What about store brand soft drinks? They might be really good, they might be terrible. It doesn’t matter – it’s only 85 cents more to get the national brand, and you know you like the national brand. Besides, what if your friends laugh at you? Come on, what’s High-Top lemon-lime soda? Where’s the Sprite? Sprite! What a bargain at only 85 cents more. Here’s a little secret – You’re more likely to be the Bob’s Burger Barn of your industry than the McDonald’s. But, don’t take that as an insult, because you might actually be much better – i.e. have a better Inside Reality – than the McDonald’s in your industry.

But the problem is, the customer doesn’t know. So it’s a high-risk situation for him to try you out. But, maybe you feel you’re the recognized leader in your industry – that you’re the McDonald’s. If so – Do you have all the business you want, or is there just more to be had? There’s always someone out there who thinks one of your competitors is better than you are. But what’s really interesting is that most businesses, just like Bob’s Burger Barn, figure that by just sticking their sign up on the side of the road with combo meal specials on the marquis, so to speak, that they ought to get their fair share of the business.

Here’s an example – I was recently in the market for a new phone system for my office. I did my research and found a company that sold a product I felt comfortable with, and even though it cost what seemed to be a lot of money for a phone system, it was still within my budget. If you’ve ever bought a sophisticated business phone system, then you know it’s not something you just call up and order out of a catalog. There’s a fair amount of planning that goes into getting everything squared away and ready to install. So I had gone through the process of negotiating, evaluating, and planning…and finally had just about all the details worked out and was ready to go ahead with the purchase.

Right at that point, a guy from another company called and asked if he could give a quote on a phone system. Having never met the guy, I agreed to let him stop by and introduce himself. When he got to the office, I was shocked. The guy looked like the missing identical twin of Rodney Dangerfield. He had the same goofy look on his face as Rodney, plus the wide collar Hawaiian shirt and gold chain necklace to complete the look.

I thought, “Wow, this guy sells phone systems?” He told me that he appreciated the chance to bid on the phone system, and that if he couldn’t beat the other company’s price by at least 30% that I shouldn’t even consider doing business with him. Out of politeness, I consented to his emailing a proposal over the next day. Sure enough, the next day the e mail came over with a quote for a different brand, and was about 30% less than the original vendor’s. So who do you think I ended up buying the phone from? The Rodney Dangerfield look-a-like? Not on your life. I went with the original system that cost 30% more – or in this case, several thousands dollars more.

Why? The risk was too high. Don’t you wonder about a system that’s 30% less expensive than what everyone else is selling? Wouldn’t that make you a little nervous? Do you really want something as critical as your business telephone system to be supplied by some weirdo selling off-brand stuff? Of course not.

Now you’re probably not a weirdo selling off brand stuff. But the story makes a point about people’s aversion to risk. Realize this – because of the Confidence Gap, any time a customer does business with you, particularly for the first time, there’s a certain amount of risk involved. In your business and in your advertising, the best way to lower the risk is to…well, lower the risk.

For example, there was a company that sold a non-insurance health benefit card that allowed a person to receive substantial discounts on dental, vision, and prescription services. You’re probably familiar with this type of product. They sold the card for something like $13 a month, or $150 for the year, but hardly anyone bought it. The sales agents complained and complained about how nobody wanted to buy the card, and their advertisements got almost no response. Well, the card was actually a really good deal…if people would use it. A person could save about $300 to $800 a year depending on their use. But think about it – how excited would you be to listen to a guy try to sell you some health benefit card for 15 minutes? The company considered giving the card away so that a person could use it FREE for 30 days from the first time it was used. Note – there was no way a person would save less than $25 or $30 when using the card, and they could potentially save over $100 on their very first use. Either way, they’d more than pay for the card, for at least a couple months, if they just used the FREE trial. Unfortunately, company executives resisted and came up with all the reasons why financially it wouldn’t work and they just couldn’t do it.

Those who can solve problems get paid really well. While those who recite all the reason things won’t work are generally broke.

Well, shortly after that the company quit the business, and we saw one of their competitors giving away the card FREE for a month. So we called them and snooped around a little, and discovered that sure enough, they were selling tens of thousands of new cards a month. It was low risk.

So let’s evaluate your situation: First, put yourself in your prospect’s shoes, a prospect who’s never even heard of you, and take a quick look at your advertisements.

1. What is the risk in calling you?
2. What’s the risk in doing business with you?
3. Are they afraid you’ll send salesmen calling all the time?
4. What can you do to lower the risk?
5. Can you guarantee or warrantee the work?
6. Can you extend the guarantee for even longer than you do now?
7. Can you give prospects an experience of your product or service before
committing to buy?
8. Is there more info you can give ahead of time to help prospects make an
intelligent decision?
9. Can you give prospects guidelines as to what to look out for when buying in your industry…regardless of whether they buy from you or not?

The Point Is This: Lowering the risk factor is an absolute MUST if you want to engender confidence with your prospects. And if you can solve the risk factor, you’ll get paid really well for it.

