I recently had an interesting and enlightening marketing experience that I would love to share with you because it has some powerful insights on getting better responses from the people you’re marketing to.

I’m one of those guys who rarely ever opts into email lists.

I used to be subscribed to many, many lists and over the years have just decided that I’d rather be distracted and influenced less in my inbox so I unsubscribed from nearly every person I was following online.

(smart, not smart? – could be both but it sure seems to have made my mind and life a bit less cluttered)

So last week, when I was temped beyond my ability to resist to opt into someone’s list,

…you better believe I was asking myself some questions as to how this marketer got me to do what I was so resistant to doing.

Here’s how it went down.

This video pops up in my FB news feed, (it was a facebook lead ad, you know the one’s where the opt in form is right below the video on facebook)… and this guy was talking about he wanted to generate 1o – 50 red hot, pre qualified leads for my business each and every day for the low price of $50 bucks a day.

He said that these would be leads of people who had seen my business presentation, liked what they saw and were excited to connect with me to get their questions answered.

Of course, I was hooked, especially because this guy seemed trustworthy and credible.  He wasn’t offering to do it for free, and the $50 per day price tag made me think that it might actually be the real deal.

Here’s what happened next. 

I was sent to a video presentation that seemed to be selling me on how much money I could earn, learning how to do this guys system of lead generation for local businesses.

Huh?

I was so confused.

The next day I get an video selling me on lead generation software.

What happened to the guy who was going to generate all my red hot, ready to join prospects for the low price of $50 a day?

I will give him credit, he had a great follow up system.

Not only was he emailing me, his assistant was emailing and texting me as well.

None of that mattered.

My trust was gone.

Unsubscribe, the voice whispered.

And so I did.

2 Rock Solid Marketing Principles That Lead To Trust so You Can Make More Sales

1 – Congruence

If you tell someone they’re going to get one thing, you better give them that exact thing… otherwise they’ll be confused and confused people do not buy or join.

Say what you mean and mean what you say.

What’s on your opt in page must match what’s on your thank you page.

Common sense?

Maybe but like one of my mentors told me, “Common sense is not common practice.”

2 – Trust

Have you heard the phrase that “People do business with people they know, like and trust?”

Of course you have.

Do you think it’s true.

So do I.

But here’s the problem.

Good people, with good intentions sometimes do the wrong things with bad information.

Case in point…

Guy wants to learn how to market his business online and first thing he hears is… “You need to tell people you can give them exactly what they want so they’ll be attracted to you.”

So the guy puts together a lead capture page talking about red – hot, ready to join leads and sure enough, he gets leads.

Problem?

Guy can’t deliver on the promise so he loses trust with the people he was endeavoring to serve.

A sure formula for short term excitement and long term disaster.

Or the well intention home business owner hears… “Market yourself as a leader”, so he proceeds to act like he’s done all these things he’s never done before.

Unfortunately for this guy – Emerson may have been right when he said, “men are wiser than they know.”

The prospect sees through it and the marketing becomes totally and absolutely ineffective.

The solution?  

Tell the truth, be sincere, have something good to share, and share it in a way that’s honest.

A great quote that comes to mind is…

Trust is built one block at a time, but when it’s violated, the entire wall comes crashing down.”

Trust is like an invisible bank account that will pay you over and over and over again for who knows how long.

Are we in this for a quick cash and run profit?

Or are we in this to build a business that lasts a lifetime?

How we do business will determine which of the 2 categories we fall into.

To our freedom,

Paul Hutchings

PS – Have you had experiences where you lost trust with marketers?  Please share below.