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Winning The Game Of Trust Will Catapult Your Business
Hello everyone, welcome to Today’s Growth: Growing Business Today. I am Ken Courtright once again sitting here in absolutely gorgeous Minooka, Illinois, that is complete sarcasm. We are about 40 miles southwest of Chicago, and it is January about 18 to 22 degrees, our lake is frozen solid. Luckily, at 4 AM. I am heading to one of my favorite cities Las Vegas.
That reminds me actually of my Grandma Sally, and Uncle Ken, as he was called grandpa Ken, went to Vegas in the late 50’s. It turned out that Grandma Sally tilted one of the slot machines, she used to love playing the nickel and the dime slot machines at the Golden Nugget. If you remember Pinball, if you tilt the pinball machine, it makes a bunch of noise and a bunch of racket. She remembers vividly tilting 1 of the slot machines and it started making a bunch of racket, so she ran away. IT wasn’t until 20 years later, in the late 70’s, when they finally got back to Vegas that they walked in to the same casino, the Golden Nugget, and sure enough somebody else had just tilted 1 of the slot machines.
Grandma Sally grabs Uncle Ken’s arm and says Ken, check it out, somebody just tilted the slot machine, and my grandpa goes what do you mean. She says well, you know, they broke the machine, they either hit it too hard or pulled the arm too hard and broke the machine. My grandpa goes no, that person just hit the jackpot. Look at that thing lighting up, and making noise, and listen to all of the coins coming out. I guess my grandma turned white as a ghost, and she goes Ken, do you remember 20 years ago when we were here, I did that to 1 of the machines but I though I broke it, and I ran away. It was grandpa’s turn to turn white as a ghost.
That is a pretty good story, but I am siked to leave at 4 AM. to head out to the Affiliate Summer Conference in Vegas once again. Last episode, we talked about credibility is the new currency. We talked about a dentist, Dr. Shuman, actually tripled his income, got into the Inc. 5000 category 3 years in a row, tripled his prices, and became a well known dentist and apparently just retired, because he raised the perception of his credibility. We talked in detail that nothing changed for him, he didn’t go back to school, he didn’t learn a better way to drill teeth or pull teeth. He just surrounded himself with celebrities. The world perceived him now as a celebrity dentist and he raised his prices. It was tremendous, good story. That was the previous episode, I believe that was called Rookie To Expert in 6 Months, if I’m not mistaken.
We are going to take the roof off of credibility in this episode. This episode is called Trust Trumps Everything. I spent almost all of 2014 doing a talk titled, Trust Trumps Everything. About a year, a year and a half ago, maybe as far back as 2 years ago, we were analyzing at that point our 400 website portfolio. We noticed some of the sites were drastically out earning some of the other sites with the same exact amount of traffic. They were all similar industries, so they were all insurance or mortgage. Same industry, had almost identical traffic across 10 sites except 2 of the sites were making a gob more money. I think some of them were 5 to 10 times more money and we were scratching our heads.
I had a hunch it was something called social proof, but at this point it was just purely a guess. Social proof is something where it is defined by saying that if the world says it is so, it must be so. Meaning if you say something, you are just a sales rep, if your website just said something, your website is the biggest sales rep for your company, nobody trusts a sales rep. If you say you are the best, nobody believes you. If the world says you are the best, if the media or the J.D. Power and Associates, some credible entity says you are the best, then you know what, you are probably even better than they are saying.
I thought based on the design of these sites that were really performing, there might be something to this social proof thing. I wasn’t sure, so anyway here is what is cool. I come home from a trip and it is about 12 or 12:30 in the morning, I am a little bit tired to say the least. I get in to my bedroom and there is my 6 year old son propped up in our bed. I walk in the door and he is like daddy, daddy, we are going to watch Brain Games tonight. I put my suitcases down, I looked at him, he is 6 years old, he is so stinking adorable, his name is Kenneth Dean Courtright IV, and I said to myself you know what, we are going to watch Brain Games. The average father locks eyeballs 7 minutes a week with his children. I don’t consider myself average, so if my son says we are going to watch Brain Games, well we are going to watch Brain Games.
