The Towing Path

Imagine…you inquire about a product. The salesperson does everything right. Says the rights words, emphasis the benefits of the product — everything right. And you hesitate but you do not know why. You just aren’t “sure.” And you respond, “I’ll think about it.” Then you talk with another salesperson that says the same things, uses the same languaging, and does everything else right, until towards the end. Then they get honest with you and tell you the weaknesses of the product. Then you buy.

Works every time. Why? Because the old adage “if it’s too good to be true, then it usually is” is a skepticism that has been planted in everyone’s mind for generations. Don’t think you’re kidding the prospects they know the weaknesses. Be up front, let the honesty out, it is a quality people are looking for today. They are tired of being scammed. Yes. Honesty does sell!

Let’s continue on how you can use this to your marketing advantage.

First, write down all the weaknesses of the product or service. Ask others for help with this. It is easy for people to find the weakness first, so do not hide it. If you offer a service, look for those weaknesses as well.

Second, is to show those weaknesses in your communications. It illustrates that you know the weaknesses and how you have thought them through. It shows that you are not hiding anything. The consumer can then make an honest evaluation for himself or herself. It also provides them with the language they will need when they need to justify their purchase with their spouse, friends or family members.

If you are a consultant that provides strategic planning, your weaknesses might be: It takes time and patience to plan. They will need to expand their thinking and change the way they are doing things. These could be a few. Strategic planning is not fool proof.

If you are a coach that offers only telephone coaching, some of the weaknesses could be: There isn’t any visual or in- person contact. Coaching as a service assumes that people want to change.

It is easy to say the weakness and have your mind quickly go to the positive off side. Be at peace with the weaknesses. Allow them to be “okay.” Don’t take them personally as a flaw in yourself because the weaknesses are in the service or product. They would be the same for you or for anyone else presenting that exact service.

The big advantage to knowing what your flaws are is then you can create a plan on how to respond when people point them out — and they will. You will be able to handle these better and not feel like someone is attacking you. They just want the answers on how to get around the weaknesses. And everything has weaknesses.

People are persuaded to buy when you intentionally expose the weakness of your product or service. Marketers rarely do this, they usually only show the benefits. Only showing the benefits side of things is the stance of selling on the Internet. It is refreshing when you see honesty come through.

If you are up to being different and increasing your sales, find the weaknesses (I said “the” not “your”), talk about it frankly in your marketing communications. Indicate in insignificance of the weakness and how it doesn’t outweigh the strengths.

The results — you will come across as strong because you have been up front and honest with the weaknesses. A great character strength to have, wouldn’t you say?

Catherine Franz, a Certified Professional Marketing & Writing Coach, specializes in product development, Internet writing and marketing, nonfiction, training. Newsletters and articles available at: http://www.abundancecenter.com blog: http://abundance.blogs.com

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A desire to buy something often involves a subconscious
decision. In fact, I claim that 95% of buying decisions are
indeed subconscious.

Knowing the subconscious reasons why people buy, and using this
information in a fair and constructive way, will trigger greater
sales response — often far beyond what you could imagine.

I recall a time when I applied one of these subconscious devices
by changing just one word of an ad, and response doubled. I
refer to these subconscious devices as psychologal “triggers.” A
psychological trigger is the strongest motivational factor any
salesperson or copywriter can use to evoke a sale.

There are 30 triggers in all, some of which I will reveal to you
in a moment. Each trigger, when deployed, has the power to
increase sales and response beyond what you would normally
expect.

There are triggers, for example, that will cause your prospect
to feel guilty if they don’t purchase your product. Let me give
you an example. Whenever you receive in the mail a sales
solicitation with free personalized address stickers, you often
feel guilty if you use the stickers and don’t send something
back — often far in excess of the value of the stickers.
Fundraising companies use this method a great deal. You receive
50 cents worth of stickers and send back a $20 bill.

