Latest / Ambitious Podcast / EP.68: Social Proof BOOSTS Sales by 270% (And Most People Still Don’t Do It) | The Ambitious Podcast

Transcript

EP.68: Social Proof BOOSTS Sales by 270% (And Most People Still Don’t Do It) | The Ambitious Podcast · Ambitious Podcast

0:00
I want to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly.
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Social proof at its most leverageable, at its most
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impactful in marketing is actually not just someone saying
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how great you are. The real root of successful
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social proof is coming from the fact that people feel they get
0:16
an understanding of transformation and most
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importantly, that they understand what doubts someone
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had, what fears someone had, what resistances somebody had,
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that they overcame as a byproduct of your support.
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I will be honest, if you get these psychological principles
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in the hands of someone who is not ethical in the way they run
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their business, it will show. Well Kate, what's the best one?
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What's the go to social proof I should be using?
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And to be honest, there isn't 1 because all of them really in
0:44
some way, shape or form should be used in your business.
0:47
Hello and welcome back to the Ambitious Podcast.
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I am so excited to have you here.
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I first want to take a second before we dive into all the
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juicy content of today and say if you were somebody who is
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listening to the Ambitious podcast for the first time ever,
1:00
welcome to the Ambitious family. I'm so excited to have you here.
1:03
And also for all of our OG listeners, those of you who
1:06
TuneIn every single week to the solo episodes of me on here
1:10
talking to you for an hour at a time or listening into our guest
1:13
episodes, part of the ambitious network or free community.
1:17
I also want to say a massive thank you because you listening
1:20
and tuning in and giving us feedback and just all of your
1:24
incredible support is really truthfully what makes this
1:27
podcast what it is. So I also want to say a massive
1:29
thank you to those who are consuming every week.
1:32
I want to get right into today's topic because I don't know about
1:35
you, but do you feel like you've ever seen someone promote
1:39
something online? They talk about the skin care
1:41
that they're loving right now? I had a private client who sent
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me actually most recently, shout out Sam.
1:47
She sent me a, a supplement that she'd been taking and she was
1:50
like, you've got to try this. And you see somebody who breaks
1:53
down something that they're loving as a product or something
1:56
that they're seeing success with.
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Or you see someone making momentum in an area of their
2:00
life and you're like, what are you doing?
2:02
I need to know how you're doing this.
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What are you using? What are you buying?
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And really the basis of that feeling and that pull and that
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drive to be curious and ask questions is the power of social
2:14
proof. It's the power of what will
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happen when we see proof in all different ways of someone
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getting results with something and the impact that that has on
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us as consumers, as you know, buyers, as businesses even.
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What do we need to learn about the power of social proof and
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what it can do for ourselves and also for our business?
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So today we're going to dive into all that.
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We're going to go into the psychology behind social proof
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and why this is not just something that's a nice to have
2:42
for your business or it'd be great if you had it, but
2:44
something that really, frankly, is required within a business to
2:48
help media scale. We're going to talk with the
2:50
stats that actually explain how significant social proof is.
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So not just my opinion on how important it is, but also
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looking at data of marketing to say, OK, how relevant is this
3:00
actually when it comes to making people buy?
3:03
And also I'm going to be breaking down the six different
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types of social proof that you're going to want to be aware
3:08
of if you're wanting to leverage this within your business.
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So first we kind of have to get into what is social proof?
3:23
Like if we think about this term, we're going to be using a
3:25
lot today of social proof. What does that mean?
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So I'm going to literally read this to you because this is the
3:29
actual definition of social proof.
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Social proof is the psychological phenomenon where
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people mirror the actions of others under the assumption
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those actions are correct. OK, so I'm going to read that
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one more time. Social proof is the
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psychological phenomenon where people mirror the actions of
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others under the assumption those actions are correct.
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Now here's why I want to provide the definition you're going to
3:53
see. The fourth word there is social
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proof is the psychological phenomenon.
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So I wanted to move this out of this bucket that it frankly gets
4:03
put into all the time, which is the fact this is like a content,
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you know, tactic or a marketing tactic.
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And while, yes, marketing and content, you know, is the way in
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which we're going to express this, the way we're going to
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leverage it for us as businesses, we want to remember
4:17
that the reason social proof is effective is not because it's a
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content type. It's because it's actually
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rooted in psychology. And so a lot of people don't
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necessarily know what is that root, what is the psychology of
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social proof. So I want to make sure we get
4:32
into that today. So the first psychological
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principle that is the underbelly of social proof is called the
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herd effect or herd behavior, which is the impact of social
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influence. This is basically the belief
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that people tend to assume that if many other people are doing
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something, it must mean that it's correct behavior.
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As an online consumer. And also by the way, this is not
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something that I am excluded from.
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I am also somebody who gets impacted heavily and
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consistently by these tactics and by these approaches.
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And so if you've ever felt like you see this really long line
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outside of a restaurant or you see this big line outside of,
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let's just say, a clothing store, and in your mind, you've
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never been in that restaurant, You've never been to that
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clothing store. But for some reason you're like,
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OK, that must be a great spot if it's got a line at the door.
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Well, we've never eaten there. We've never bought any clothes
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from there. We have no actual evidence that
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tells us that there's anything of quality within that store,
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but yet in our mind we're like, oh, we should definitely come
5:36
back sometime and get a reservation.
