The Trust Factor
7 Strategies To Convert Your Online Visitors Into Lifetime Customers
___________
Garrett Pierson & Scott Brandley
The Trust Factor
First published in 2011 by Outstanding Ventures.
Copyright © 2011 by Garrett Paul Pierson and David Scott Brandley.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without written permission from the authors.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and authors of this book have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work with specific disclaimer of all warranties, including, without limitation, warranties of success for a particular purpose. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. Neither the publisher nor the authors shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages. The publisher and authors are not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, medical, or other professional services.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0593-3
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
Chapter 1
Thinking Big
Do you remember your very first business idea?
I remember mine. It all started at my grandpa’s kitchen table one lazy summer day.
My Uncle Luke and I were young, scrawny 14 year-olds with nothing but free time and big dreams. On that particular day we came up with a brilliant idea for a brand new lawn mowing business called Quick Blades. We thought it was the coolest lawn mowing company name EVER! In fact, it was so good that we couldn't even think of another name.
That magical afternoon, Luke and I spent several hours planning out how we were going to become the richest kids in our schools. We came up with marketing tools that consisted of a really cool logo, some stylish uniform sketches and several hand-drawn fliers. We also created what we thought was a brilliant franchising plan.
You see, because Luke and I lived in different cities, we had to create a system that would work for both of us. So we had the genius idea of recruiting other teenagers as franchisees. In a nutshell, they would do all of their own marketing, mowing, trimming, and collecting, and then they would give us a share of the profits for the rights to our super cool logo, our fliers, uniforms, and a rudimentary, top secret formula that we had devised for determining how much to charge for each lawn they serviced.
Interestingly enough, there was a very important, underlying concept that we understood, even back then.
It was this...
Building strong 'Relationships of Trust' with customers is the key to long-term business success.
You see, even as nerdy 14 year old kids, we realized that if we could get someone to trust us enough to let us mow their lawn just once, and if we did a really good job, then there was a really good chance that they would let us mow their lawn every week from that point on.
This was how Luke and I were going to get rich. By building a group of loyal, lifetime customers, we believed that we could ultimately create long-term, stable recurring revenue. And although Quick Blades didn’t pan out exactly as we had hoped, twenty years later we are successfully executing this important concept in all our various businesses.
It's timeless. It's proven. And it works!
Over the last 14 years of doing business, we have sold millions of dollars of products and services online. During that time, we have discovered that trust is one of the most powerful assets that a website owner can have. In fact, trust is such a crucial, integral part of our business that we literally felt compelled to write this book, which is a compilation of seven of the most effective ways that we've discovered to build trust with visitors and potential prospects and convert them into long-lasting, loyal, repeat customers.
One of the first things you will realize is that this book doesn’t follow a traditional format.
For starters, this book is written by myself (Scott Brandley) and Garrett Pierson. We have both collaborated on each chapter. However, I have written the majority of certain chapters while Garrett has written the majority of others.
Sometimes Garrett or I share a personal story, and at other times we will discuss shared experiences that have taught us important business principles. We've also thrown in some of our favorite quotes and sayings and we've both integrated our various backgrounds and expertise on different subjects.
Ultimately, we feel that the unique set up and writing style of the book make it attractive and entertaining, as we emphasize important ideas and concepts that will help you in your business.
Why you should listen to us:
If you have a website and you sell products or services online, then the information you read in this book will help you take your business to the next level. Garrett and I have nearly 20 years of combined internet experience, which you can instantly and easily leverage.
What kind of experience? Well, for me it all started waaaay back in 1997. (You know, back when Al Gore invented the Internet.) In those days email was all the craze and online shopping was so new that many shopping carts didn’t even have SSL certificates (a commonly-used security mechanism on the internet.) In a short amount of time, my dad and I figured out how to create a web page and post drawings with a handful of printed t-shirt designs on it. Before we knew it, we were in business.
I wish I had taken a picture of that first site. It was painfully ugly. But somehow, after only a few days, we actually got an order! I was so excited that I ran around the house jumping and screaming like I was possessed! It was great. I’ll never forget it.
Over time, the orders increased. We went from getting an order a week, to an order a day, to 3 orders a day, to 10 orders a day and it just kept going up. Before long, we had dominated the search engines. We were even beating out huge brick and mortar stores that had been in the industry for decades! The great thing was that it was just me and my dad in a condo basement. Talk about leveling the playing field!
After a few years, we had grown to the point where we were maxing out our niche online. It was at that point that we decided to sell our online clothing company.
Ultimately, we sold the business because we realized two things:
The first thing we realized was that selling physical products online is hard work. If you sell products online, you can probably relate. Selling products involves inventory, suppliers, sorting, packaging, shipping, out-of-stock items, returns, small profit margins, and a long list of other challenges. Long story short, we decided that we didn’t want to sell products anymore.
Now don’t get me wrong. Millions of people sell products online every day. And although we were very good at it, it just wasn’t for us long-term.
The second thing we realized was that we loved helping other people succeed online. We also discovered that we had a special skill for developing software, so we decided to create valuable, innovative digital solutions and services to help online business owners become more successful.
This was about the time that Garrett and I crossed paths.
Prior to my meeting Garrett, he was in the health care industry. Back In 2004, Garrett was given a very unique opportunity