Feed back on a idea?

1. Every customer you have can at any point be used as a case study. Just ask to use their name otherwise leave it off.

2. Your past work could be a case study. I am assuming you have done what you plan to sell to them before at least for your own businesses.

3. Free has no value. So even if you decide to offer this only offer a discount for being part of this. Do not do it for free.

4. Social proof is great but when it comes down to it selling is a people business and people care about themselves. The social can help make them trust you. And if that is all that is losing you sales go for it. But the social proof will never make the sale. And if you are good at selling it will not break the sale either.

My overall point is why not just go out and sell. If they want a discount you can consider giving one in exchange for being an in-depth case study. Otherwise you can use any of your clients as case studies and ask for referrals and testimonials.

Putting the testimonials and case studies first is a classic cart before the horse. So go sell and then build up the testimonials and case studies from there.

No one wants to be first. But unless they ask how would they ever know? The way you seem to want to do it they would know. IMO that will cost you sales you could have made otherwise.

Aaron,

I love what you said and appreciate it big time! I have lots of sales exp especially B to B so sales acumen is not the issue, I just thought providing case studies or some type of social proof would kill the "who have you done this for before me objection"

I think I could just rank some sites myself without any business in mind to show proof of my skills. I also may be over thinking this whole process which is also hurting my success as well.

Aaron, man you got me thinking by what you said.

Glad to help.

I think too often we over think it. I know I am guilty of it personally.

You want all the ammo you can get when you go into selling. But in the end I would rather bag a deer with my 4 shots vs. go hungry waiting till I think I have enough ammo.

Hi there,

Basically you are talking about enhanced testimonials. This is a proof element essential to be successful at sales and it helps reduce the risk for future prospects. Good luck with it!

All the best,

Sasha

Generally speaking if you're getting asked a lot of questions about
what you've done in the past and your experience and skills then
you're not guiding your conversations with business owners in the
right direction.

You want your conversations to be heavily focused on the business
owner, his business and whatever else is important to him.

To get the conversation going in that direction you need to ask a lot
of questions and more important you need to listen.

When you're asking intelligent questions and you're getting the business
owner to talk about himself he doesn't have time to ask you questions
and his focus on what's most important to him.


It's great to have testimonials...even more powerful to get referrals, but
if you want to get hired you need to focus on simply getting good at
asking questions and listening.

As has already been said here, free has no value.

The clients who don't pay you or only pay you pennies don't value your
expertise and the value of your time because you haven't forced them
to do that by charging them a substantial fee upfront.

Clients who pay you a substantial fee upfront are usually a whole lot
easier to deal with and clients who pay you nothing upfront or next
to nothing will usually be problematic.


Having said all of that if you've never worked with a paying client in
your life there can be value in just working with a business owner at
any price so you can get experience at the process.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh