George Foreman Archives

A couple days ago, I wrote an email about an unused form of proof, namely testimonials and endorsements for the person selling, rather than for the product being sold.

I first spotted that in the super successful infomercial for the George Foreman Grill. Half the testimonials in the infomercial are for the grill itself. But the rest are for George Foreman himself, like this:

“If George is behind anything, that will be the best thing for America. George would never advertise nothing that’s not good for America.”

After I wrote that email, I got message from copywriter GC Tsalamagkakis, who wrote:

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I’ve seen a lot of people doing it. And I’m sure it works.

But it would have to be executed in a natural way.

Looking at my own reaction (and I may very well be the only one), when I just see those 2 types of testimonials mixed together, it makes me think that the person is desperate to add more social proof and will use any remotely-related testimonials they can find.

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GC’s comment made me think. He’s definitely not the only one to feel like this.

I have myself seen sales pages where only a few lukewarm testimonials are for the offer itself (“quite an acceptable sandwich”)… while the rest of the sales page is padded with other testimonials either for other products by same person (“amazing French fries!”), or just endorsements for the person selling (“the greatest fast-food visionary of our generation”).

On sales pages like this, extra endorsements don’t help much and can even hurt.

I know I have personally felt that such extra endorsements act as a kind of anti-proof element, as a red herring that’s more likely to put questions into my head than lull me into buying.

I asked myself what makes the difference. Why do “seller endorsements” work in the George Foreman infomercial… and don’t work on many sales pages?

I don’t have a clear answer. My best guess is that in one place the extra testimonials are coming from a position of strength, and in the other they are coming from a position of weakness, and that’s something we humans are good at sniffing out.

Maybe you have a better answer. If you do, I hope you will hit reply and enlighten me.

And if you want one more example to help you make you delve inside this profound mystery, I can point you to an effective sales page that features seller endorsements along with product testimonials.

The sales page in question is one for my Most Valuable Email course, and I say it’s effective because I’ve sold many, many copies of this course via this sales page.

The endorsements on this sales page, for me as someone who writes daily emails, come from people like Joe Schriefer of Agora Financial, Bill Mueller of Story Sales Machine, and Daniel Throssell of the Australia Throssells.

On the other hand, there are also a dozen product testimonials, which I’ve picked from a larger batch of positive customer feedback.

I’ve chosen to feature those specific testimonials either because they are particularly enthusiastic (“amazing,” “incredible,” and “more importantly, writing an MVE is fun”) or because the copywriter or marketer benefited from applying the MVE trick in their own or their client’s emails. A sample:

“My inbox is flooded with applause”

“The highest-converting single-email campaign sent to the non-buyers of all time”

“… made me make 5 times more the investment in MVE”

If you wanna see how I integrate both kinds of testimonials into my MVE sales page, take a look below. Just be careful that you don’t get sucked into buying the course itself. Here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

When I was a teenager still living at home, a fixture in my mom’s kitchen was the Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine aka the George Foreman grill.

My mom spent a minimum of one hour each night cooking after she got home from work. The George Foreman grill was the only “high tech” gadget she ever used. I fondly remember the many hundreds of pounds of olive-oil basted chicken thigh she prepared on the George Foreman grill and fed me over the years.

A few days ago, I looked up the history of the George Foreman grill.

George was unwilling to promote it at first. “I’m not interested in toys,” he said. But he agreed after his wife made him a hamburger on the grill.

And good thing, too. The George Foreman grill has sold well over 100 million units to date. And George Foreman made an estimated $200 million in royalties from having his name — and signature — on each grill.

Most of those 100+ million units were sold through retail. But the George Foreman grill got its start with an infomercial.

Thanks to the wonder that is YouTube, I found the original 28-min George Foreman grill infomercial. I watched it. it’s honestly great — fun viewing.

And if like me you are interested in ideas and the history and development of ideas, this infomercial holds many valuable lessons, as long as you can spare 28 minutes and a bit of brainpower to write down notes.

Today I want to share one note I wrote down while watching the GF infomercial. It might seem obvious to you. But it was a revelation to me.

So, like any successful piece of direct response advertising, the GF infomercial has testimonials. The first batch of testimonials is what you might expect — about the product and what it will do for you.

But the second batch of testimonials has nothing to do with the product. Here, check it out:

TESTIMONIAL 1: “If George is behind anything, that will be the best thing for America. George would never advertise nothing that’s not good for America.”

TESTIMONIAL 2: “George Foreman and food. You can’t beat that. Because George is big on hamburgers. And he’s a big guy. So he’s a great person to find out about new product that has to do with food. I didn’t have any doubts when I knew George was promoting it.”

So that’s my tip for you for today:

People are easier to sell than products or ideas. But you still have to do some selling, even to sell a person.

So have testimonials not just about your offer and how good it is…

But also about who you are, and why that’s a good thing. And like George, you might find one day soon that there are millions of dollars dropping into your lap unexpectedly.

“Oh yeah?” you say. “You know, Bejako, I would consider buying into your tip, if only I trusted you more. If only I had some testimonials to sell me on you.”

Fair point. I have to admit I’ve been very, very slack about collecting testimonials for this newsletter, for my products, and for myself.

But I’ll change that going forward.

And if you want to help me kickstart my testimonial chopper, then hit reply and write me something nice.

If you enjoy these emails or you’ve gotten value out of my books or courses… you can write me that. That would be fine.

But what would be even finer if you write me and say, “If John is behind anything, then I’m sure it’s going to be good.”

Write me that you have no doubts if you know I’m promoting something.

Or even — if you can somehow stomach to do it — write me that I’m the best thing for America. When it comes to persuasion and influence at least.

Oh, and if you are not yet sure I’m the best thing for America… you might join many other smart and successful marketers and copywriters, and sign up for my email newsletter.