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There must be a great new spot. So the reason that we get to
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that conclusion, the reason we get to that place is because
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we're really ultimately, from a psychological perspective, being
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impacted by the herd effect. The herd behavior, which is when
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you see the mass is doing something and you feel as a
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result that you assume this is the quote UN quote correct
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behavior. We also see this with online
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businesses. If you've ever seen, you know,
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and myself, I even use this in my marketing because I know the
6:04
power of social proof. If you've ever seen me post, for
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example, all the people who've joined a certain training we're
6:09
doing, all the people who have subscribed to our podcast,
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right? Like that's showing movement in
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the masses around an intention or an action.
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And what that does is it creates this desire of other people to
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say, well, that must be the right thing to do.
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Maybe I should do it as well. So it's not something we're
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conscious of though, right? Like we're not in that moment
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seeing that restaurant with the line up at the door thinking,
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OK, well, I, I, because of all these people and being impacted
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by the herd effect, I got to go in.
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It's something that happens on a subconscious level.
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It's very fast. And that's why a lot of
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marketing can impact us again, myself included, because we're
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not always conscious of what we're consuming.
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We're often passive consumers. So because of that, we see this
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happening in online marketing and we're moved as a result of
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it. Now, the other one that is a big
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principle around social proof. And again, another psychological
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basis of why it's so impactful is the authority bias.
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And this one's really interesting because we know with
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the authority bias, the basis of it means that people tend to
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obey or believe figures that they most importantly here
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perceive as authoritative, whether it's due to their
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expertise, their reputation, or their status.
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So in a simple way to summarize this, we see people and put them
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in an assumption or we perceive them to be authoritative, even
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though we might not always have the exact evidence that we would
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need to truly know from data that that's the case.
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So for example, if another one of my peers with a huge audience
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and a very big platform, you know, I have peers that I'm
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friends with who make, you know, $10 million within their
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companies. So if a $10 million business
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owner says, hey, guys, Kate's the real deal.
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Even though my business at this moment does not make $10 million
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a year, if someone else's business makes 10 million a year
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and they say Kate's legit, what would your thoughts be?
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Well, if this person has a $10 million a year business and
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they're saying that Kate as a business consultant is someone
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to trust, what you're doing is you're taking the recommended
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authority of that person based off their success and you're
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linking it to me. So there's this basis of
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endorsement, endorsement around other people who have authority
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that will give you by association perceived authority.
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So you're also seeing here social proof is not just
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screenshots of client results, right?
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There's, there's a lot of layers of what can go into being
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categorized social proof and social proof can also be proof
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that peers believe or endorse or support you and you're borrowing
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their authority, which is actually something I've been
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doing since the beginning of my business.
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I'm a firm believer in borrowing authority, which basically means
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if you don't have a lot of social proof, you can connect
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with others and leverage their authority to be influencing on
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you. We also, when I was a beginner
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in business, I would leverage proof of things that I believed
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and I would look up. This was pre AI so it's a lot of
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manual work at the time, much easier now.
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But when I would want to create authority, what I would do is I
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would have a point that I wanted to make and I would go search
9:29
for Forbes articles, Harvard Business Review articles.
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I would go and find other people at the beginning of my business
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who had authority. And I would leverage those
9:39
articles and their authority to prove my point.
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So instead of it meaning OK, we'll just trust me because I'm
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telling you what I'm doing is I'm actually borrowing what
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other people already trust to further support why they should
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trust me because both of us are saying the same thing or both of
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us have the same idea. I'm also going to break the 4th
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wall here because you guys know I'm full transparency.
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I also do this every episode on this podcast.
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So there's a lot of things I talk about that I'm not an
10:09
expert in. So I love to talk about mindset
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and I love to talk about psychology.
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We're talking about that today and we're going to talk about
10:16
stats today. And you'll probably notice in
10:18
most of my podcasts that I will integrate statistics in some
10:21
way. The reason that I do that is I'm
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wanting to find a way to make sure that you understand the
10:27
significance of what I'm saying without me having the root of it
10:32
be just trust me because I'm saying it.
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So if I say to you, you need to focus on mindset work, that's
10:39
very different than me saying you need to focus on mindset
10:42
work. And here's the thing, studies
10:44
have shown that the entrepreneurs who focus on
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mindset work being 80% of their effort actually typically
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generate X amount more results. Now, off the cuff, I made-up
10:54
that statistic, but the point is you'll see the difference
10:57
between how much you trust what I'm saying based off me finding
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supporting, real rooted data that backs up what I'm putting
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as my message. So we did this in things like
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high school. We did this in things like
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college and university, right? We had all these different
11:14
resources and all these different legends of where
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information came from. We use that in essays to back up
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our point. And you can do the exact same
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thing with peers or other online authoritative brands to leverage
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your point and your message as well as a level of social proof.
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Now, the third psychological principle that is the underbelly
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of social proof is the liking bias.
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So the other thing that I often will coach people on, and I
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don't always say this is the root of the liking bias because
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I try to simplify things for people, but the liking bias is
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the fact that we need to understand we are more
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influenced by people we perceive to be similar to ourselves.
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So when we see a testimonial or when we see a case study, we
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need to see the person just as much as the process and the
12:06
product of whatever it is you're promoting.
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Because here's the thing, we don't just care that the a
12:12
person got results. I care about the fact that she's
12:14
a mom who got results, that she's a mom of four who had 10
12:18
hours a week to get results. Or let's just go in a different
12:22
category. I don't care just about results.
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I care about the fact that the person who came in started with
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$2000 and now they're making 200,000 a month.
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That tells me, OK, wait a second.