Here is what I did, you can’t make this up. I sat in bed next to him and I grabbed the Xfinity remote, I went to Brain Games, I pressed arrow down and I randomly chose an episode. I let my finger off the clicker, or as we call it the Zgan. I took my finger off of the zgan, and it landed on all things, an episode called Social Proof. I basically looked up to the sky, pointed up to the sky, said God you are awesome, kissed my son, gave him a nugie, hit record, and watched an episode of Brain Games titled Social Proof. I urge everybody to watch that episode after you hear this podcast.
I am going to give you the highlights of why this was literally world changing for our company. I think it will be life changing for you as well. We are watching this episode, social proof is all about hey if the world says it is so, it must be so. If 1 person says something, it is quite frankly not even believable. We are watching this episode, and the episode of all things starts out in Las Vegas on old Freemont Street with the 2 million canopy of lights. National Geographic is the parent company of Brain Games, and what they do is they set up these ropes just like you are going through security at the airport. They set up these ropes in the middle of Freemont Street, in the middle of nowhere, in front of nothing. They set up these ropes with a sign in front that says line starts here. They have cameras on the rooftops of all the local hotels and they are recording, and they show the time lapse photography.
People walk up to the sign, line starts here, it is in the middle of nowhere, everybody walks by, everybody. A couple of hours go by, finally National Geographic plants an individual, like a 25 year old single kid at the front of the line and people start walking up and they say hey, what is this. He says I don’t know but it’s Vegas and I didn’t want to miss it. Pretty much, everybody walks by, 95% of the people walk by. All of a sudden, after another hour of time lapse photography, a couple walks up and says hey, what’s going on. He says you know, I don’t know but it is Vegas and I didn’t want to miss it. They look at each other, and they go what do you think, I don’t know, what do you think. They get in line and all of a sudden it went from a person to a group. When a group says it is so, it mush be so.
Now, instead of 9 out of 10 people walking by, when people would walk up to this group and say hey, what is this. They would all collectively say well, we didn’t know but it is Vegas and we didn’t want to miss it. The people would look at each other, and they would go huh, so they would start getting in line. Now, instead of 90% of people walking past, 70% of people got in line to nowhere. All of a sudden, another hour goes by, they have another plant that walks up to the single guy in the front. They basically release the line, they remove the front strap and this kid starts walking forward. What you can’t tell until they show it to you with the camera, is about 20 feet forward, there is a piece of masking tape on the ground. Everybody starts following this kid straight forward, and the kid jumps over the masking tape and so does everybody else.
The kid does a complete 180 and he starts heading back in a different direction to nowhere, and everybody starts following like a snake across Freemont Street. Then he notices there is a hopscotch pattern on the ground, and he jumps hopscotch and so does everybody else. They do the mamba, the limbo, and so does everybody else. All of a sudden, it just breaks and everybody disbands and it goes to nowhere. All of the camera crews come out and say ha, ha you’ve been on Brain Games National Geographic, just showing you the proof of social proof.
How does social proof relate to business websites, making money, what is the point here? The point is huge, because as I said in the previous episode, the definition of sales is a transference of feelings. How 1 person feels about something transfers to another person. The feeling that a website gives off transfers immediately to the visitor that goes there. I mean immediately, if they open that website, listen very carefully. If they open up a website, and there is evidence that they may be that website’s 1st customer, part of the definition of social proof says, we are followers first, leaders only when we have to. We are born followers, we are not born leaders, we are born followers. We are followers 1st, leaders only when we have to, definition of social proof.
IF they come to your website, and they are looking at it, oh it looks fine, good products, good price, oh this that and the other. They could be your 1st customer, they are never going to be your 1st customer. There is no evidence of social proof, of the world saying you are awesome, of testimonials, endorsements, bodies of people, groups of people saying how phenomenal those products are, those companies are, reviews upon reviews, etc.
Social proof, if we strip it down, in how it relates to websites, businesses making money, you better put a website as the front of your business. You have to have a website, that is not optional, it is not even a discussion anymore. Your website better have certain things on it. What I am going to do in the next few minutes is I am going to describe the difference between a physically naked website, it could look pretty it could be designed by a graphic designer, pay 20 grand to design it, to me it could be completely naked. If it is lacking social proof it is completely naked. In the next few minutes I am going to explain how to put a proper suit coat on a website. The reason you need a suit coat on, as I covered either in a previous or in a future podcast, there is a right and wrong way to dress up a website. It has nothing to do with how pretty it is or how much money was spent on it. It has to do with what is physically there on the home page.
