It’s one thing changing someone’s belief, but quite another winning their trust. And when it comes to selling, you need both.
If someone believes in monarchy as the only way to rule a country, but you want them to believe in a republic, you’re going to have to change that person’s well-embedded belief.
Deep held beliefs like that start with how we’re brought up. We have no choice but to trust in them because at that point in our lives we don’t know any better.
If we’re born in a monarchy, then unless we’re brought up to believe in a republic or any other alternative, it’s odds on we’re going to become monarchists. That becomes our fundamental belief.
Belief builds upon belief. By the time we’re young adults, most of us born in a monarchy will believe that a monarchy is good, and because the monarchy has been at the heart of our lives the whole time, we trust it.
That makes trust step 2 in the long road to conversion: Belief > Trust.
Those two stages are important in your copy too. If a prospect doesn’t believe in what you’re selling, no amount of trust will win them over.
If a prospect believes in what you’re selling, then you can start straight away with establishing trust.
If a prospect already believes and trusts in you and your product, then all you need to do is tell them why they need it now (via any of the standard techniques of the following little acronym:
SURE (Scarcity, Urgency, Rarity, and Exclusivity) – this is why words like “SALE” and “NEW” work so well (sale = urgency, new = exclusivity – be the first to own it).
So what about those who don’t believe in you, your product, or what you do? How do you change their minds?
The simple answer is you don’t. It takes an enormous amount of education, and education is expensive.
Instead you rely on others to do it for you. And those others are your existing customers and influencers who you’ve built a relationship with. More about that after this…
As most of you know, I keep members of the ICA happy by adding new tools to the membership area. For example, you can create a bunch of headings automatically by entering something you want to sell into the ICA AIDA Heading Generator. Or you could submit a piece of your copy to our Copy Feedback tool and get an instant response.
If you’re not yet a member of the ICA, I urge you to join. The sooner you do, the sooner you can start on my premiere copywriting course – ProCopyClub and learn what it takes to change beliefs and build trust.
The cost is just £13 a month billed quarterly. That means you get 3 months to try it out, and if you don’t think it is worth every penny I’ll refund you in full.
With that out of the way, let’s talk more about beliefs. Ever tried changing someone’s mind? Impossible right! They may placate you and agree, but inside, nothing has changed. People believe for a reason – and that reason is often irrational.
That last word matters. When a belief is irrational, it means you cannot reason with it. You need to find another way.
It’s rather like pressure in a burst water main. The more you try to plug the hole, the more the pressure builds. At some point you’re forced to hire a professional.
Yet there is a way to do this, and that is to relieve the pressure in another part of the system. The more that pressure is reduced, the easier it is to plug the gap.
I’ll talk more about that soon.
I hope you found this useful, and if you have any questions, please do comment below or join the ICA mailing list
Leave a Reply