Is it hard to sell training for its own sake?

[Kay]

On another thread, MikeB wrote:

...it is hard to sell training for its own sake

Rather than take that thread, which is about long sales pages, off topic I thought it best to start a new discussion. Is it hard to sell training for its own sake?

I agree, lots of people will want to know what reward they'll reap as a result of their training, but is it really necessary to sell it to them on the basis of hyping it up about the rewards the training will bring them?

I don't really think it is necessary in many cases.

Often a person might want to do the training because they already know the value it will bring for them. For example, when I did my business master's degree, there was no hype at all in trying to sell me the course. It was the other way around - I had to show them that I had the prerequisites, and the ability and the motivation to do it. They wouldn't have accepted me as a student otherwise.

In the context of selling training online, there are at least two issues. The first is, are you trying to sell training to newbies and therefore need to persuade them that's it's going to provide rewards? Another is, will people value the training you're trying to sell them? When something is offered as a freebie, people often take it for granted as something without value. Since this thread was spawned by discussion of Internet Tycoon, I'll quote Kenny here on the subject of paid subscriptions rather than giving everything away for free. He's talking about premium membership on another forum, "...they've paid, so they're serious". I agree with his point. If people have to pay, even a nominal amount, you can weed out the time wasters. I definitely like the pay-for-membership model. (I use it on my own place too.)

Is it hard to sell training online?

Yes, it is, because so many newbies are being taught how to sell to other newbies. Many MMO products seem to be based on this concept. It's like pyramid selling. Learn how to do this and then sell to other newbies. This requires you to make a fancy squeeze page or sales page and use lots of yellow highlighting and red ticks and stuff. That's what's been taught - and some say it works. Well, I'd argue that it maybe works on a newbie or someone who is inexperienced in business. If you want to get into that game then you'd better do it to the max. You'll be competing with all the other newbie clones out there. (The blind leading the blind in other words.)

On the other hand, you could just be honest and say what's on offer. No "opportunities", no guarantees of riches, just a chance to get some really good info about some techniques and resources. That's how academic sites do it. I'm sure it works for them. Actually I signed up for a paid subscription to one of them recently because I thought the industry analysis provided in their premium area would be worth keeping an eye on.

This posting has gone on too long already so I'll wrap it up.

Selling training online is likely to be a very difficult thing to do because you're competing with so many blind-leading-the-blind types and so many get-rich-quick merchants. If you want to sell to newbies then you'd better beat all the others doing it, and get your stuff great ranking in the SERPs. OTOH, if you're not going after the gullible newbie, then maybe you could just say what you're offering and let the person make their own decision whether or not it could be of value to them. (Sales is not in my skill set.)

Is it hard to sell training for its own sake? It depends on what market you're in and what you're trying to sell.

[tke71709]

Trying to sell training is like trying to sell software.

You don't make a list of features and sell those. Trust me, developers just love that. I don't know how many times I've been told I just coded X, you need to add it to the sales page. No one cares about features, they care about benefits. I can write "Ability to import RSS entries" or I can write "Imports thousands of records in seconds to automatically populate your site". Which is more likely to sell the product? Not the feature.

Trying to sell training is very similar. Few are interested in buying training for the sake of training, they are buying training to acheive whatever the end of goal of that training is. In the case of InternetTycoon they are trying to buy a means to improve their financial lives, not trying to learn how to transfer domain ownership of a site (which would be critical to their being successful website flippers but would be a horrible bullet point on a sales page).

[Clinton]

On the other hand, you could just be honest and say what's on offer. No "opportunities", no guarantees of riches, just a chance to get some really good info about some techniques and resources.

If you're competing in a market with a million other products why would customers choose your no guarantees training over the ones that are promising to make them rich, successful and beautiful?

[mikeb]

Kay, I think when you signed up for your Masters , it was BECAUSE it led to a masters:

That immediately communicates two things.
1/ the known benefits of having that on your CV
2/ a demonstration of the level, sophistication and quality because the courses have to be accredited as sufficiently demanding.

Had they said instead.
"Come and learn about business for 1? 2? years, these subjects we will cover" - with no mention of the goal. You would have headed away for some institution that gave a recognised qualification instead.

Ditto more or less any other form of training you care to mention: whilst the value is in the journey.
It is sold ( and bought) on the destination.

Ditto anything else you sell . Copywriting/selling 101 it is not what it is, it is what it achieves for the customer.

The mischivieous side of me agrees in part with what Kenny says - then turns the same argument back on him - n I question what proves that he is serious? He is not paying to be there, nor has he committed to goals for the training, or what constitutes "success" by way of proof or even evidence. The goals and benefits are how you measure that HE has delivered, and therefore what should motivate him to deliver too.

[Chabrenas]

Kay, although you have to prove that you met pre-reqs to enrol on a Masters course, the educational institution does sell the range and quality of courses it provides. All academic institutions do that if they have to attract paying students.

And no, it shouldn't be hard to sell training for which there is a clear market. In fact, there is at least one MMO vendor out there that specialises in training people how to address this market, and they're not teaching people to sell courses that teach people how to sell course that...[recursive loop].

However, if 'for its own sake' implies that the trainee has no other goal than to learn for the fun or the challenge, then I would expect selling such training to be an interesting challenge itself.

[Kay]

It's difficult, Clinton. Maybe it comes down to "trust". Trust is a term much abused by the MMO guys - create trust, make the reader trust you (often by lying to them).