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If I'm a beginner business and I'm making $2000 a month, now I
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see myself within that person. So the liking bias can be done
12:42
through a variety of different ways.
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It can be a visual liking. So we'll even see this in
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commercials when we see certain different types of demographics
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in commercials. The reason they select certain
12:54
actors for commercials is because they're trying to
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literally have their ideal clients see themselves within
12:59
the commercial. And when we think about this in
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the context of online social proof, what we want to do is
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give as many factors available for someone who's consuming your
13:10
marketing for them to see themselves.
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So coaching I give to people is use pictures of clients.
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So people who look like your ideal client will feel like they
13:19
see themselves. You can also have similar, for
13:22
example, for me industries, I don't want people thinking, you
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know, Kate's the coach who is a business coach who coaches
13:28
business coaches who coaches coaches, right?
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I would want to say, OK, well, if I'm an ads agency, I'm going
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to want people to know that I've worked with other ad agencies.
13:37
So because of that, I need to put underneath each testimonial
13:40
what is their industry. I also can talk about the fact
13:43
of maybe what stage of business that they were at when they
13:45
started working with me. Why?
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Because I want people to know that I can help you if you're
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making six figures a year all the way up to if you're making
13:53
multiple 7 figures a year and you're wanting to scale further.
13:56
All of that is possible. So what you're doing with the
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liking bias is you're providing as much context in your social
14:05
proof of identifiers of the individual so people can see
14:08
themselves within it. And that's what allows people to
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connect on a deeper level. Now, the last of the
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psychological principles of social proof is cognitive ease.
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And this is that our brains are actually wired to prefer simple,
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fast decisions and social proof for us actually with our brains
14:30
acts as a shortcut that allows us to do that.
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So I'll give you an example. If you've ever gone to a website
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and you see that someone has said, you know, we have served
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over 5000 customers, right? What that does for your brain is
14:44
it instantly tells you, OK, they've got a lot of experience,
14:47
but you're not having to go through and vet who's everybody
14:50
that they've worked with. What were all the businesses
14:52
names? What were all the industries?
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What were all the results they generated?
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You have this quick snapshot that says, OK, they've clearly
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worked with and have experience of working with a lot of
15:03
companies. Another example would be the
15:05
fact that people also have snapshots that say, you know,
15:09
one in every five clients generates X results.
15:13
Well, now we've got a quick stat that we can see there, but what
15:17
it's doing is it's giving us an easy way to verify that somebody
15:21
is legit. When we see those stats that go
15:24
out of, you know, even a book, if you think about a book that
15:27
you might be interested in, if you say, you know, New York
15:30
Times bestseller over 3,000,000 copies sold, well, I don't even
15:35
probably need to tell you what the book's about.
15:37
And I don't even necessarily need to tell you what was
15:39
everyone's experience of the book and all these things.
15:42
You know, by me saying 3,000,000 copies sold, something about
15:47
this book must be pretty good because I feel like that's a lot
15:50
of copies for a book to sell. I'm going to be interested and
15:53
I'm going to buy that book. So New York Times bestseller,
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Quickstat. A, you know, 3,000,000 copies
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sold. Quickstat.
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This is the basis of cognitive ease.
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Our brains are designed to want to spend the least amount of
16:08
effort, the least amount of energy from us to make a
16:10
decision. And that's why these quick stats
16:14
that are proof of us, our process and results are so
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incredibly effective when it comes to social proof.
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Oh, I can't believe I almost forgot this.
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This is the most important of it all, which so many of us know,
16:26
so I won't spend too much time on.
16:27
It is FOMO and everybody talks about FOMO.
16:30
You talk probably about this with peers about I feel FOMO
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about not going to dinner. I feel FOMO about not going and
16:37
investing in this thing. FOMO or better known as fear of
16:41
missing out is also something that is a really, really
16:44
impactful psychological trigger, which is that we generally as
16:48
human beings have anxiety that when we know that others are
16:52
having a rewarding experience and you're not.
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It's something that we can leverage in an most importantly
17:00
ethical way to do within our marketing and within our
17:03
businesses to be the reason that people take action.
17:07
So for example, if we say something like there's three
17:10
spots left for our program, which by the way, if you're
17:12
going to say that you should actually only have three spots
17:15
left just as a quick disclaimer. Or if, for example, there's a
17:20
quote over top of something that says join our other 10,000 happy
17:24
customers inside. Well, what it shows you is, wow,
17:27
they've got 10,000 people in there.
17:30
That means that there's probably a lot of happy customers and all
17:34
those 10,000 people are getting transformation and change, and
17:37
I'm not. So it starts to create this
17:40
level of discomfort in us in a reasonable way that as a result
17:47
kind of sparks us and inspires us to want to take action.
17:51
So FOMO many of us are familiar with, and it is also one of the
17:54
core psychological triggers. So remember, we've got herd
17:58
behavior, the fact that we follow the masses.
18:00
We've got authority bias, remembering that people tend to
18:04
believe or obey people that they perceive to be of authority.
18:08
We've got FOMO, the fear of missing out in the anxiety that
18:11
happens when other people are getting desirable outcomes and
18:16
processes. And we are not.
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Also the liking bias, the fact that we are influenced by people
18:22
that we perceive to be similar in essence to us.
18:26
And most importantly, cognitive ease, which is the fact that we
18:29
need some aspect of shortcuts within our marketing to really
18:33
allow social proof to land very easy for people to give them a
18:36
quick easy yes, and the information they need to feel
18:39
comfortable to move forward. So we can tell just by if we
18:43
ended this show right here, we know that there's a lot of route
18:49
to why social proof works. This is not just a content type
18:52
to have in your calendar, right? It's something that's rooted in
18:55
psychological principles, which is why it's so effective.
