How to Borrow Credibility for More Business

Do you know how to borrow credibility to catapult your trust and capture more clients? Here is a recent and real experience that will show you how to do it right.

Recently, I was contacted by a business coach out of Australia to participate in a telesummit.

(It’s better to re-frame those as master classes or expert interviews.)

Before I agreed, I asked her who else would be on the summit. (I wanted to make sure of the quality of the company I was going to be in.)

She had a lineup of solid experts, with expected reach of 400K. (That’s the total community members of all of us; you can call it a list, but that seems inhuman to me.) And she was well on her way to mastering how to borrow credibility.

When you want to leverage the recognition and success of others, interviews are a fantastic way to do it. So whether you choose a telesummit, a podcast series, blog posts, video interviews, is less important than focusing on your experts.

How to borrow credibility is all about allowing their track record and recognition to provide credibility for you, and to boost your own recognition.

There were some things about this experience that felt a bit out of kilter to me.

The promotion for the event was way before the actual launch of the telesummit which meant it was likely the audience would go a bit sleepy or entirely forget the summit was coming.

These days, we all have ADD and need up to the moment reminders.

Summits I listen to or watch, send as many as 3 emails a day for each interview and a recap. It’s a lot but it keeps me in the loop and I won’t forget.

It’s always better to err on the side of more email than less. And unsubscribes simply mean you are clearing out folks who were never going to be fits (I’m likely to get some with this.)

This summit had an unusual format.

There was nothing to buy, no package of recordings, and no upsell to a program.

The interviews are available for free for an unlimited period of time, and each speaker provided a bonus. (You can get mine here)

Without deadlines, there is no incentive to be live on the calls or to jump in and listen while it’s available without paying for a the summit package.

While these were pre-recorded, I had no idea of the actual date she was going to release my interview so I didn’t share another email with you to let you know.

When I checked her opt-in link for the summit, I got a BIG SURPRISE. None of the experts were either shown in pictures or listed by name. There was no page telling me what I could expect, from whom, and why I needed to listen.

(I really, really should have checked this a lot sooner. I assumed …)

Short form only works if you have a really hot audience.

Summits are an unfamiliar audience because it is the audience of your experts, not your audience yet. They need to see the face and name of the expert they follow or they aren’t as likely to sign up.

Every other summit, master class, interview series I’ve either hosted or participated in they share their experts. They capitalize on their big names to increase their visibility and credibility. IT WORKS!

BIG Lessons Here on How to Borrow Credibility:

• Use the fame, recognition, and track record of your experts.
• Make your summit about them, feature them, and you will shine as the resource that brought them.
• Apply a deadline for free listening or there is no incentive to listen now.
• Provide a package upsell to offset your costs and find out who wants more. (Free doesn’t tell you much.)
• Stay in touch with your speakers through out and let them know when their interview will be live, so they can promote for you specifically on their day.

Summits, master classes, interview series and more don’t have to be hard or complicated, and can be a totally awesome way to boost your visibility and credibility when you do them right.

There is gold in the summit recordings here, what take aways will you capture and apply to your business?

Here’s to getting seen, heard, and having the awesome impact only you can have.