I was once listening to a Dan Kennedy product where he trolled the great & esteemed Jay Abraham a bit, while introducing him as a speaker.
I don’t know if it was meant as a “lesson” or not.
But it had an extremely valuable lesson in and of itself.
Here’s the gist of what happened:
Dan started reading from one of Mr. Abraham’s most profitable ads before he was going to train the room on his expertise, and Dan started quoting the part of the ad that started talking about how Jay’s ads have appeared in publications with a combined readership of 178 million readers, and how his sales letters have mailed to over 125 million consumers and business men.
Then Dan paused to laugh.
Why?
Because, it was a brilliant use of what he described as:
“Meaningless statistics.”
Or, as I like to call it when people do this:
“Meaningless proof.”
i.e., they sound impressive to the non-thinking customer or hyper buyer, but are inherently meaningless. In this case, they don’t “mean” anything other than Jay was good enough to get somebody to pay him to write ads that ran in all these magazines.
It doesn’t really mean anything worked or not.
And was pure advertising rhetoric.
It’d be like a corporation bragging about paying tens of millions of dollars to run a national TV ad campaign all of which essentially went down a black hole if it didn’t turn into some kind of business. Or, even worse, it could have even lost money like what happened when Gillette lost $10 billion in revenue after spending God-knows-how-much on that ad idiotically pandering to the #metoo crowd a while back.
Thus the term “meaningless proof.”
And you know what?
If you look around at the so-called ‘internet marketing’ world you can see this being done all the time.
Like, for example, “As Seen On” logos.
Completely meaningless.
(My favorite being a “Seen On Clickbank” logo I once saw.)
Same with ads bragging about how they’ve sent hundreds of millions emails out, when for all anyone knows they simply had some corporate clients with big lists sending boring emails that all ended up in spam. Or any time someone mentions email open rates, when for all anyone knows those emails didn’t make or lead to a single sale. Or when amateur copywriters name drop people they’ve studied, when for all anyone knows they simply read some of their $10 books from Amazon.
And so on, and so forth.
I’m not saying this does or doesn’t work or is or isn’t a bad idea.
Especially if it’s used with legitimate stats, proof, case studies, etc, and if you have a powerful kind of “preeminence” like Jay Abraham does. But, it’s a very weak way if that’s the ONLY thing you got to build credibility. Unless, I suppose, you only sell & want to look successful to gullible customers & clients who are unlikely to notice, much less care, either way.
Enter the March “Email Players” issue.
If you want powerful preeminence, the info inside can get it for you over time.
In fact, it shows you 10 proven ways even a brand, spanking new business can potentially use to build this kind of “built-in” credibility and proof into anything and everything you sell without relying on cheap tricks & gimmicks, without having to pull out meaningless statistics, and without even having any testimonials, a track record of experience, or list of raving fans & clients.
This info can be used by newbies & seasoned pros alike.
And, it’s one of the best ways I ever done used to not just make more sales and command outrageous fees, but can also bring those new customers and clients in correct.
By correct, I mean this:
They are less likely to fight you on your suggestions, running your copy, or following your content.
More likely to use what you teach or coach.
And, far more likely to benefit from the offers you sell, simply because they’ll want to treat both you and your offers with more respect, and not just nod, get distracted, and file it away and then go buy from someone else next time.
I’m talking about not just creating better customers & clients, but creating fans.
And, even more specifically, raving fans.
The kind of fans that — assuming you only sell quality offers — love buying from you, learning from you, engaging with you, listening to you, and referring others to you because they simply can’t help it.
This has been my experience with this powerful information.
And, I suspect it’ll be yours, too.
That is if you have patience, work hard, and stick with it.
And, also, if you subscribe in time to get the March issue to learn how it’s done.
Here’s the link:
Ben Settle