18:58
Now, the most important thing I want to say though, is that with
19:01
anything, sales psychology, marketing psychology, what are
19:05
the most important things? And I'm someone who's bullish on
19:09
this with clients is it's supposed to be used ethically.
19:13
Because I will be honest, if you get these psychological
19:16
principles in the hands of someone who is not ethical in
19:19
the way they run their business, it will show because you will
19:23
see how people use these tactics to manipulate people rather than
19:27
to understand how we as humans are wired and leverage that
19:31
within our marketing in an ethical way.
19:34
So we, we know that social proof is rooted in our mindset, our
19:38
thoughts, our behaviors and the way we operate.
19:41
But how significant is that really when it comes to business
19:47
and the way that we take action? And frankly, for you who are
19:50
listening to this right now, you're probably thinking, how do
19:54
I connect this to my business? Is this going to be the
19:56
difference of making more sales? So let's get into that. 92% of
20:00
consumers trust non paid recommendations more than any
20:06
other type of advertising. 92%. So 92% of the consumers who are
20:12
consuming you on social media, e-mail, your website, all of it
20:17
are more likely to trust someone who is a non paid recommendation
20:21
more than any paid type of media.
20:24
That is a recommendation going out right now.
20:27
Also another alarming stat, displaying reviews and the
20:32
reviews of experience results. Any type of snapshot of
20:36
someone's proof of your process and product can boost your
20:40
conversion by 270 percent. 270 OK.
20:47
There's also a stat that shows 88% of consumers say they trust
20:51
online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. 88% of
20:58
consumers trust online reviews of a process equally as much as
21:02
a personal recommendation. And lastly, when we see
21:06
testimonials and reviews, those drive 92% higher web conversions
21:12
versus anything else on a website.
21:16
So like we're seeing here, social proof is not a nice thing
21:20
to have. Social proof is frankly the
21:23
basis of how much easier it's going to be to market.
21:27
So I want to preface right now, if you are somebody who's like
21:31
Kate, I don't have a lot of social proof.
21:34
I want to also say and remind you, social proof doesn't have
21:37
to look a certain way. It's simply shedding light on
21:41
expertise. So we're looking here to say,
21:45
you know, customer recommendations, 92% having any
21:49
kind of snapshot of your process and your credentials can
21:53
increase conversions by 200. And 7088% of consumers are going
21:59
to buy more if they feel like someone has personally
22:01
recommended that. Personal recommendation, though,
22:04
doesn't have to be from a client.
22:06
You could be my bookkeeper and I'm like, oh, you got to go call
22:11
Sarah. She's the girl you need.
22:13
I might know you as a peer and never have worked inside your
22:16
business, but still can recommend people to you in the
22:20
basis of the fact that I know and I've seen behind maybe the
22:23
curtain of your business through discussions and I know you've
22:26
got great results with your clients, right, right.
22:29
You have a really unique process I've never seen before.
22:31
There's so many ways that you can get that personal
22:34
recommendation. So there's so many things that
22:38
we can do when it comes to leveraging social proof, and
22:42
there's so much emphasis to show why it's so significant.
22:45
But when we say social proof, what is that?
22:48
Because a lot of people think it's screenshots and they think
22:51
it's testimonials. And while, yes, testimonials are
22:55
a way of doing social proof, there's a bunch of different
22:58
ways that you can leverage proof.
23:01
One of them is testimonials. Yes, which I will say I really
23:04
love typically using testimonials best for showcasing
23:09
emotional objections, meaning somebody who had an emotional
23:14
resistance toward investing toward a process toward, you
23:19
know, an industry and overcame that and they can tell a lens of
23:23
a certain type of story through leveraging A testimonial.
23:28
Another great one that I actually really, really love is
23:32
case studies. Case studies can be done in a
23:35
variety of different ways. You can do a case study where
23:38
you interview clients. So like I've had some of my
23:41
clients, they've gotten on Zoom with them and they've asked a
23:43
series of questions. That type of social proof is
23:47
really great for asking questions and being able to go
23:50
deeper. So say I say to someone, you
23:53
know, what was your biggest resistance upon joining, you
23:56
know, X program? Well, they might say, oh, it was
23:59
definitely, you know, the investment.
24:01
OK. When you say the investment,
24:02
what were you feeling when you thought about making the
24:05
investment or when it was something that you were
24:06
processing through? And So what I'm doing is I'm
24:10
starting to peel back the layers.
24:11
I'm starting to get a little bit more deeper clarity.
24:14
And that's something that will really help to showcase a story
24:18
in a deep, transformational way. These case studies are also
24:21
really good if you feel like you have a type of ideal client or a
24:25
type of, you know, individual that you're working with who may
24:27
not be as Privy to marketing or as Privy to recording videos,
24:33
right? Like if I work with business
24:34
owners, there are people who are used to making content
24:38
typically. So because of that, I never have
24:40
a concern about, you know, putting them on video or asking
24:43
them for a testimonial. But for me, I use case studies
24:48
if I feel like a client is not as comfortable in that way or if
24:52
I feel like there's a much larger story that I really want
24:56
to share. And so I know that if I
25:00
interview that person, I will be able to see and showcase more of
25:05
the true essence of the journey they went through, not just the
25:08
outcome that they generated. Because we know with
25:10
testimonials, most people will just simply say, OK, great.