For a free marketing checkup, send an e mail to bruce@adultb2b.biz

The key to putting this all together is to challenge yourself to be specific when presenting your case. Think about an attorney. If you were on trial for murder and your attorney’s job was to get you off, he would pummel you with question after question after question to pull out all of the intricate details of your story so he could use them to your advantage. If your attorney asked you where you were on the night of the murder and you said that you were out with some friends, do you think that the attorney would stand in front of the jury and say, “He couldn’t have done it, he was out with some friends.”? Of course not. He would use a questioning methodology to find out all of the intricate details. He’d want to know exactly where you were. What time exactly were you there? Who exactly you were with? What exactly were you doing? Who else, exactly, saw you there? Where were you before you got there? Where did you go after you left? What exactly were you wearing? Do you have any receipts of any kind to prove you were where you said you were? Where would you normally be during that time?
These kinds of questions would allow your attorney to piece together a defense based on the details of what you told him. He could say to the jury, “Bob could not have possibly done it because he left his house at 6:45 pm and drove in his black Ford Mustang to his friend John’s house and picked him up at 6:55, after which they went to McDonald’s on 3rd street where the manager and clerk said they saw him because they remembered his green plaid shirt and Superman wristwatch. Here is his receipt for a Quarter Pounder with no cheese and no onions and super size fries and a large Sprite. They then left McDonald’s and arrived at choir practice at his church on 9th Street at 7:45 where 68 different people remember seeing him – including the bishop of the church. He remained at the practice until 9:30 when it ended and he stayed afterward with John and six other people. He arrived home at 10:05 where his wife was watching the evening news and waiting for him with an apple pie.” That’s a little more compelling than “He was out with some friends.”

Here’s what you need to remember: Advertisers LIE with generalities and tell the truth in specifics. Now I’m not saying that anytime you see a generality the advertiser is a bold faced liar. What I’m telling you is that the advertiser doesn’t have a good inside reality, is a lazy communicator, or is trying to pull one over on you. It’s like the whole Papa John’s “puffery” thing: Best Ingredients, Best Pizza. It’s a lie. It’s simply not a quantifiably truthful statement. Let me give you a few examples.

Let’s say you ran a men’s formal wear store and determine that one of the things people hate when trying to rent a tuxedo is the lack of style choices. Your idea is to create a great inside reality by carrying an enormous selection of tuxes your customers can choose from. So then you’re planning to run an advertisement. It doesn’t matter where – whether it’s radio or direct mail or newspaper or the yellow pages. The principles are the same. What do you say in the ad? Here’s one possible thing you could say: “Biggest Selection Of Tuxedos In The City.” What’s the problem here? You should know by now…remember the evaluation questions we’ve already gone through! I would hope so! Who else can say that? Do you really believe that? “Biggest Selection Of Tuxedos In The City” sounds like hollow puffery at it’s worst – even though it may be true! So let’s use the specificity challenge to make it better. What if you came up with a different headline: “We always carry over 4,550 different tuxedos in 62 different styles, 28 different sizes, and 21 varying colors – in price ranges from $19.95 to $895.” Now that’s specific. It’s not lazy communication. It’s powerful, specific communication.

Remember I just said that advertisers lie in generalities and tell the truth in specifics. Think about the way these two different headlines are perceived by the prospect. The first one, “Biggest Selection Of Tuxedos In The City” is immediately mentally written off as puffery and the claim is given little – if any – credibility. The second headline, on the other hand, is immediately accepted as absolute fact and wholly truthful. Could you really make the claim that “We always carry over 4,550 different tuxedos in 62 different styles and 28 different sizes and 21 varying colors – in price ranges from $19.95 to $895″ if it weren’t true? Of course you couldn’t. Here’s the important thing to remember: these two different approaches to this ad were written for the same company! See how you could leverage your advertising dollars to work harder for you if you’d just learn to say it well?

This law of specificity needs to permeate your advertising writing – headlines, sub-headlines, body copy, offers. All of your claims need to be specific and quantifiable. Whenever you write anything, you need to use the law of specificity evaluation. Always compare what you’ve written against these filters:

• What specifically?
• Why specifically?
• How much/how many specifically?
• How much/how many typically?
• Compared to what?

These questions will help you to put the right amount of specificity into your writing.
For a free marketing checkup, send an e mail to bruce@adultb2b.biz

Sites mentioned on our show can be found on our blog cushionradio.blogspot.com

You can download the podcast of this show by going to archives

Click here to download theTip of the Week

Tip of the Week is sponsored by Adult Forums 24/7The webmaster community that offers fun and profit.

Bruce Friedman Adult B2B
Connor Young YNOT

In the In The News Segment:
-New law would reveal adult stars HIV status
-R.I.P. Vudu’s “After Dark” adult streaming.
-WTF! If porn parodies weren’t enough; we bring you porn musicals, Grease XXX.

Check out our blog at cushionradio.blogspot.com and follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/thecushion

Click here to download theTip of the Week

Tip of the Week is sponsored by Adult Forums 24/7The webmaster community that offers fun and profit.

Cybersocket: For more than a decade Cybersocket has been the go-to  for all GLBT print, online and communications services. Not only producing the nations largest freely distributed gay magazine,.

Moderator for the What’s Hot Seminar: Greg Piccionelli
Panelist include:

• Jeff Mullen – X-Play
• Brian Shuster – Red Light Center
• Raffi Vartanian – WorldWideContent.com
• Allan Henning – DatingGold.com
• Shap – Twistys.com

and Not to be forgotten the ever popular In the news segment of the show covers:

• -ICM revives .XXX
• -YouTube rolls out new safety mode.
• -WTF: Vibro Glow Fleshlight