I have a confession to make.
In fact, If you’ve read the ‘About Me’ page you probably already know.
I’m not the world’s most experienced writer.
Like most people, over the years I’ve had to write many different types of texts (letters, reports, academic papers, literary critiques, persuasive essays…), but I haven’t actually done any ‘deliberate practice‘ to try to improve my writing.
Still, I feel as though I have always had a good grasp of the fundamentals.
I also enjoy reading about a wide variety of subjects.
And I feel as though I’m making good progress having read and investigated best writing practices from a wide variety of resources.
Anyway, with that out of the way, we can start the actual post below.
Trustworthy in no time
Authority is is a big part of persuasiveness. When you receive advice from someone, you want them to be 2 things; you want them to be an expert, and to be trustworthy.
Depending on the field, you may be looking at years or even decades to become an expert.
But what about trust?
Trust is also something that builds slowly over time, isn’t it?
Well, what if I told you there was a rather large shortcut…?
‘Impossible’, you say? ‘Common sense says a customer won’t trust me straight after arriving on my page. He’s going to presume, at best, that I’m biased and self-interested, and, at worst, a lying, snake oil salesman. I’ll need many interactions over time to slowly gain his or her trust. Won’t I?’
This is exactly how we think when communicating with our customers. We employ all manner of techniques to demonstrate our trustworthiness. We display reviews and testimonials from past customers, sections that show which large and famous companies also use our services, and counters which show how many followers or subscribers we have.
We spend countless hours giving creating and giving away useful content and articles to gain trust. We map out ‘touchpoints’ on ‘customer journeys‘, to build trust step by step, with each interaction with our customers.
But, all of those can require us to spend large amounts of time and effort and money…
There is, however, one way to gain an instantaneous boost in your perceived levels of trustworthiness.
Playing up your credentials? listing your achievements? You might think so but no. You have to do the exact opposite.
You have to admit your failings.
Recognise your weaknesses
Mention the drawbacks of your product.
And do it early on when communicating with your customers.
Holding back (or hiding completely) any disadvantages or weakness is what people expect when they are being sold to. The overly rosy picture you paint must be discounted as you come across as biased and pushy.
Admitting a weakness, however, turns you from an adversarial salesmen into an impartial, honest and trusted arbiter. Someone who can be relied on to weigh both pros and cons, and arrive at the most suitable decision for your customers.
This technique is especially useful if your weakness is well known or obvious. In such cases there is very little downside in recognising or admitting the disadvantage, but a large possible upside as you are now seen as more trustworthy.
And, as you started off with your weaknesses, you’re seen as trustworthy before you get to the positives, so your opinion carries extra weight right at the time you start talking about the advantages of your product.
It’s even better if you can use the example of your weakness, to actually draw attention to your strengths. This is typically done with words such as ‘but’, ‘yet’, or ‘however’.
Think ‘it doesn’t have these features but it is much more reasonably priced’, or ‘the initial investment is large, but will be quickly made up for with lower maintenance costs and increased efficiency’.
With this tactic, you can diminish the importance or prominence of your weaknesses or even make them irrelevant altogether.
I’ve actually done (or tried to do…) this myself on this page.
Hopefully it worked on you. I admitted my relative lack of experience as a writer. But tried to use this negative to draw attention to the positives of a good grounding in the fundamentals, my passion for improving and the many sources I have consulted in order to learn.
Now obviously this technique is not a panacea, some kind of magic bullet that will overcome all your trust issues. The other methods of building trust are useful and important. And there are obviously many other factors that determine how trust is built; the cost and complexity of your product, amount of time taken by customers to research alternatives etc… but trust need not be something we struggle long and hard for (though we should do that too!).
Admitting a weakness early on can give you a boost of honesty in an instant.
PS: This post was written in the form of a mystery. If it worked, you may have found it unusually captivating… Did you just have to know about that shortcut to building trust I mentioned at the start? If you’d like to know more about the power of a mystery story, see here.