25:15
Like where were you? Where did you end up?
25:17
And so with case studies, we get a lot more of those little
25:19
pieces in between those little steps in the journey that
25:22
typically when we think about mentioning this is the result I
25:26
got are not always mentioned. So testimonials are a great
25:31
snapshot of the journey in their words that they went through in
25:36
the transformation Case studies really, really good for deep
25:40
clarity on transformation, getting into the nitty gritty,
25:43
showcasing and highlighting process.
25:45
All that is going to be achieved as a result of being able to
25:49
showcase a case study. Now, the other thing which is
25:52
also very impactful, again, remember that kind of cognitive
25:56
ease principle, right? This is where ratings and
26:00
reviews come in. So for example, with our
26:03
podcast, we have a rating and review within Spotify.
26:08
So also as a total side note and shameless plug, it would mean
26:11
the world to me if you guys rated the show.
26:14
There's a little icon right underneath our heading on
26:17
Spotify. And also, we have ratings on
26:19
Apple wherever you are listening or watching.
26:21
It would mean the absolute world to me if you guys did give us a
26:23
rating if you're enjoying the show.
26:25
It supports myself, it supports our team and just everything
26:28
we're trying to do here. Ambitious.
26:29
So thank you. By the way, if you have done
26:31
that or if you're taking time aside right now to do so,
26:34
ratings and reviews are really impactful because again, let's
26:37
take the case study of our podcast.
26:39
If someone comes to our podcast and there's zero ratings, not a
26:44
single person has rated the show.
26:46
Or maybe you go to find someone on Google and they've got 21
26:52
star ratings or on Amazon you're going to go buy a product and
26:56
one product has 10 five star reviews and the other one has
27:00
10,005 star reviews. You want to think, what podcast
27:04
am I going to go listen to? What product am I going to buy?
27:09
Often times that quick credibility factor is because of
27:13
ratings. So we see ratings in things like
27:16
Amazon and Spotify and all these different areas because they
27:20
give people a quick reference point to be able to say, OK,
27:24
this is the instant visual snapshot of credibility.
27:28
So when we're looking at ratings and reviews, the goal there is
27:32
not necessarily to to tell the whole story.
27:36
It's to really be able to give any consumer who's going through
27:40
your marketing or going through a sales process a very quick
27:42
snapshot of why you're credible and why they should listen.
27:45
The other one is going to be expert endorsements.
27:48
This is really, really good. Again, remember, back to the
27:50
peer recommendations or if I recommended you as a business
27:54
owner, the expert endorsements are really good because they're
27:58
actually giving you authority within your niche.
28:01
So again, a lot of people assume social proof is just social
28:04
proof in the context of getting you proof of clients.
28:08
And while yes, that is a part of the process of social proof,
28:12
it's not the only bucket of social proof.
28:15
Social proof can also be seen in the lens of getting others who
28:19
again, have authority to endorse you as being legit, as being
28:24
qualified, as being, you know, an expert, a leader, somebody
28:29
who has great impact and significance The other way,
28:33
which I don't personally do as much from like APR lens, but it
28:38
is something again, back to my example earlier of articles that
28:41
I do, which is media mentions. So media mentions are kind of
28:46
like I said, I'll take a a point that I want to make and I'll
28:49
leverage A stat from a Forbes article to use another media
28:53
source to be the thing that backs up my point.
28:56
And I did this much, much more in the earlier stages of my
28:59
business because I didn't have any client testimonials.
29:01
I didn't have any, you know, social proof.
29:03
But if I wanted to say that something was really important
29:07
and I knew no one was going to believe me unless I had some way
29:10
to backup, well, why should we listen to you?
29:13
I thought, OK, well, I'm going to go get an article from
29:15
someone people do trust, and I'm going to pair that with my
29:18
message so they understand. Wait a second.
29:20
She might be on to something here.
29:21
So that's a media mention. A media mention is leveraging
29:25
the proof of another media source and using that to back
29:29
your point or your process. Social shares and followers are
29:35
really a social validation thing and sometimes a FOMO thing.
29:41
So remember how I said, you know, sometimes if we have like
29:45
a launch, even we leverage this a lot during launching.
29:47
When we're doing a launch, we'll show the masses of people opting
29:52
into a freebie, or we'll show the amount of people who've
29:54
joined or we'll, we'll show the amount of people who've reserved
29:58
their seat at something. That big share on social is
30:02
actually naturally actually creating FOMO.
30:04
It's showing people moving and again, back to the psychological
30:07
principle, it's creating this unsettling feeling in people
30:10
that they need to move to or they should move as well.
30:13
Follower number, which kind of is same within the social share
30:16
bucket is really something that it, it's unfortunate because
30:20
it's not always connected to business success, but there is
30:24
an aspect of credibility that comes from that, right?
30:26
So you can have somebody who has 203 hundred 400,000 followers.
30:31
Well, if I give you their profile and I give you no
30:33
context, probably the first thing in your mind is going to
30:36
be there's probably something about them that must be great
30:40
because they've got a big following.
30:41
They must be legit, right? And even sometimes, again, not
30:46
to say that I want to be very clear, the size of your
30:49
following is not an indication of the size of your business.
30:52
I've worked with huge platforms that very small businesses and
30:56
small platforms that have huge businesses.
30:58
But we want to remember here social proof.
31:01
There is a bias, right? Remember, it's something that's
31:04
not conscious. It's something that we're
31:06
subconsciously doing in the moment very quickly.
