Be true, accurate and reasonable

Come across a “guru” promising things like this?:

• Start making $30k months
• Earn your first $10k online
• Give me 6 months and I’ll make you $100,000

Turns out claims like that need to be backed up with reasonable data, at least in Australia – and a few screenshots of happy clients doesn’t cut it.

The below screengrab is from the ACCC website:

Here are some snippets of what counts as “reasonable grounds” for our guru mates:

Representative results data showing a meaningful proportion of comparable clients reached $30k/month within the stated timeframe because of your program (not unrelated factors).

Clear qualifications baked into the main claim (eligibility, prerequisites, timeframe). Fine print or “results may vary” won’t save a dominant promise that creates a wrong overall impression.

Record-keeping: how you measured revenue, verified it, controlled for prior offers and avoided cherry-picking.

If you’ve come close to signing up for a headline like this (or have fallen for it – no judgement, I have!) whether it worked for you or not, they likely made a promise they had no genuine way of keeping.

It’s almost impossible to guarantee revenue when you’re not an internal part of that business like a Business Development Manager, a Sales Manager, CMO, etc. In other words, someone external like a mentor, coach or business advisor is unlikely to be able to guarantee things like that.

So tread carefully – there’s a lot of this crap rolling around.

If you’re toying with offering a guarantee like this and something feels off, you may have been influenced by what you’ve seen others guaranteeing. You’re not a bad person – it’s just a simple reframe:

• You can talk about results others have made, just don’t promise others will replicate it. Eg: If you’re interviewing someone on your podcast who regularly bills $30k months, instead of “Make $30k months with Sally Sample” which makes an unreasonable promise, go with “How Sally Sample makes $30k months”. There’s no promise there, it’s just a discussion about how this person did it.
• Or, guarantee something you do (or could) have control over, maybe things like revisions; or timeframes; or leads; or sessions; or extra sessions if something’s not sticking. But not revenue. You can’t control who buys something.

If you like this non-sleazy, only-promise-what-you-can-influence approach to selling, you might want first dibs on a workshop I’ll be running in early September.

Selling for Soloists: How to make sales without pressure or sleaze is designed specifically for a Company-of-One who gets anxious at the thought of selling, but has to go out make sales anyway.

This approach to selling is light, extremely low pressure, and I might even dare to say it can sometimes be fun. It’s the kind of approach that makes people want to continue working with you.

The workshop will be small, 10 seats max. I’ll be encouraging interaction, but also welcoming lurkers – no pressure to turn your camera on or interact if you don’t want to (I recently joined a community that encourages lurkers, it’s the best 😃).

If you’d like first dibs when it’s open in about a week, join the waitlist here – this is not a commitment to buy, just to hear about it first.