the time of writing, a book publisher is having a competition that asks readers to do the following: ‘In 25 words or less, describe your favourite place to read in winter and why.’ What’s the point in that? Why not create positive feelings towards the books you publish? For example, ‘Describe in 25 words or less your favourite book published by us.’ This is an example of a business using a promotional tool without really understanding why. Don’t make this you!

You can also use this principle when talking to clients. As you discuss with them the benefits of what you are selling, get an agreement from them each step of the way. Don’t just bombard them with the information. So, if you are trying to sell a mobile phone, you would say: ‘This phone lasts 20% longer than most others on each charge. Would you find that useful?’ Then, ‘This phone can also play music through headphones. Do you think you could use that?’ And so on. Then, if the customer has replied yes to all or most of these, when it is time to say ‘Yes I’ll take it’, they have almost talked themselves into buying the phone by agreeing that they would find the benefits useful. This approach will give you more success than simply reading a list of features to the customer.

Use the concept of commitment and consistency to encourage people to make a written or verbal commitment to your company. They are then more likely to purchase from you.



HEY, did you know i’m running a contest while I am away…
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So how do you add a back-end to your business? Well, the first step is to start seeing your business as a back-end business. Think like HP, or like a mobile phone provider. Don’t think that once you have achieved the first sale, that’s it. A lot of businesses look at it this way: they try and get a customer to make a sale — that’s singular SALE. How you should be looking at it is; you make a sale to get a customer — where this customer will repeatedly come back to you and purchase more and more.

Have a look at your products or services to see how they can be used to create a back-end. This doesn’t necessarily mean adding something after your main products or services; you can add something before and make your main items the back end… It’s all about attracting people with one item and then leading them on to the next.

You should also investigate how you could add residual income to your business systems. Can you sign people up to a contract? Rent your product out? If your business is mowing lawns, perhaps you could sign people up to a program where you go back and give the lawn a quick tidy up once a month, and mow it every three months.

A good back-end offering will either be an essential requirement for what was originally purchased — such as the ink cartridges — or it will improve on or add to the item — such as the extra computer memory and the software. Here are a few questions that might help you find your back-end:

• What can you offer at a low price that will attract people to your business, secure a sale, and get people on to your mail list? We offered the certificates and small pieces of timber with the aim of finding people who might also buy the frames.
• What can you offer people that will help them with what they have already bought? For example, if you sell computers, can you also sell computer manuals? Or offer tutorials?
• Does your product require any consumables? For example, the ink in a printer, or bags for a vacuum cleaner.
• After people have bought your product or service, what else might they be interested in? If your business is mowing lawns, you can send your clients a brochure for your landscape gardening services when you send them the bill.
• Can you offer products to go with your services? For example, if you are an accountant, perhaps you can back-end people into buying accounting books or software.
• Can you offer upgrades for your product? People might not buy this at the time, but after owning the product for six months, they might then feel the need to make it bigger, faster, stronger, quieter …
• Can you offer customers a subscription to a magazine or newsletter? This can create a great back-end when people re-new each year.

Selling computer software is a great way to create a back-end, as people want the upgrades that usually come out every year or two — give them a 5% discount if they buy the upgrade from you. This should be enough to stop them going elsewhere.

HEY, did you know i’m running a contest while I am away…
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Exhibit A Your Honor… Guilty As Charged.