31:09
And so what's happening is we're seeing a big follower count.
31:13
We're going that person must be legit.
31:16
Now, On the contrary, sometimes we can see small followings and
31:19
think that person is not legit because they don't have a big
31:22
following. But it's not to say that that's
31:25
true. It's to understand that that's
31:27
how our brains work. So it's our responsibility as
31:31
business owners, as marketers to put effort in and to put
31:35
intention in to helping to overcome that.
31:38
So again, when we're looking at social proof, we've gone over
31:43
the fact of the psychological principles to this.
31:45
We know the significance and the stats of how impactful social
31:49
proof is. And we've just gone through the
31:51
six different types of social proof you can do, which is the
31:54
testimonials, the case studies, the ratings and reviews, expert
31:58
endorsements, media mentions and social shares slash following.
32:04
So often times people say to me, well, Kate, what's the best one?
32:07
What's the go to social proof I should be using?
32:10
And to be honest, there isn't 1 because all of them really in
32:14
some way, shape or form should be used in your business.
32:16
We use all of these. I have peer recommendations for
32:20
my speaking page about, you know, the impact of me as a
32:22
peer. I've got ratings and reviews for
32:25
our podcast page on our website. I've got, you know, testimonials
32:29
of video and written that are all on the website.
32:32
We've got case studies on our sales pages.
32:34
We use every single type of social proof, but the snapshot
32:38
answer I'm going to give you is match the depth of the offer and
32:43
the depth of the investment to be correlated to the deeper
32:46
level of proof that you need. So if I'm trying to sell
32:50
$100,000 offer, I'm probably not going to use Kate's got a five
32:55
star rating, right? Because it's, it's a big
32:58
investment, which means there's more depth needed in
33:01
understanding the transformation than just my rating.
33:04
But for the podcast, there isn't necessarily a lot of depth
33:08
because it's free. It's something that people can
33:10
just decide, do I feel like I want to listen to this?
33:13
And so because of that, that's where we leverage the five star
33:16
ratings. So when we're thinking about
33:19
choosing a format for testimonials, we want to be
33:22
cognizant that we're thinking about the depth of the
33:25
testimonial should be correlated to the depth of the investment.
33:28
And also remembering that different types of social proof
33:32
are going to showcase our process, our product and frankly
33:37
the problems we solve in a different way.
33:39
So because of that, if you want to have the best opportunity to
33:44
really capture all the different people that might look for more
33:49
of a storyline, someone else who wants more of a rating, the goal
33:52
would be to have all of it, which is to try to sprinkle
33:55
these through as much as possible.
33:57
So think about the depth of the social proof is correlated to
34:00
the depth of the offering or of the decision in front of people.
34:04
And also remembering that depending on the style of social
34:07
proof, we're getting a different depth of story.
34:10
And so if you want to showcase a bigger storyline, you're
34:13
probably not going to choose a rating.
34:15
You'll choose something more in the bucket of something like a
34:17
case study instead. So I will be honest, a core
34:22
question that I always, always, always, always get is what do I
34:26
ask people to put in a testimonial or what should I be
34:28
asking people in a case study interview?
34:30
Or what should I, you know, hopefully capture if I'm trying
34:34
to put out, you know, an off boarding form to my client.
34:37
And again, there are some adjustments you can make, again,
34:41
personalized to you into your business, but I'm going to give
34:43
you some standard things that I think will probably help most
34:46
businesses to stay within the bucket of success.
34:48
So one thing I want to say with the questions for social proof,
34:52
one of the biggest mistakes that so many people make when it
34:55
comes to social proof is the fact that you're only asking for
34:59
praise. So many people believe, and you
35:02
might have also fell into this bucket.
35:04
So I want to use this as the opportunity to perspective shift
35:07
today. If you are someone who thinks
35:10
social proof is praise, it's not.
35:13
Social proof at its most leverageable, at its most
35:17
impactful in marketing is actually not just someone saying
35:22
how great you are. It's not just me saying you're
35:25
amazing, love your product, great support, all of that.
35:30
I obviously, of course, want to have positivity within the
35:33
social proof, but it can't only be praised about you.
35:36
You're offering your process, and I'll tell you why.
35:39
The real root of successful social proof is coming from the
35:42
fact that people feel they get an understanding of
35:45
transformation, and most importantly, that they
35:48
understand what doubts someone had, what fears someone had,
35:52
what resistance is somebody had, that they overcame as a
35:56
byproduct of your support, of your offer, of your service.
36:02
I want to hear the good, the bad and the ugly because it's not
36:07
just about where they ended up, It's just as much about the
36:09
journey and the resistances and the obstacles that they overcame
36:13
to get there. It's like thinking about
36:16
watching a movie where the main character doesn't experience
36:20
anything and just poof, he gets the girl at the end and they
36:24
live happily ever after. It's not really an activating
36:28
story because we think, OK, well, that's easy for him, he
36:30
didn't face anything. So the same thing is true when
36:33
your consumer is looking at your social proof.
36:36
If it's all just she's great, love her.
36:39
She's amazing. Yeah.
36:41
But people think, where's the meat?
36:43
Where is the triumph that happened because they
36:45
experienced X and overcame it to get here?
36:49
So what I ask are things like what pain points or situations
36:56
did you have or did you experience before joining?
37:00
So I want to know an understanding of what was your
37:02
current state. Give me an understanding of what
37:04
you felt, what you thought, what you experienced.