If you are driving in a car, if you are listening to this, do no write this down. Write it down when you get home, with a pad and paper. I am going to put a glft suit on every website out there. Everybody that listens to this podcast, we are going to help them dress up their website. Glft suit is G L F T S U I T. The first thing we are going to do with your website is we are going to go offsite and put the underbelly of your website on, which is Google Plus, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. I don’t care what anybody might have told anybody about Google Plus. You are going to do it anyway, because Google owns it.
Why are we going to do this? Number 1, if you are going to sell something in today’s world, which everybody is a sales person as we discussed prior, people are going to Google your name. If you don’t come up on Google Plus, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter basically 4 of the 10 biggest sites in the world that give free profile pages, if you can’t dominate your own name that says a lot, quite frankly. You can’t be found, you are a ghost, and ghosts don’t take credit cards.
Let’s say you can found, now that is step 1. What they really want to see is your website, your credibility, what the world says about you. We have to put a suit coat on your website. Here is what we do with the suit coat. We recommend TLC. On a piece of paper going down you are going to write G L F T, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. R TLC, we recommend for R TLC.
First thing you are going to do at the very bottom of your website, is you are going to use really large statewide or national brands like Girl Scouts, your local church, part of the AARP, any major organization you are a part of. At the bottom of your company’s website, you are going to get these large organizations giving personal testimonies about you as a person or your company as a company. They need to be big labels. Go back and if you were part of the Girl Scouts 30 years ago, and there is somebody still alive. Say hey Suzie are you still around, great can you say a couple of great words about me as a person. You put the Girl Scout logo on the bottom of your website, with a couple of sentences about you as a person. The bottom of your website, this is just the core, the absolute bare essentials to have instant trust and credibility to do business and raise your prices.
At the bottom, you are going to throw some killer endorsements out there. Right above that, T testimonials, what if you don’t have any testimonials. What if you are brand new in business. You are going to give a few products away, you are going to give some of your service away, in direct exchange for a testimonial. The best way to get testimonials is to get a bunch of them and then carousel rotate them, physically in a rotation carousel at the bottom of your website, because you can never have too many reviews or too many testimonials.
Right above testimonials, you are going to go and jump in to the most important, which is local and national media. If you have never had media coverage, you are going to go and get some. You are going to do it the right way. Here is a Ken Courtright modality that has been used by I don’t know how many people, but it is awesome, it is inexpensive, and it works. The first thing you are going to do, when you get home do not do this while you are driving, you are going to sketch out a square box. That is the website, at the bottom of the website you are going to write out endorsements across the bottom. Right above that, testimonials across that. Right above that, I want you to create 4 different boxes. In the left 2 boxes, I want you to write local media in each box. In the right 2 boxes, I want you to write local media in the boxes. It is the same thing.
Right above them, I want you to write newspaper on the left 2 and magazines on the right 2. What is going to happen here, is I want you to go take out 4 advertorials, 2 in local newspapers and 2 in local magazines, so you only have to pay say 50 to 150 dollars and get a quarter page or a half page ad. Advertorial is just what is sounds like, it is an advertisement for your company. In this case, I don’t want you to do that. I do not want you to take out an ad for your company in these newspapers or magazines. What I want you to do is I want you to do 4 different goodwill stories, to see examples of this, it think it is ABC or CBS, for 35 years Harry Porterfield had a show called Someone You Should Know, those are goodwill stories. You can look those up online to give you a feel for how these go. Those are video ones, but you just do this via an ad, do the same thing.
1 of them might be, you might have a high school kid who was hit by a car as a Freshman, got her life in order, and graduated 4.0 as a Senior. You are going to take out an ad in a local newspaper, you are going to write this story about this young girl. I don’t care if you are in mortgage or insurance, I don’t care if you are in carpet repair. You are going to put this advertorial on your home page. Right above it, it is going to say as seen in the local newspaper, whatever the name is, The Herald Tribune. If someone does click on that, when they open up the ad in the local paper, at the top of the ad it is going to say sponsored by and then the name of your business. The whole ad with the picture of that girl is dedicated to the story of how she overcame.
