How Do You Market Safety?
Last article I wrote was about your one job: ensuring your business owner clients (and everyone in the transaction) feel SAFE – sales come when you are Successful At Fear Elimination.
Check out the article here [linkedin.com/pulse/reducing-risk-your-only-job-jason-cutter-xdfae/].
But how do you do that with your marketing? How do you help someone feel safe enough to reach out to you, to get to know you, to think there is a chance they could trust you?
Money-Back Guarantees Social Proof Scars
As a business broker, it might be tough to offer a money-back guarantee. That is up to you to determine. Some brokers offer a free valuation, which only carries the risk to the business owner in their time and effort of gathering the needed documents. Other brokers charge a fee for the valuation, maybe an upfront retainer, maybe an ongoing monthly retainer that, upon successful completion of a transaction, is credited back towards the performance fee that is paid.
Those scenarios are probably the best you are going to be able to do in that first category. Social proof is usually easier, unless you are a new broker.
Remember, as humans we fear the unknown – it’s risky, dangerous, and the devil we know is better than the devil we don’t know.
Ever wonder how a business owner thinks it would be easier to shut down the business and retire versus trying to sell? That’s why…the survival, self- protection part of their brain is pushing hard for easy and safe.
We like it when we can see proof that other people tried something and it worked out in their favor (risk vs. reward analysis). It’s why product reviews are so valuable. It’s why testimonials make such a big difference in getting people to trust a brand enough to take that big, first step to purchase. Very few people (risk-tolerant early adopters) are willing to be the first to do something, like being a test pilot in an untested airplane.
All those stories and testimonials you can collect from your clients, the buyers, and transaction partners are valuable and should be made very public. Don’t hold them close to the vest when someone asks. You have no idea how many business owners are silently evaluating you before engaging with you, so make sure all the valid and valuable social proof is easily found by them.
Those first two made sense. You are hopefully already doing both as part of your marketing and sales strategy. Now let’s talk about scars.
Where does a scar come from? A wound. An injury. Something traumatic that happened healed enough, but it left behind a reminder of what happened. It could have been something small. I have many small scars that are reminders of things that happened – skinning my knee constantly during my BMX bike phase as a kid, cuts on my hands from working in a kitchen, and a scar on my finger from a shark-related fishing hook incident. Others have large scars – surgeries, broken bones.
The scar holds two truths.
First, something happened that was most likely unpleasant, unwanted, and painful. Second, it healed enough for you to still be alive and moving forward in life. People don’t want to hear about open wounds because if it’s still an open wound, there is a chance you won’t make it. Business owners don’t want to hear about your current transactional problems. They want to hear about the challenges you went through and came out successful.
They want to hear/see your scars. The signs of battles fought and won.
This is why stories are so important. It’s also why I am constantly telling brokers to share more of their stories, experiences, and perspectives. What happened and the lessons learned by making it out the other end. The scars of life, past business experiences, and being a business broker. That is what business owners want to find online before they meet with you. They want to know that you have gone into battle before, either won or lost, but learned from it, and have the highest chance of helping them win their battle.
Don’t just post about your latest listing or the successful deal you closed. Those are good – people like looking at the scoreboard. But if you think about a sports team that wants to win a championship, it’s about building a team of players who know how to overcome adversity. That can come from behind to win. That can be strategic AND tactical. That don’t quit. That put in more effort off the field/court than people will ever see.
This is what your future business owner clients want to see you post about or record content around. Remember, no one expects you to be perfect – you’re not performing rocket surgery. They are okay with some scars that were from hard lessons learned. They just want to know that you got better, stronger, faster because of it.
Until next time,
Jason
PS. Take the Digital Impact Assessment (free) →https://get.businessbrokergrowth.com/assessmentNL