37:08
I also ask for anything that is a distinguishing factor.
37:12
So I might again ask for my clients, tell us a little bit
37:15
about who you are and what is the industry that you're in and
37:19
kind of a little bit about you as an individual.
37:21
I want to hear which are some of my clients.
37:24
I am a mom of four kids who runs a multiple 6 figure agency.
37:31
OK great. I am a business owner who owns
37:34
three businesses that are all multi $1,000,000 companies.
37:37
Now I've got contacts. She's a busy lady and she's
37:39
scaling her company. Now I'm listening right?
37:42
Or I am an international business who has multiple in
37:46
person locations around the world, which is also another
37:48
client. So when we do that, we're
37:51
starting to see context of the individual.
37:53
So you want to try again? Remember, we like to see
37:55
ourselves in social proof. Try to get questions that help
37:59
them to showcase who they are and any kind of like self
38:02
identifying factors. What are maybe some of the pain
38:05
points for the things that they experienced before they started
38:09
with you? And also what was the experience
38:11
like in the process? Meaning they haven't achieved
38:14
the thing yet. They haven't completed the offer
38:17
or the service yet. What was it like to experience
38:20
it during the process? What was that like?
38:23
And so in that process is also an important factor because we
38:27
want people again to see just as much the journey as they do the
38:31
outcome. I also asked what kind of
38:34
results or transformation or key wins did you achieve?
38:38
And I then want to know the end destination, right?
38:42
So what are the things you were able to achieve and the markers
38:45
of success that happened? And lastly, I put this in every
38:48
prompt because again, most people won't say it unless you
38:51
ask it. Would you recommend our service
38:54
or our program to somebody else? And if so, why?
38:57
Another way of asking this question is who would you
39:00
recommend to take this program or service and why?
39:04
So remember here we've got understanding of the individual,
39:06
get some context of them to get an understanding of the current
39:11
pain points and the snapshot before they ever got entered
39:13
into your world and understanding of their current
39:15
state. Because remember, other people
39:17
are going to resonate with that current state.
39:19
Talk and ask a little bit about the process, the meet in the
39:22
middle. How did that journey feel before
39:24
they achieved it? What did they work on?
39:26
What did they overcome? What fears did they have?
39:29
And then I go into the results that they achieved, any wins
39:33
that they'd had and if they'd recommend us.
39:35
The last most essential. If you forget every other thing
39:40
you need to remember this is that you want to ask what
39:44
objections, fears or resistances did you have to taking action if
39:48
any meaning were you scared of the investment in this program
39:52
or service? Were you worried maybe about I
39:55
did a mastermind before and I was worried it was going to be
39:58
the same. Did you have something else that
40:00
you experienced that kind of put a bad taste in your mouth?
40:03
Wondering is this going to be the same thing?
40:06
And you want to get that in a message of a testimonial or in
40:09
social proof, because what it does is it's, it starts to
40:12
again, normalize. People had objections and they
40:15
still moved. I talk about this within my
40:19
social proof. I have private clients who are
40:21
like Kate, when you mention the private client investment to me,
40:24
I thought, Oh my gosh, that's the price of a Lexus.
40:27
Like, that is a big investment. But I'm so happy that even
40:31
though I felt all the jitters and the nerves and, like,
40:34
feeling really unsure whether I should do it, that I did it
40:36
anyways because now I realize how impactful that's been for
40:40
me. Right.
40:41
That's a very different social proof than someone who's like,
40:44
yeah, like, I loved working with Kate.
40:45
She was great. I loved working in private
40:47
coaching. Well, the next woman who feels
40:50
like, oh, my God, this is a really big investment.
40:52
I'm scared. Which piece of testimonial does
40:55
she want to see? The one of the person who said
40:57
private was great or the one that says, honestly, I was so
41:03
uncomfortable with the price point, but I'm so happy that I
41:05
took action. So remember, the prompts we give
41:09
to clients will produce the level of testimonial quality and
41:12
the social proof quality that we get in return.
41:15
So with everything we've covered, we think about, OK,
41:18
well, what do I do next? And so I want to put this into
41:22
two buckets. If you're somebody who has
41:24
social proof, but you kind of think to yourself, I'm not
41:26
really leveraging it the way that I could, I want you to
41:29
audit your current marketing. Or do you have the testimonials
41:33
presented? Do you have screenshots
41:34
presented? Do you have case studies
41:36
presented? You can also think about
41:37
organizing it based off product or service.
41:40
If you go to our website, we have a testimonial page which
41:42
will be an example of that. You can kind of see how we do
41:44
it. I also would think about how can
41:47
you start embedding this and your social proof in as many
41:50
places as possible, Your website, your checkout pages,
41:53
your e-mail marketing, your social media, and also maybe
41:57
even in things like landing pages, webinars, frequently
42:00
asked question areas on your website.
42:03
Think about giving yourself an audit and saying, if I have it,
42:06
am I leveraging it? Do I feel like it's easy to find
42:10
for different offers that I have?
42:12
And do I feel like it has some of the elements we've talked
42:14
about today in there? And how can I go through and
42:17
start to be more intentional about what I'm producing with
42:20
testimonials and case studies and other social proof types and
42:23
also where I'm publishing that and where I'm using it?
42:26
But most importantly is for those who feel like maybe I
42:29
don't have a lot of social proof.
42:31
And there's two typical reasons that I see this happen.
42:34
There's businesses that are new. And so because of that, they're
42:36
really in their infancy. And this, by the way, would be
42:38
the same for me. If I started a new company, I'd
42:40
have no social proof because I'd have nothing to prove that I had
42:43
done it yet. So that can be 1 aspect.
