There are many reasons why a client may choose not to work with you. Perhaps they aren’t part of your target market for your specialty, or maybe your price point is a bit off their budget. But other than those two reasons, the overarching reason clients will forego their shopping cart or ultimately say ‘no’ to your sales pitch is because they have a lack of trust in what you offer.
Trust is critical for sales. Without trust, you won’t get far. If you have it, it’s amazing how clients will jump through hoops just to work with you. Trust is the reason clients might put a large deposit on their credit card even if they objectively can’t afford it: they trust you to deliver a significant ROI. Trust is why they’ll sacrifice their time and their hard-earned money. To clients, trusting you means that they believe wholeheartedly in what you say you offer.
As you can imagine, this is hard to establish, and is something that has to be built over time. This is where many entrepreneurs get stuck, especially when they open programs for enrollment just to get crickets. So, if no one is buying, assess how much these clients trust you. If they do, you’ll know it. They’ll be asking about payment plans and finding ways to make it work. But if they don’t, try implementing these two simple strategies to begin to build trust.
Lacking Client Trust? Try These Two Easy Strategies | Stephanie Burns
Deposit Photos
Share Case Studies Of Clients You’ve Helped
One rule of resonating with potential clients: help them see themselves as someone you can help. This also means you’re positioning yourself as someone who can help them, but sometimes the benefits need to be clearly spelled out. The truth is, many potential clients don’t know what they actually need – they just know that they’re stuck or lacking in some way, and that they need help overcoming the hurdle.
So, sharing case studies is a powerful way to help them see themselves as one of your clients. It works like this: maybe your specialty is helping clients slowly grow their consulting businesses so that they can shift out of their 9-5 jobs. You do any type of work around scaling consulting businesses, but you tend to really help a customer persona of someone who is currently stuck in a job they don’t like, trying to balance their demands with building a business.
Create a case study based on one of your clients (with their permission) – this case study should share the client’s initial struggles and challenges in great detail, and here’s why: this is where potential clients will be able to resonate. If the client in your case study struggled with time management and clarity around how to actually get started while balancing their 9-5, go into great detail about this struggle. Potential clients who are in the same sticky situation will see a reflection.
Then, explain how you helped without giving away your special sauce. A case study should guide potential clients through the life cycle of the client’s work with you, without giving away any specifics. The arc of how their business scaled, or how they achieved results, should be central to the case study. This shows potential clients what they could have if they choose to work with you.
Ask For Video Testimonials From Previous Clients
Written testimonials are a great way to establish trust – especially if a testimonial has the story arc of a case study (i.e.: I started here, and with this person’s help, I got here) – but what’s even better is to bring a visual to it. Asking clients or customers for video testimonials is an unparalleled form of social proof. That’s because we’re all visual and have to “see it to believe it” – which is why articles with visuals get, on average, 94 percent more views than articles without.
With video testimonials, potential clients get a face to a name and legitimacy is bestowed. Much can be shared via a video testimonial, including a past client’s enthusiasm and little details that a written testimonial may not capture. It can seem like a big ask to request a recorded video from a past client (especially if they aren’t tech savvy and don’t know which platforms are best for recording and sending files), so have an easy fix at the ready like VideoPeel, a platform that allows customers or clients to record their testimonials at any time, which helps brands to leverage the power of customer engagement and build trust.
VideoPeel also helps companies to publish this authentic user-generated content across their marketing cycle. Their team conducted a case study of their own and found that after one company followed these steps with their video testimonials, their conversion rate went up by 8.1% and sales went up by 12%. That’s a big payoff for a little tweak.
Remember that trust relies on information and consistency. As long as you’re continuously showing up, proving that your product or service actually works, and creating reliability in the eyes of your target customers, that trust will be earned. You ARE the answer that many are looking for! Help to prove that to them through the use of case studies and video testimonials to build trust.
