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The truth about building trust online

Introduction

Ian Brodie

Ian Brodie

Ian Brodie is the best-selling author of Email Persuasion and the creator of Unsnooze Your Inbox - *the* guide to crafting engaging emails and newsletters that captivate your audience, build authority and generate more sales.


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The truth about building trust online

How long would you say it takes to build trust online?

Or let me put it more precisely: how long does it take before someone who doesn't know you will be ready to buy from you?

A month? 6 months? A year?

“It depends” is the only accurate answer, but it's not very helpful. So let's dive a bit deeper.

I recently ran a training course for experienced speakers, trainers, consultants and coaches on creating digital products. To get a feel for everyone's experience I asked them about the digital products they'd purchased online.

(Quick tip by the way, if you want to sell something like online products, you must have experience buying them. You need to be able to see things through your customer's eyes. It's surprising how many wannabe digital product sellers hadn't actually bought one themselves).

The products ranged from low cost kindle books, through training video series to live programs delivered by webinar.

At the lower end, because there wasn't much risk involved in the pruchase, people had a variety of reasons for buying ranging from curiosity, to having been told by friends they “must have” the product, to having a genuine need for it.

But at the higher end, $1,000 and above, there were always two big reasons.

Firstly, there was always a clear, highly desirable end-result that was easily worth the price they were paying.

And secondly, they trusted that if they bought the product, they'd get the end result.

And in particular, that meant they trusted that the person behind the product would be able to deliver the goods (ie that person had the experience and insight that meant their training course or advice or coaching would be certain to help the buyer achieve the end result they were looking for).

How long did it take to build up that trust?

A surprisingly short space of time to be honest.

In very many cases, people had shelled out $1,000+ after just “knowing” the person they were buying from for a few months.

Time wasn't the issue.

It was the experience they'd had with them in that time.

Had they repeatedly demonstrated they were real experts? Had they repeatedly demonstrated they got great results for their clients? Or that their customers got great results with their products?

Had they repeatedly demonstrated they cared about their customers? That they went the extra mile? That they were the sort of person you'd want to do business with?

That their ethics and philosophy were aligned with yours?

Time isn't the key variable. It's the number of interactions multiplied by the positive impact of those interactions during that time.

You can know someone for years, yet not really know them. Or know them enough to know you wouldn't buy from them.

So if you want to sell things online or off, you've got to make sure you're interacting with your potential clients or customers frequently, and that they feel positively about each interaction.

Not just the warm fuzzies that you're a nice person. But that you're the person they want to buy from. That you tick all the boxes I listed above (and others more specific to your clients).

Do you plan that into your communications with clients?

Honestly, few of us do systematically.

But when we do, it has a huge impact.

    Ian Brodie

    Ian Brodie

    https://www.ianbrodie.com

    Ian Brodie is the best-selling author of Email Persuasion and the creator of Unsnooze Your Inbox - *the* guide to crafting engaging emails and newsletters that captivate your audience, build authority and generate more sales.

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