• I hope you had a great weekend, a great Valentine’s Day and (for those in the U.S.) a great President’s Day.

    I sure did.  In fact, Debi and I celebrated our nine year wedding anniversary on Valentine’s Day.

    We were the last couple to ever tie the knot on top of The World Trade Center on Valentine’s Day.  We got married February 14, 2001.

    So, needless to say… we partied like rock stars all weekend.

    Then on Monday, Ava and Elle had off from school – so we all had fun taking a day off.

    Now, it’s time to get back to work.  So I am back at my beach office ready to take our conversation about credibility, believability and proof much further.

    The sun has just risen.

    Here’s the view from my beach office this morning…

    sunrise Marketing An Online Business? Step #3 Pile On The Proof!

    Beautiful.  Alright let’s get to it…

    So far we’ve covered 10 methods you can employ.

    In our first post (you can read it by clicking here), we covered:

    1. The Powerful Demonstration
    2. Results In Advance
    3. Marquee Clients
    4. Track Record
    5. Powerful Associations
    6. Unique Mechanism

    In our second post (you can read it by clicking here), we covered:

    1. Displays Of Knowledge
    2. Personal Endorsement
    3. Case Histories
    4. The Sinatra Test

    Alright, let’s add two more today to your arsenal.

    We’ll start with…

    #11
    Innovation & Being On The Cutting Edge

    What It Is: Introduce new methods, technologies, or insights to your market increases your stature.  Do it consistently… the credibility and believability of your expertise shines for everyone to see.

    You can do this by:

    • bringing trends from the fringe to the mainstream…
    • being the first to leverage a new technology to benefit your prospects and clients….
    • being the first to alert your market of a future threat or opportunity…
    • breaking new ground in your marketing that adds more value to your marketplace…
    • etc.

    Why It’s Powerful: One of the most common questions we ask friends, peers and family members when we connect is “What’s new?”  Because in any area we care about we want to stay up to date.

    So, when you or your company can serve as the primary source of “what’s new” for your prospects and clients… you deliver value in a way that builds greater belief and credibility in your expertise.

    Example: I’ve used this approach so many times – it’s impossible for me to list them all here.  But here are a few examples (from this blog) to stimulate your thinking…

    1 – First to stream from a live seminar – February 10, 2007 – Here’s the blog post –  LIVE Streaming Video Discussion Thread

    2 – First in our marketplace to cover our conference with continual video updates (of each speaker) on our blog – From February 24-29, 2008 – Here are the blog posts:

    3 – First to introduce and recommend Twitter to our marketplace – March 7, 2008 – Here’s the blog post - How To Instantly Transform Your Cell Phone Into A Eavesdropping Device That Picks Up The Most Profitable Information Online Today

    4 – First to alert the market that (marketplace) attention was going to be the scarcest commodity in marketing – In The Attention Age Doctrine 1 (off the market) and The Attention Age Doctrine 2 (still available).  Here are the blog posts:

    How To Do It: All trends develop from the fringe.  The trick is to identify listening posts that key you in to what’s up.

    I have a folder in my bookmarks bar to save any sites I come across that serve as predictors of what’s to come.  Here’s some of the types of pages that are saved in my folder:

    So, start today.  Just place a folder on your bookmarks bar titled “Trends.”  Then whenever you come across any page you believe can provide you with the future insight to lead your marketplace, bookmark it and place it in that folder.

    Then once a month make sure to check in with those pages and see if you can pick up on any trends gaining momentum that your marketplace needs to know about.

    Next…

    #12
    Leveraging Research & Studies

    What It Is: There’s no doubt about it…We live in the information age.  The internet places in your hands the best tool to track down juicy research you can use to increase your credibility.

    For example with a little sleuthing on your part – you can easily find research that proves:

    • your prospects have a problem you can solve
    • your solution (or type of solution) is effective
    • the difference you or your business can make in your client’s lives
    • etc.

    Why It’s Powerful: By providing research to support the problems you solve, the solutions you offer, and the difference you can make… you make it easier for your prospects and clients to believe in you, your company, and the solutions you provide.

    Example: Here are two examples from the upcoming webinar I’ve been working on.

    This first one is from a study done by SCORE and U.S. Bank. As you can see it helps prove the need for services like mine – teaching entrepreneurs how to build and grow their businesses…

    SCORE+USBANK Marketing An Online Business? Step #3 Pile On The Proof!

    This second slide is from a study done by Dunn & Bradstreet.  This one helps identify a problem my prospects might suffer from.  And once again it helps support the need for my programs and services…

    Dunn&Bradstreet

    How To Do It: You’ve basically got two choices.  Either do the research yourself, or hire a researcher to find the information for you.

    If you decide to do the research yourself – the first places I would look are question and answer sites.  In fact – if my memory serves me correctly I found both of the above studies on Google Answers.  Another site to definitely check out is Yahoo Answers too.  Search both of these sites to see if someone else has already paid researchers to find the answers you want.

    If you decide to hire someone else to do the research for you – think about hiring a librarian.  Of course, the freelance sites like elance can be helpful too just make sure you’re hiring a proficient researcher to ferret out the information that would be helpful to you.

    Either way… think about the problems you solve and the solutions you provide.  Then point your own research or your researcher in that direction.

    O.K., that will wrap up today’s post.

    It’s always a challenge to get back in the groove – so I wanted to ease back into our series today (especially with the weekend I had).

    Of course, we’ve got lots more to cover – and we’ll do that tomorrow.

    But before you go…

    Remember to Re-tweet This!

    And tell me…

    What ideas, takeaways, or approaches did this post stimulate for you?

    See you tomorrow at 10 am sharp.

    To higher profits and beyond,

    Rich Schefren

    **********************************UPDATE***************************************

    This Post Is Continued Here:

    Marketing An Online Business With Credibility… Believability… And Proof!!! (part 4)

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