Some people are taken in by this fake trust thing. It's not true - don't trust anyone because they have a fancy sales page with a picture of them on their luxury yacht and you can have this lifestyle too if you trust them, follow their recipe for success, sign up here, only $47.

If you're competing in a market with a million other products why would customers choose your no guarantees training over the ones that are promising to make them rich, successful and beautiful?

Maybe you have to create a reputation for yourself as being something more than a snake oil salesman? Maybe (fake) trust will go out of fashion and reputation will mean more in the future. Real reputation. If you've been around a while and have built up a rep for being an honest kind of person, then people will believe you when you have something to say. And reputation isn't about writing rubbish to make people trust you. Reputation isn't about being a guru.

In a market with a million other products, customers might choose my newbie guide (haven't got one) over others because they know me and know that I tell it how it is. Trust is just a cliche these days. Getting to know a person and believing in their integrity is better than trusting what they say on a crappy sales page.

[Kay]

Oops. I took so long to write my last posting, which was a reply to Clinton, all these others have come in meanwhile.

Kay, I think when you signed up for your Masters , it was BECAUSE it led to a masters:

That immediately communicates two things.
1/ the known benefits of having that on your CV

Why would I want that on my CV? I don't even have a CV. I don't apply for jobs - not since the 1980s - I get offered them. I did the course for me. Just because I could. I wanted to prove something to myself - I was already retired from paid employment. (BTW, I got a distinction in the MSc That was fun.)

Had they said instead.
"Come and learn about business for 1? 2? years, these subjects we will cover" - with no mention of the goal. You would have headed away for some institution that gave a recognised qualification instead.

Ditto more or less any other form of training you care to mention: whilst the value is in the journey.
It is sold ( and bought) on the destination.

Absolutely not. Why would I care about any bit of paper now? I do all kinds of courses whether accredited or not. I've done courses in art, cooking, and all kinds of things. It's not for my CV, it's for me. I do things that interest me. I'm currently studying something else right now. (FYI, three years for the business master's, part-time.)

But this thread isn't about me and my maverick approach. I don't see how it's too difficult to sell training by just offering a good course to train people and being honest about what you're offering. Does anyone really care about the bit of paper and putting letters after their name?

Aha, but if you want to get your traffic from the search engines that might be a different matter, because you'll be competing with all the MMO people. Search engines maybe aren't the best way to go for traffic.

[mikeb]

It's difficult, Clinton. Maybe it comes down to "trust". Trust is a term much abused by the MMO guys - create trust, make the reader trust you (often by lying to them).

Some people are taken in by this fake trust thing. It's not true - don't trust anyone because they have a fancy sales page with a picture of them on their luxury yacht and you can have this lifestyle too if you trust them, follow their recipe for success, sign up here, only $47.

.

I think that is a misunderstanding of the role of pictures of cars in sales letters (not that I think they have any place there, and good sales letters do not use them) - they are not there for trust, nor do they help to create it. They are there in a mistaken belief that that is how to get people to imagine the benefits of the outcome. Visualising an outcome does have a big part to play in persuasion.

Real trust ( normally the word credibility is used which has wider meaning) is established in several ways - by demonstration of the process and outcome - by proof of income and by genuine relevant testimonials to a substantial proportion of those attending the speciific training previous., and by detailed listing of the matters included, and by free samples of what is to come, and by genuine no quibble guarantees.

Fake trust is social trust generated by "people saying he is a good guy", including other "authority figures" without relevance to the product in hand or any evidence of outcome. That can easily be an assumption repeated so often it achieves the status of fact. Becasue someone you know vouches for x, so do you without ever having used him. Or because he is personally known All irrelevant to the product in hand. Ask bernie maddoffs victims. All conmen are affable people who can talk the birds down out of trees. Even if someone talks a good game, and has a lot of relevant experience does not mean they can ever deliver. Only relevant proof matters to trust.

In short the trust provide by Kenny and Justin was fake in this instance, since it was entirely based by their own statements of how successful they are (without any proof or a shred of evidence) and there was not even evidence of the extent to which either use the methods they are adocating, and certainly no proof for whether the course manages to teach people to copy the process.
In short it is the "great I am, look at me" school of marketing, which always comes over as spam, and is never used by the best copywriters.

I still say nobody takes training for its own sake. That is - because they like going in the classroom.

If it is a camera or photography training course, it is because you want to take better pictures, not because you have academic interest in what all the menus on the camera do.

So the way to sell a photography course is..

" Discover how to take stnning pictures like these"!
Targetting pictures of wildlife to wildlife photography enthusiasts...etc

I suspect the course

"discover what every option and setting does on your canon camera" Would get very few takers indeed, and certainly command far less money.

[omarabid]

tke71709 is summing it up. Certainly, distribution channels (like marketers and advertising) can be bring you leads but there should be a point in buying your product. Your ability to convince the buyer that your product (ebook, video, or whatever it is) solves their problem, will make you a sale (a.k.a conversion ratio).


In the case of the MMO quick and get rich, you are selling dreams. The target audience is generally 20 something or less. You don't have much money, that's why it cost $49 or less. They don't have work experience, that's why they are easily dumped.


And yeah, they are young and they want $$$.

[Thomas]

promising to make them rich, successful and beautiful?

So you're telling me that eBook I just bought on Clickbank isn't going to make me beautiful?!