42:47
The other side is also people who have businesses that have
42:50
been around for a while, but they kind of got a little
42:53
comfortable and they haven't really been asking for
42:54
testimonials. They haven't been asking for
42:56
social proof. And that's very common.
42:58
So first you want to note, ask for social proof and build it
43:03
into your process. So go and follow up with past
43:06
clients, go and connect with past people, request feedback
43:10
from people, request a testimonial, request to do an
43:12
interview and get on a call with them.
43:14
Maybe even for some people offering a small incentive.
43:17
Some people will offer something like a gift card.
43:20
They'll say, hey, if you can do a review for me, it would mean
43:22
the world. And I obviously in return would
43:25
love to provide, you know, a Starbucks card as a thank you
43:28
obviously for taking the time out of your day to do that.
43:30
So some people also provide something in return as a thank
43:33
you to clients for doing so. You can also think about
43:36
potentially collecting it in a repeatable way.
43:39
So what we do do is we have a type form that we send to
43:41
clients. So it's part of our processes as
43:44
a reminder and we capture it through a type form.
43:47
So it all lands in one central place.
43:50
So because of that, any testimonial or review that we
43:52
get, it all goes to one place. And it allows us from a
43:55
marketing perspective to have everything very organized for
43:58
the person who's consuming it. And also really focusing on
44:03
getting strong stories. If you feel like you don't have
44:07
like proof produced by clients, you can also tell stories of
44:12
clients. So like even for me, I have
44:15
clients, even though I've got boatloads of social proof now
44:17
years into business, I have testimonials from some clients
44:22
and other clients I don't have a testimonial from.
44:24
But they got great results and so be literally just in the
44:27
process. Haven't collected testimonial
44:29
yet. But that doesn't mean I
44:30
shouldn't tell their story. It just means I'm going to tell
44:32
their story in a way that is more of a storytelling case
44:35
study nature, less of them being like, here's how I feel about
44:40
Kate. I'll say, let me tell you the
44:41
story about Sarah. And so I take it from a
44:44
different approach where I tell the story versus them telling
44:47
their own story. So again, it allows me to
44:49
leverage their transformation because I know it inside and
44:52
out, even if I don't have it captured in a formal way yet.
44:55
So we want to think of all today's conversation, it was all
45:01
about how we could leverage and look at social proof as a tool
45:04
in our business, The psychological basis of it, the
45:07
impact of how impactful it is in our marketing, the just six
45:11
different types of social proof that we can use, the questions
45:14
we should be asking, how we can kind of start to take this as a
45:18
plan of attack in our business. And so with all of that, I want
45:21
to give you some some quick tips if you're thinking about OK,
45:24
like I really want to take the momentum I'm feeling right now
45:26
and take it and run with it. Remember to use as many names,
45:30
photos and reference points of the individuals in your social
45:33
proof as possible. Prioritize as much as you can
45:37
getting anything that has photo or video in it because you can
45:40
always transcribe it. You can always make it into copy
45:42
after. You can always go that way, but
45:45
you can't go the other way. Meaning you have a written
45:47
testimonial and now you need a video.
45:49
Showcase your proof as early in your business as possible and as
45:53
often as humanly possible. You really can't market social
45:56
proof in my opinion too much because it's something people
45:59
are always looking for. Remember to have variety in the
46:02
different types. Case studies, testimonials,
46:04
screenshots, peer reviews. You really can just not have too
46:08
much variety when it comes to social proof.
46:10
Also use recent proof. If someone has gone through
46:13
something recently and you have a story, that also would be
46:16
something that would be great. Try to tie in those questions
46:20
and tie it into outcomes. Remember, testimonials are not
46:23
just about your product. They're also about the process
46:26
and the transformation and the person just as much as the thing
46:29
that somebody is buying. And also remember that we want
46:32
to use quick wins. We, we want to have that
46:35
cognitive ease, those ratings, those numbers, X amount of
46:38
clients served, X out of these clients get to this result.
46:42
We want those quick, easy reference points to show our
46:45
authority and our proof. And most importantly, build this
46:49
into a system for yourself. Don't think this is a really
46:51
good idea. I should emphasize social proof.
46:54
Ask yourself what's something you could put into your process
46:57
today, into your systems today that would allow social proof to
47:00
not be something that you hopefully remember to ask for,
47:03
but something that's actually built into the way that you
47:05
serve clients and deliver to them day in, day out.
47:08
So listen, I, I know today was a meaty one of all things social
47:12
proof. So I hope today gave you a light
47:15
bulb, gave you an aha moment of maybe different questions to
47:17
ask, different styles to have. And I also would just love if
47:21
something landed for you today. And if you feel like you just
47:24
had a light bulb, you had an aha moment in some capacity.
47:27
My DMS are always open. I literally can't tell you
47:30
enough how much it means to me and to my heart to get your
47:33
messages of like, this is what I'm taking action on or this
47:36
episode landed for me, for me. Obviously you know I record this
47:40
solo by myself at my house every single week and so it's like a
47:43
talking into a hallway 9 times out of 10.
47:47
So the only main feedback I get is when you guys are always so
47:50
incredible and reach out. So I always love to hear from
47:52
you. My DMS are always open but I
47:54
hope you really enjoyed today's episode.
47:56
And with all that being said, I'm excited to see you guys in
47:58
the next 1. So, as always, stay ambitious.