I read a confession today by a former employee of a shady solar company.
This guy reports the company used to print out fake ID badges for its salespeople.
The salespeople were then told to focus on houses with “No Soliciting” signs out front. After the door was open, they were supposed to claim they “worked with the power company” in order to get in to start their pitch.
And here’s where it gets dark:
The guy says he and every other salesperson knew full-well the savings from solar depended on government tax credits.
And yet…
They pushed these same savings as given — to senior citizens. Who weren’t paying much in taxes. Who couldn’t benefit from a tax credit. And who wound up getting saddled with a massive loan, which they couldn’t afford.
Now back to the ethical world of direct response marketing:
I used the story above in an email today, to a large list of buyers of money-saving ecommerce products.
At the end of that email, I said how I’m passing this story along as a warning. And that if they want to get the money-saving benefits of solar, they can. But they might have to bypass solar companies and power utilities and government tax credits. Then I linked to an affiliate offer that shows them how to do this.
A-list copywriter Gary Bencivenga said that proof is the most important element of copy when it comes to closing the sale.
He also said that acting as a consumer advocate is one powerful way to create proof.
It makes you seem disinterested… it demonstrates you know what you’re talking about… and if done right, it can even capture attention.
Sounds good.
But it begs the question, where do you get riveting consumer advocacy stories that go beyond what everybody already knows?
Well, I have my own private little methods of digging up such stories. I don’t share them in public… but I have shared one of them today with the subscribers of my email newsletter. In case you want to get on my newsletter, so you get more posts like this, with nothing held back, click here and follow the instructions.