The WEST Program Blog

A Guide for the Liars of Marketing and Sales

“Bat Guana is Responsible for 2% of the World’s Methane Poisoning!”

It’s ironic.

If you were to read that headline in a trashy tabloid or gossip magazine, you wouldn’t give it a second thought and you’d be happy with going about your day. Yet, if you were to read that same headline on a newspaper or sales page you’d give it some thought and perhaps read further.

Is the statement true? I seriously don’t know, but it isn’t my job to know that is it? Alright, enough of the cloak and dagger stuff, I’ll get to my point. If you are a sales or marketing professional there is one solid truth you and the rest of us must live by. Just because we say it’s so, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true. There has to come a point in time where marketers and sales people hold themselves accountable for the claims they make. Even if those claims reside in a three lined piece of ad copy, you have to back up your facts.

Even the FTC is jumping on board with this. Recently the FTC released ammendments to long existing guidelines about the whole “results are not typical testimonials.” It would seem some of the juice, snake oil, pills and potion pushers wereflying a bit to close to restricted airspace with company and corporate testimonials that laid claim to some pretty outrageous results. In today’s world there are two types of consumer and buyers. On one side, there is the consumer who consumes some, then more, then more and before you know it their credit card bills are more than they make in a year and it’s your fault they spent money they didn’t have.

Some could say that statement is from a marketer so it doesn’t necessarily mean it is true. You’d be right. But, the marketing industry has tested time and again that most consumers are not aware of all the purchases they have made over a twelve month time period. Further, most consumers do not understand what they are purchasing or, don’t even understand it after they have purchased it. I can take this even further to state my own research has shown that nearly ninety percent of consumers facing buyer’s remorse will not even ask for a refund or return a product because they believe it will be too much of a hassle or cost them more in the long run.

It’s sad the sales and marketing industries have become professions where a lie is more common than the whole truth. Imagine this, if for just a moment:

You are a professional author who has just met a team of scientists who have discovered a cure for cancer. You ask the scientists for permission to write about their discovery with the hopes more agencies will help fund their discovery and testing. You write your book, it gets picked up by a publisher and the publisher asks for results based testimonials. You’re stuck. You have nothing to present this publisher with since the discovery is barely out of the testing phase. You are attempting to sell an idea or product without backing up what it will do for the end user.

In another scenario, all the above applies except for the fact you have scientific data and research that shows what the scientists’ testing has discovered and what their projected progress could be if they had the proper funding. This allows for an educated decision to be made by your publisher and investors.

In both scenarios, there was a passion surrounding an idea or “product”. In the first scenario, the author (or marketer) was providing no substantial proof of the benefits of such an idea or product.

In the second scenario, were testimonials provided? Did the author have statements from human test subjects that sold results or miraculous cases of cancer being cured? No, in both cases no user or results based testimonial was utilized or needed. Although, in the second scenario, the author presented data and projection which could allow the end reader to come to a specific conclusion. This is called pre-supposition and it allows our consumers or audience to come to their own conclusions based upon FACTS we as sales people and marketers may present to them. No smoke and mirrors, no hyped up sales claims or testimonials; they simply have the facts and benefit information of the products or services you are selling.

Imagine, a world of marketing and sales where the consumer is savvy to marketing and sales tactics. Oh… they already are savvy you say? Imagine a world where marketers are too reliant on results based testimonials instead of facts and benefits of a product that can be proven. Really, marketers and sales people are already too reliant on hyped up claims and testimonials?

Imagine this for a moment. What if buyers could come into a sales or marketing situation and be presented with the solution they are looking for? What if they could learn what all the benefits are that your product has to offer while still learning how much it is going to cost them, how much it will save them compared to your competition and what level of a solution it will provide? In this scenario, you could weed out buyer’s remorse. With these elements laid in place, you would no longer need worry or rely on results based testimonials. With the straight honest truth without the hyped claims, you’d have to rely on your product or services own merits and value.

Here’s my final question for you. Could you do this for your market place or, does your product need the hyped up claims?

Would you like to learn the honest way of doing business in marketing and sales without all of the hyped up tactics but instead achieve bigger results by being honest? Click Here