I’m no pushover for salespeople. If an inbound telemarketer reaches me directly (which can happen, because I answer my own phone), I’ll either cut the caller off within a few seconds with a “no thanks” and, if the seller is likely representing a rip-off (the various “specialized investment opportunities”), I will be firm, angry and threaten police action. If someone tries to canvass our home, I’ll avoid the door or, if the canvasser catches me at the door, glare at the guy and sometimes I’ve been known to slam to door in the canvasser’s face. Bad manners, yes. ?But I simply am rational — if the offer is good enough to interest me, it would never be “sold” these ways. (You can read my classic blog posting about Canvassing in Columbus here — I can separate my personal perspectives from practical marketing considerations.)
So, how can someone sell a service to me, which I would not have known about otherwise? This happened recently. We’ve paid the approximately $375 in fees to timetohire.com for a first test run — and the resume reporting/calling service is set to go into action on Monday.
(A video testimonial gathered by Bravo for Timetohire.com.)
I can’t say whether the service will achieve its goals yet, but I can say timetohire.com has mastered its marketing systems.
The key, in this case, is a compelling offer that meets a real need — backed (and this is important) by dozens of independent video testimonials. If so many genuine clients are authentically willing to extol the service’s benefits, then it must be good. (I’m not sure if timetohire.com offers compensation for these testimonials; presumably I’ll learn that later in the follow-up process.)
Obviously, if you intend to collect compelling video testimonials, you will need to offer a genuinely valuable service, or pay a small fortune for actors to play the role. (The fortune may indeed be “small” if you elect to switch to the dark side and contract with paid testimonial-producers on fivver.com). Then, if you are in the fortunate place to be able to truly earn these testimonials, you need to automate the process and make it as easy as possible for the testimonial-givers to participate. ?It seems timetohire.com and other services are using ?getbravo.com to provide this testimonial gathering capacity.
Now, these observations are NOT testimonials for either timetohire.com or getbravo.com, as I haven’t (yet) successfully used either of their services. ?They are, however, relevant for their success in marketing to a thick-skinned individual. We can learn from them.
