How To Sell Without Case Studies Or Testimonials As Social Proof
I'm a long-time lurker here, but this is the first time asking questions here.
I'd like to hear your input on my situation, as I'm sure this isn't the first time you hear about it already.
I have a new digital marketing agency (yes, anyone can start an agency these days).
I won't be doing any of the actual work, as I have dependable veteran contractors to handle specific domains (content marketing, paid search, social media PPC, email marketing, retargeting, etc.).
I am doing the majority of the selling and account management until I'm at the point where I can afford to delegate them as well.
How I got here: I used to sell info-products on the Internet (yes, I know, common theme from the 4 Hour Workweek crowd). Even though I wouldn't say I was killing it, the sales were mediocre, and I was able to get by overseas. However, I felt burnt out, hence pulled it off the shelves as I couldn't keep up with the updates. Long story short, I've learned a lot of digital marketing skills, on top of studying the classics (e.g. David Ogilvy, Gary Halbert, Claude Hopkins, Eugene Schwartz, etc.; by studying, I mean handcopying ads, figuring out what it does and why certain things were chosen, and testing them on my own advertising). I've also purchased a lot of different training programs well-known in the Internet marketing world. Noticing the gaps between what a lot of brick-and-mortar businesses do and the potential of the tools, as well as there's an ecosystem of other individuals forming agencies, I went for it.
Problem and Context:
I found, as expected, that I'm having trouble selling my products as a newcomer, as relevant social proof (by relevant, I mean if I'm selling to, let's say home improvement contractors, that I have case studies or testimonials from other contractors or vendors) is scarce.
I have already investigated the option of presenting my contractor's case studies, even though they may be discredited/discounted as they are not mine (although I won't be the one doing the work, but monitoring the work done properly with the other components) nor related to my target industry. Well, from some of the sales calls I've had, I felt that they were discounted (and I don't think I sounded doubtful about my ability to leverage the technology or psychology to generate sales). Also, even though I won't be the subject domain expert doing the actual pay-per-click or email marketing management, I find using my contractor's irrelevant social proof as shady, especially if the prospective client is paying close attention to the details.
I have already attempted to find examples of marketing-savvy competitor of my suspects in my target industry. However, they are either challenging to find (not surprising as you would want to conceal profit centers from your competitors as much as possible), or the details I've managed to find are very piecemeal. This process involves the following steps:
1. Buy PPC ads on Facebook to attract my target market's attention to my landing page, in which I would dangle making more money/sales or even a promise to dissect how a company in their industry is killing it.
2. Dissect how certain competing companies are killing it with their digital marketing based on my spying tools, either in a recorded Powerpoint presentation, or live over a webinar.
3. Answer questions (either in email marketing sequences, on consulting calls, or live on my webinar)
4. Present my offer, either with social proof, or a discounted rate to replicate the model while making it clear that I'm doing this to collect case studies and testimonials.
I have also considered working for free to collect case studies, but I'm doubtful given my experience doing this in the past. I had tons of trouble getting successful businesses (I targeted them b/c my hypothesis was that they are more likely to take action in order to obtain results) to collaborate with me working for free. Looking back, I can't say I'm surprised. Nothing good ever comes to you for free, and they see their time cost not worthwhile, even though I offered to do the bulk of the work to reduce their bandwidth requirements. For the people I did manage to attract however, not only did they not cooperate well, I found them to be abusive of my time as well. Not a surprise as these are typical description of freeloaders, hence I got wary about offering to do work for free in exchange for case studies again.
I have also attended many networking events in the past, and I have sustained them for a good part of a year. However, I've only managed to get bonding with the attendees, which I seldom found useful as most of them are also folks like me, looking for project work. Looking back, I found the time and money spent there would've been better spent if I kicked up a notch on outbound cold-calls or buying Facebook PPC ads.
I have considered using some of the tricks listed in this blog post: 5 Tips to Boost the Credibility of Your Sales Messages and Sell More | The Daily Egg
Specifically using specific details, statistics, quotes, or just teach how the process works (most of my target market don't use the processes pitched, or use them properly), even if I wasn't the one who come up with them. However, those tweaks only go so far when prospects ask "what have YOU done?"
One last point before I close off my question... My immediate connections right now are not much of an asset in terms of referrals or relevant testimonials, hence why I excluded them as a potential resource. I truly believe that I'm better off not using a resource if it's proven to be inappropriate.
Yes, I know the number's game is part of the problem. However, as I pound the numbers either through cold-calling or buying PPC ads on Facebook, I want to take steps to address this problem. B/c I'm running out of ideas, I'm taking the time to write this to ask for help.
Question: Knowing the context of my problem, and my steps taken to address this, what would be your feedback to address this? Is it pretty much just a matter of pounding through unfavorable numbers, or sucking it up and taking another leap of faith of offering work for free with appropriate companies (so that the social proof doesn't get discounted)? Or do you find that I'm missing other ideas I should consider, given what you've read?
