Page 114 - The $100 Startup_ Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love

sometimes you’ll discover additional objections as you go through the initial
sales process with real-time customers—but dealing with the most important
objections from the beginning will help you get off to a much better start than
the wait-and-see approach.

2. The Incredible Guarantee, AKA “Don’t Be Afraid”
Regardless of what you’re selling, the overriding concern of many potential
customers is, “What if I don’t like it? Can I get my money back?” A common
and highly effective way to combat this concern is to offer a satisfaction
guarantee. A word of advice: Do not make your guarantee complicated,
confusing, or boring. You don’t want your customer to overthink it! Keep it
simple and easy.

Further, if there is any way you can tie the promised results of your offer to
the guarantee, do so. Nev Lapwood, who runs a snowboarding instruction
program you’ll read about in Chapter 11, offers a 120 percent guarantee. If the
program doesn’t rock your world, you’ll get 100 percent of your money back,
plus 20 percent for your trouble.§ When I developed the Travel Hacking Cartel, I
promised that members who applied the program’s strategies would earn at least
100,000 frequent flyer miles a year, enough for four free plane tickets.

Not every business will be able to offer an incredible guarantee, especially if
there are substantial up-front costs for delivery. Alternatively, you can also make
the deliberate choice not to guarantee your product or service and then make a
big deal about that fact. The lack of a guarantee can then act as a filtering
process, gently steering away customers who weren’t a good fit, while
reinforcing the purchase for those who are.

Generally, you should offer an incredible guarantee or no guarantee at all. A
weak guarantee, or one that is unclear, can work against your credibility instead
of helping it.

3. Overdelivering, AKA “Wow, Look at All This Extra Stuff I Didn’t
Expect”

Immediately after buying something, we often experience a pang of anxiety:
Was this a good purchase? Did I waste my money? You’ll want to get out in
front of this feeling by making people feel good about the action they just took.
The easiest and most critical way to reinforce their decision is by giving them
quick access to what they paid for. But to go further, you’ll want to overdeliver:
give them more than they expected. You can do this by upgrading their purchase