Just last week I was speaking to a group of 50 women and men. I opened by holding up a $20 and asking who would like this $20 bill. I also mentioned that there were no strings attached. You would have thought everyone would be raising their hands wanting
$20 bill.That isn't what happened. Less than half people raised their hand.
I gave $20 bill away and stood in silence. It wasn't a long silence but a silence where everyone expects to be hearing you talk is long whether it's 10 seconds or several minutes. I was waiting until I saw a few audience members began fidgeting.
Then one women spoke up. “Darn, I could have used that $20 for gas today.” You guessed it, she was one of hesitant ones.
My topic was on marketing. The exercise demonstrated that even when we market from truth with no strings attached and even though we totally think of customer first, many people perceive, assume, that there is going to be a catch to offer.
This is a powerful lesson when you are expressing your offer, whether it's written or verbal, majority of people reading or hearing it are going to be thinking with an “it's too good to be true” mentality.
This means that whenever you are preparing any type of marketing material you need to see your offer from this perspective.
The following day I again spoke to another group. This time audience was all women. I opened again with another $20. Only this time when I mentioned that there were no strings attached, I said it more powerfully - meaning more vocal variety - repeated it as if it was written in bold print and stated there were absolutely no strings attached. The word “absolutely” was set off with a mild hand slap.