Another example are those surveys that are sent out asking for
you to spend about 20 minutes of your time filling them out.
Enclosed in the mailing you, might find a dollar bill included
to encourage you to feel guilty, and entice you to fill out the
survey. And you often spend a lot more than one dollar of your
time to do that.

Guilt is a strong motivator. I have to admit that I’ve used
guilt in many selling situations, in mail order ads and on TV –
with great success, I might add.

I call one of the most powerful triggers a “satisfaction
conviction,” which is a guarantee of satisfaction. But don’t
confuse this with the typical trial period you find in mail
order, i.e., “If your not happy within 30 days, you can return
your purchase for a full refund.” A satisfaction conviction is
different. Basically it takes the trial period and adds
something that makes it go well beyond the trial period.

For example, if I were offering a subscription, instead of
saying, “If at anytime you’re not happy with your subscription,
we’ll refund your unused portion,” and instead said, “If at any
time you’re not happy with your subscription, let us know and
we’ll refund your entire subscription price — even if you
decide to cancel just before the last issue.”

Basically you’re saying to your prospect that you are so sure
that they’ll like the subscription, that you are willing to go
beyond what is traditionally offered with other subscriptions.
This in fact gives the reader the sense that the company really
knows it has a winning product and solidly stands behind the
product and your satisfaction.

Is this technique effective? You bet. In many tests, I’ve
doubled response — sometimes by adding just one sentence that
conveys a good satisfaction conviction.

I received an e-mail from a company, a subsidiary of eBay,
requesting my advice. They had an e-mail solicitation that
wasn’t drawing the response that they had expected. What was
wrong?

Looking over what they had created, I saw several mistakes, many
of which would have been avoided if they knew the psychological
triggers that cause people to buy. Let me give you just one
example.

In the subject line of most e-mails that have solicited me, I
have been able to tell, at a glance, that the solicitation was
for a specific service or an offer of something that I was
clearly able to determine. Examples such as “Reduce your CD and
DVD costs 50%,” Or “Lose weight quickly,” pretty much told me
what they were selling. Was this good or bad?

The problem with those subject lines is that the reader was able
to quickly determine: 1) that it was an advertisement; and 2)
that it was for some specific product or service.

Most people don’t like advertising. And most people won’t make
the effort to open their e-mail solicitation if they think they
are getting an advertising message — unless they are sincerely
interested in buying something that the advertisement offers.

The subject line of an e-mail is similar to the headline of a
mail order ad, or the copy on an envelope, or the first few
minutes of an infomercial. You’ve got to grab somebody’s
attention and then get them to take the next step. In the case
of the envelope, you want them to open it. In the case of an
infomercial, you want them to keep watching, and in the case of
an e-mail, you want them open up the e-mail and read your
message.

The key, therefore, is to get a person to want to open your
message by putting something into the subject area of your
e-mail that does not appear to be an advertising message — one
that would compel them to take the next step. And the best
trigger to use for this is the trigger of curiosity.

There are a number of ways you can use curiosity to literally
force a person to take the next step. You can then use this
valuable tool to put a reader in the correct frame of mind to
buy what you have to offer.

Once again, all the principles apply to every form of
communication — whether it be advertising, marketing or
personal selling. And to know these triggers is the key to more
effective communication and most importantly, the avoidance of
costly errors that waste time and money.

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In today’s world time is very important, if not everything. Time to prepare, time to market, time to close, time to roll out, and many other time related events can determine in great part whether a franchise venture is successful or yesterdays news. Franchises have been burdened, or perhaps mandated is a better choice of words, to comply with Uniform Franchise Offering Circular (”UFOC”) law for 25+ years. During this 25+ year period the UFOC has changed dramatically, and the legal bodies controlling its function and purpose have also changed, but one thing has remained constant over these years, and that is UFOC’s are expensive.

