However, if you lower or eliminate the risk, then the natural consequence is people will be more inclined to buy from you.

That’s the secret of creating a powerful risk reversal.

Your risk reversal is nothing more than a simple method that takes the ‘barriers’ away from the prospect, and ensures they keep progressing towards the sale.

As soon as you add a risk reversal or guarantee to your business you…

• Remove the risks, gaining more clients, customers or patients

• Automatically differentiate your business from your competition (remember 'differentiation' back in Marketing Mistake #2?)

• And, your prospects will value your products or services much more, because they’ll automatically assume your product must live up to expectations or you must be excellent at delivering your service (why would you offer a guarantee if your product or service wasn't great?).

The result is a BIG increase in sales, and an avalanche of new clients or customers!

The ultimate is to guarantee the result or main benefit of your product or service and add a ‘penalty’ should your service or product fail.

Here’s a simple example of how risk reversal works:

A man wants to buy a puppy for his daughter. He responds to two ads in the local newsagent window. He examines the first puppy and it seems ideal in temperament, and looks. The man says to him, “If the dog isn’t right for your daughter, bring it back in one week and I’ll give you your money back.”

Clearly he appreciated the value of risk reversal but he didn’t fully understand it!

The man then goes to look at the second puppy…

Again it seems ideal in temperament, and looks. Only this time the owner says, “Your daughter is obviously looking forward to her new puppy and it’s important that she’s totally happy with it. Please take the puppy, let your daughter play with it, look after it, and get to know it. If after three weeks the puppy is perfect for her, pay me for it. If not, just bring it back and owe me nothing!”

Now this man really understands risk reversal. First he extended the “trial” period. He knows that his puppy is a good dog. He also knows after three weeks the puppy and girl will be inseparable. He totally reverses the risk.

You also need to understand this…

The company that reverses the risk, automatically gains competitive advantage and wins more business – in fact much more!

This competitive advantage is very significant when attracting new clients, customers or patients to your business.

Here's another good example. I think it’s one of the best I’ve ever seen. It’s from a pest control company called BBBK. Their guarantee is aimed at hotels and restaurants:

“You don’t owe one penny until all the pests on your premises have been eradicated…if you are ever dissatisfied with BBBK’s services you will receive a refund for up to 12 months of the company’s services…plus fees for another exterminator of your choice for the next year.

If a guest spots a pest on your premises, BBBK will pay for the guests meal or room, send a letter of apology, and pay for a future meal or stay…and if your facility is closed down due to the presence of roaches or rodents, BBBK will pay any fines, as well as all lost profits, plus $5,000.”

Although I don’t know for certain, it’s easy to assume several things about BBBK from this guarantee:

• They are very good at pest control.

• They understand the concerns of their clients with regard to hygiene.

• They are very successful at attracting new clients!

• They are probably providing very similar services to their competitors. However, they understand risk reversal and their profits I’m sure will reflect this!

Interestingly, they charge 10 times MORE than their competitors!

...and that's another huge advantage of having a powerful guarantee...

Because it differentiates you, you can charge more!

Hopefully you now have a basic grasp of guarantees and reversing the risk and what it can achieve for your business. If you’ve given any thought to the strategy one question may be entering your mind…

“What about people taking advantage of my guarantee, won’t people try to abuse what I’m offering?”

The key of course to successful risk reversal is this – if you offer a good product or service and you only guarantee what you control, then you have nothing to worry about.

Unfortunately I cannot say no one will ask for a refund or for their money back (or whatever your guarantee states).

What I can say is that for every one of these, you will attract many many more prospects and clients, customers or patients by simply offering a risk reversal in the first place.

Don’t worry about this.

Your risk reversal strategy is usually the one thing that tips the scales in your favour. Because you offer risk reversal your prospect thinks and assumes the following things about you…

1). If you’re offering this risk reversal guarantee, you must be very good at what you do

2). You must be foolish to offer such a guarantee if you were poor at delivering your promises

3). In the prospect’s mind, your risk reversal has ‘proven’ to him or her that you can give them exactly what they need.

4). More importantly, when most people choose to buy a product or service, they choose it for perfectly good reasons and intentions. And they spend time making their decision. They wouldn’t choose you in the first place if they wanted to capitalise on your guarantee.

Isn’t it time you started to use your very own guarantee?

It’s actually much easier than you may think. All you need to do is use client, customer or patient testimonials.

Again, I can’t tell you how often I see businesses trying to sell and market their products or services without the use of testimonials.

You make your life very, very difficult if you don’t use testimonials. Testimonials have the power to get clients or customers by the handful.

And remember, ever since Amazon first created 'reviews' they changed forever the way people now buy.

And because of that, testimonials are even more important now.

And don’t think ‘my customers won’t give me testimonials.’ For example, our unique ‘Testimonials By The Dozen Letter’ ALWAYS works.

Here’s a simple example (the legal firm thought their clients wouldn’t send in their testimonials because of the sensitive nature of the work they do)…

Notice the number of benefits in this one testimonial alone…

• Understanding and helpful
• Took time to talk
• Returned many calls
• Nothing was too much trouble
• Helpful home visits
• Worked hard to get the best result

If you were looking for a personal injury lawyer, don’t you think this testimonial would make you believe this firm would do all they could to get you the best possible result?

And that’s just one of dozens they got, many with the damages amounts given, just like this one…

(Note: Ideally, each testimonial should include the full name and partial address of each client, although I’ve omitted them here for obvious reasons)

You can’t have enough testimonials.

Place them in all your marketing communications. Place them in every place where your prospects will see them – in your offices, in your reception areas, on your walls, in your website and landing pages.

Blow them up and parade them. You’ll see an immediate and noticeable difference in your sales and profits once you start using testimonials.

No incentive to call now… etc.

Pick up your local newspaper of a magazine and go to any page. You’ll see this type of ad all over the place.

I urge you to stop this now. Big brand marketing and advertising could be costing you thousands of pounds.

Big brand advertising is fine if all you want to do is promote the image of your company, your products, or the services you offer.

But let me tell you – image itself doesn’t generate sales!

And when you consider the fact that your clients, customers or prospects really don’t care about you, your business or what you sell all they care about is 'what you can do for me'. That explains why to a small and medium sized business, image or big brand advertising is a complete waste of money.

Always remember this…

People don’t buy your product or service – they buy the result. They buy ‘what’s in it for me’. They buy a solution to their problem(s).

It’s true that big brand advertising can help build “brand-awareness”.

And that’s okay for large corporations such as Coca-Cola, that have multi-million pound advertising budgets (having said that, these companies would prosper even more if they used direct response advertising).

But most small or medium size businesses simply cannot afford to spend their hard-earned money like this.

What would you prefer…

Marketing and advertising that generates sales, almost immediately (direct response), or advertising that builds your name awareness or ‘brand’ (institutionalised advertising) in the hope that sometime in the future someone who wants your product or service remembers your ad and may or may not decide to buy from you?

Do you really have any option?

I guarantee as soon as you start writing direct response marketing and advertising, your results will skyrocket. For example, those characterised by powerful headlines, large amounts of copy written in a very personal style, cluttered ads, a reason to call now and a free bonus for calling (special report etc) etc., …you’ll increase your responses and sales many times over.

Break from tradition.

Start creating marketing strategies that give you a fast and immediate response, that you can monitor and assess in terms of cost and return. You’ll save money and make much more money by following this advice!