Maybe your 2nd one is a veteran who had PTSD, just got a great job, and now he has his life on track, or someone that… 4 good will stories of any kind, it doesn’t matter, just follow me on this. This works every time if you do it exactly the way I say. You get 2 newspaper advertorials, you get 2 magazines, local trade journals, advertorials, and now what I want you to do is I want you to jump on Haro, H A R O. This stands for Help A Reporter Out. You are going to go in to your profile, let’s say you are in to furniture repair, or whatever you do, and you are going to put in a profile for an expert in furniture repair.
Haro is set up by, I believe 7,000 editors and reports worldwide that don’t have time to find a reporter or a writer for a certain story. Every major newspaper uses this, from Entrepreneur to Wall Street Journal, they all use it. They are going to go in there blindly and say I need 750 words from anybody in the world on carpet repair, furniture repair, hair loss, whatever it is. If your specialty comes up, Haro is going to email you this request based on the profile you have set up, and I think it is free.
If you get a request for 750 words on furniture repair, you don’t know if it is going to Wall Street Journal or the local newspaper, you have no idea. You want to respond in a timely manner, if they ask for 750 words, don’t give them 1,000 don’t give them 500, give them 750. Deliver exactly what they are asking for, and here is what is going to happen. The reason I know this is how it goes, is some of my greatest friends are on the other side of Haro, putting in the requests.
Here is how it goes. Someone, say a Karen Leland, who writes for Entrepreneur, is going to put in a request in Haro, I need 750 words on why entrepreneurs need to stay up later and get up earlier, or something like that. It is going to go to any entrepreneur that feels like they can write on that. Karen is going to get flooded in 72 hours with maybe 100 or 150 responses and she is going to pick out 2 or 3 articles that she thinks are very worthy of being posted in Entrepreneur Magazine. If you are Karen Leland writing for Entrepreneur, you are then going to background check whoever wrote that article. You are going to Google their personal name, you are going to hope they have LinkedIn, you are going to hope they have Facebook pages, and Twitter, and a following, and gosh forbid a website that you can read. Guess what, as it goes, if they Google the person’s name and find that website, if they open that page and they notice 4 places this person has been in the local media, as Karen and others have told me, they don’t even open them and read them.
They say, whoa this person is credible and they have already been in the media, they don’t have time to dig in and read other things you wrote. They have already read something you wrote. They are going to go with it. If they did click on those goodwill articles, you are going to melt their heart and you are going to absolutely get that posting or that article, and now what is going to happen is you are going to be published on Entrepreneur. You are going to remove 1 of those 4 advertorials that you purchased, you are going to replace it starting on the left side with Entrepreneur.
How do I know this works? If you go to Incomestore.com, our 2nd company, click the press room, guess how we got some of those cover stories on Website Magazine and this and that, through Haro. It works, we did it, that is how we know it works. We don’t deliver any theory in this podcast or on kencourtright.com with some of the videos or at our digital footprint events twice a year, which by the way Forbes just announced is 1 of the top 5 must see conferences in 2016. We do them in April on the east coast, and in November on the west coast. We were just honored as 1 of the top 5 business conferences in 2016 by Forbes magazine, so I digress.
The point is, the reason that we know this works is because we have done it as a company and we have taught it for years as a company. Back pedaling, Trust Trumphs Everything. The ultimate indicator of trust is social proof, the highest level of social proof is what the media says about someone. You want to start with recommendations, anybody can get those. You want to start with testimonials, anybody can get those. You want to upgrade to taking out some advertorials and get to know the vernacular of working with the newspaper or magazine by taking out an ad. Get to know the language, and then jump on Haro, be aggressive be fast and start responding to these.
If you have Google Plus, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, if you have proper profile, if you have a website that looks credible and trustworthy you are going to get that job in those newspapers and magazines. If you do it consistently enough, believe it or not you are going to start to get outside requests and being interviewed on WGN, CBS, etc. like our company has been in the last 90 days. We have been asked to write books and do this and do that and have a great time.
What is the point of this episode of Trust Trumps Everything? It is that credibility, like our previous episode proved, is the new currency, and to raise your credibility to get more jobs, get more leads, charge more money, write books, do speeches, you have to be trustworthy and you have to prove it. It has to be real. It can’t be you saying you are awesome, it has to be the world saying you are awesome. Social proof has proven that if you say it is so, eh I don’t know. If the world says it is so, it must be so.
I am Ken Courtright signing off. Take care.
That’s really thiinnkg at a high level