They are very expensive to create, super expensive to produce and distribute, and unbelievably costly to store and audit. UFOC’s are one of the single greatest expenses new franchises face, and for the first time there is a cheaper and more effective way to do business. It is legal, it is safe, it is secure, it is encouraged and it will make an existing franchise more efficient and lower the barrier to entry for new franchisers. This revolutionary technology has only been around for 135 years, so it is about time the legislators let franchisers take advantage of the savings. What is this new technology you ask? It is electronic signature capturing, and New Hampshire was the first court system to rule on the validity of electronic signatures in 1869, it was in relation to the telegraph and signing for invoices for goods shipped by railway cars, but it was and is legal, so why not use it in other forms of business?

In the 1980’s businesses and courts started to ask this same question, and voil there was the fax machine. The fax machine got the proverbial electronic signature ball rolling again in business, but the Internet will take it to its rightful level of use in business. Practically everyone has access to the Internet now. Public libraries, schools, businesses and 100’s of millions of homes have Internet connectivity available to them on demand. The fax machine was certainly prevalent, but it could never have the wide spread use and functionality that the Internet offers, and therefore the Internet is the best logical way to spread the use of electronic signatures.

Franchises may send their UFOC electronically to potential franchisees. They may do this by building internal delivery systems, or they may use external delivery services. The delivery method will depend on the size and nature of the franchise, but the purpose will be the same, cut costs and reduce time to close business. Any franchise that is not actively looking for an electronic UFOC delivery service is going to be left behind. Electronic delivery will shorten sales cycles by allowing franchises to start the 10 day waiting period immediately, and open up additional markets by reducing the cost of entry.

Franchisers that embrace electronic UFOC delivery will save money and time in multiple ways. Take a look at the following chart.

Costs Associated with a 150 Page Paper UFOC’s

1. (1) 150 + Ink + Paper + Wear and Tear on printer = $3
2. (2) Binding = $1
3. (3) Outbound Overnight Shipping = $20
4. (4) Inbound Overnight Shipping = $20
5. (5) 150 Pages 1 Year Storage Using Government Estimate = $19
6. (6) Labor @ 2 Hours for Total Process - Sending and Receiving = $40
7. (7) 2 Days Opportunity Time for Best Delivery Option = $Unknown

Total Cost of Using Paper = ($103.00)

Costs Associated With Paperless UFOC Using Electronic Signatures

1. Labor @ 15 Minutes for Total Process = $5
2. Sending File Electronically = $5
3. Delivery Is Immediate = No Lost Opportunity Costs

Total Cost of a Paperless Transaction = ($10)

Total Savings Using Electronic Signatures vs. Paper = $93.00 per UFOC

The FTC has issued several Informal Staff Opinion Letters to electronic signature companies acknowledging that these services comply with the current FTC rules. PrivaSign.com, located at http://privasign.com/laws-cfr-ftc.asp is one of the companies that received such an opinion letter, and additional companies may be found at the http://www.ftc.gov website. By utilizing an electronic signature and UFOC delivery service, like PrivaSign, franchisers will save hundreds and potentially even thousands of dollars a month delivering their UFOC’s, and capturing new business.

Franchisers who are slow to adapt new electronic signature methods will undoubtedly lose business to the faster and more aggressive franchises. Speed and timely delivery of materials will allow technology savvy franchisers to approach and win more business. In today’s franchise world prospects generally look at multiple franchisers before selecting which one is right for them. Therefore the franchiser who has the fastest response time, and the first chance to earn a potential franchisees business is more than likely going to win.

Electronic UFOC distribution combined with an efficient electronic signature capture service is the right choice for virtually every franchiser. Explore the market and try out different providers to discover which one is right for you. The cost savings, the time savings and the efficiency gained by using electronic signature technologies is worth the effort.

By:

Jason McKay

Jason McKay is a Founder of the Electronic and Digital Signatures International Standards Commission. Mr. McKay is a well published author on the subject of electronic signatures, and has written many research articles and informational articles on the subject of electronic signatures.

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