I'd like to hear your input on my situation, as I'm sure this isn't the first time you hear about it already.
I have a new digital marketing agency (yes, anyone can start an agency these days).
I won't be doing any of the actual work, as I have dependable veteran contractors to handle specific domains (content marketing, paid search, social media PPC, email marketing, retargeting, etc.).
I am doing the majority of the selling and account management until I'm at the point where I can afford to delegate them as well.
How I got here: I used to sell info-products on the Internet (yes, I know, common theme from the 4 Hour Workweek crowd). Even though I wouldn't say I was killing it, the sales were mediocre, and I was able to get by overseas. However, I felt burnt out, hence pulled it off the shelves as I couldn't keep up with the updates. Long story short, I've learned a lot of digital marketing skills, on top of studying the classics (e.g. David Ogilvy, Gary Halbert, Claude Hopkins, Eugene Schwartz, etc.; by studying, I mean handcopying ads, figuring out what it does and why certain things were chosen, and testing them on my own advertising). I've also purchased a lot of different training programs well-known in the Internet marketing world. Noticing the gaps between what a lot of brick-and-mortar businesses do and the potential of the tools, as well as there's an ecosystem of other individuals forming agencies, I went for it.
Problem and Context:
I found, as expected, that I'm having trouble selling my products as a newcomer, as relevant social proof (by relevant, I mean if I'm selling to, let's say home improvement contractors, that I have case studies or testimonials from other contractors or vendors) is scarce.
I have already investigated the option of presenting my contractor's case studies, even though they may be discredited/discounted as they are not mine (although I won't be the one doing the work, but monitoring the work done properly with the other components) nor related to my target industry. Well, from some of the sales calls I've had, I felt that they were discounted (and I don't think I sounded doubtful about my ability to leverage the technology or psychology to generate sales). Also, even though I won't be the subject domain expert doing the actual pay-per-click or email marketing management, I find using my contractor's irrelevant social proof as shady, especially if the prospective client is paying close attention to the details.
I have already attempted to find examples of marketing-savvy competitor of my suspects in my target industry. However, they are either challenging to find (not surprising as you would want to conceal profit centers from your competitors as much as possible), or the details I've managed to find are very piecemeal. This process involves the following steps:
1. Buy PPC ads on Facebook to attract my target market's attention to my landing page, in which I would dangle making more money/sales or even a promise to dissect how a company in their industry is killing it.
2. Dissect how certain competing companies are killing it with their digital marketing based on my spying tools, either in a recorded Powerpoint presentation, or live over a webinar.
3. Answer questions (either in email marketing sequences, on consulting calls, or live on my webinar)
4. Present my offer, either with social proof, or a discounted rate to replicate the model while making it clear that I'm doing this to collect case studies and testimonials.
I have also considered working for free to collect case studies, but I'm doubtful given my experience doing this in the past. I had tons of trouble getting successful businesses (I targeted them b/c my hypothesis was that they are more likely to take action in order to obtain results) to collaborate with me working for free. Looking back, I can't say I'm surprised. Nothing good ever comes to you for free, and they see their time cost not worthwhile, even though I offered to do the bulk of the work to reduce their bandwidth requirements. For the people I did manage to attract however, not only did they not cooperate well, I found them to be abusive of my time as well. Not a surprise as these are typical description of freeloaders, hence I got wary about offering to do work for free in exchange for case studies again.
I have also attended many networking events in the past, and I have sustained them for a good part of a year. However, I've only managed to get bonding with the attendees, which I seldom found useful as most of them are also folks like me, looking for project work. Looking back, I found the time and money spent there would've been better spent if I kicked up a notch on outbound cold-calls or buying Facebook PPC ads.
I have considered using some of the tricks listed in this blog post: 5 Tips to Boost the Credibility of Your Sales Messages and Sell More | The Daily Egg
Specifically using specific details, statistics, quotes, or just teach how the process works (most of my target market don't use the processes pitched, or use them properly), even if I wasn't the one who come up with them. However, those tweaks only go so far when prospects ask "what have YOU done?"
One last point before I close off my question... My immediate connections right now are not much of an asset in terms of referrals or relevant testimonials, hence why I excluded them as a potential resource. I truly believe that I'm better off not using a resource if it's proven to be inappropriate.
Yes, I know the number's game is part of the problem. However, as I pound the numbers either through cold-calling or buying PPC ads on Facebook, I want to take steps to address this problem. B/c I'm running out of ideas, I'm taking the time to write this to ask for help.
Question: Knowing the context of my problem, and my steps taken to address this, what would be your feedback to address this? Is it pretty much just a matter of pounding through unfavorable numbers, or sucking it up and taking another leap of faith of offering work for free with appropriate companies (so that the social proof doesn't get discounted)? Or do you find that I'm missing other ideas I should consider, given what you've read?