3 Online Selling Tactics That Work (But I’ll Never Use Them)

There are tactics in the online space that make people buy every single time. I've seen it again, and again, and again. But some of these tactics I will never, ever use. And in this video, I'm gonna share with you the three things that work every time but I won't ever use, and why you shouldn't use them either

If we've not met, my name is Teresa Heath-Wareing, and I help course creators, membership owners, and coaches grow an online business that fits really well with them and what they want from their life. It's not just about making loads and loads of money, although I can definitely help you do that if you want, but it's about building a business that fits around your life and the life that you want so that I can earn a good amount of money but also spend my weekends in the garden, which I love.

But the online space has been a little bit like the Wild West at times, and some of the stuff that I've seen over the 10 years I've been in this space quite honestly, is awful. Now, I would say it's got a whole lot better in the last few years, however, it's still not where it needs to be, and there are still people not only using these pretty horrible tactics, but there are still many people I'm seeing buying from these people.

And then what happens is we end up spending money on something that either we don't want, don't need, or doesn't deliver on the thing that was promised. So in this episode, I want to share three tactics that I have seen being used over and over and very, very recently, so this is not something that I saw 12, 18 months ago.

So basically, the way this looks is you might get on a call, webinar, bootcamp, whatever it is, so anything in the online space, and even on stages sometimes I've seen this, but not for a very long time, where people get you to constantly say yes. So they would start off by going, "Give me a yes in the chat.

Say hell yes. Can I get a yes? Do you agree? Tell me yes." But it's specifically the yes that they're getting you to say. Now, you might think, well, why is that a problem, and how is that a concern when you're doing something, and how is that a horrible tactic? Because one way that you might see this is you're getting engagement, and yes, that's lovely, and I will actively encourage people on my calls to engage with me, but it's the specific act of saying yes.

By saying yes over and over, and committing to saying yes even when it's not saying yes to something big, or even when it's not saying yes to something that is in line with the ultimate yes someone is after, which is buying your thing, it actually starts to set up a pattern in our brains and almost creates a self-image.

I am a person who says yes, which then is underpinned by cognitive dissonance. So basically, we're building up a picture of the person we want to be, i.e. the person who says yes. The, at the point we then might want to say no, the cognitive dissonance goes, "No, but I don't wanna do that because I've built up this picture of who I am," and therefore is more likely to have you say yes, because we don't like to contradict our earlier choices, and in our earlier choices, we said yes.

So by getting people to say yes over and over and over, you are basically increasing your chances of people saying yes in the end. This one is a fairly soft tactic that we're starting with, and you might think, "Well, there's nothing wrong with that." However, it is manipulative, and having them say all of those small, tiny yeses is leading them to feel like they can't say no later down the line.

Okay, tactic number two, the plant Now, I'm obsessed with houseplants and gardening, as I've already said, but it is not what I'm talking about. I would much rather be talking about houseplants than gardening. When I talk about a plant, what I mean is someone who is specifically engineered to be on a call or within an audience to basically say either they are buying the thing or encourage other people to buy the thing.

When this is real, it's fine, and not orchestrated in the slightest, right? So let's ignore the fact of the plant. Let's say that you are doing a webinar and you've made an offer, and someone has gone, "I've just signed up." That is awesome if it's real and if you didn't orchestrate it. The other way this can look is if there's someone in the chat basically encouraging people to sign up, encouraging people to buy, saying how amazing the person is.

And one thing to watch out for is some of those people might be an affiliate. So for instance, if someone is affiliated for someone else's launch and they have brought loads of people to the launch, they might be in the chat, and they might be encouraging people to buy because ultimately they're gonna make money when people do.

So again, I went and did some research and find out some details about this. Now, there was a study by Solomon Asch. It was called the conformity experiment. Around a third of people agree with an answer they could plainly see was wrong simply because the group did. So because the group said the answer was right, they went with it even though they knew the answer was wrong, and 74% went along at least once.

The thing with this is, like I said, if it happens naturally, and sometimes it's hard to tell, but if it happens naturally, then cool. Like, it's really nice that people go, "I love working with this person" or, "This is a great thing." It's when it's so specific, and it's when someone is there on purpose, and either the person who's running the webinar, boot camp, whatever it is, has asked them to come in and do that, or the person in there doing it has a vested interest, i.e.

And then the final one, which- I am so against, I can't even tell you. And if you are watching this and you are happy to do this, then I might not be for you. But also, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this if you do do this one. Okay, so it's encouraging people to get into debt to join your program. It's basically saying if people say they can't afford it, encouraging them to maybe take a 0% credit card to go and buy the thing.

There's two things here, right? First off, there's the psychological tactic that's being used, and I'll explain that in a minute and the study that's done on that. But the first thing I want to address is this is just rubbish, right? This is just really shitty tactic to use, encouraging someone to get into debt.

Of course, I can't. I have taken lots of risks. I have spent money that on paper I couldn't afford to spend. But I made that decision. Even as I'm saying this, I'm now wondering, like, actually, did they use those tactics at that time? And I can't be certain, but either way, I took responsibility. I made that decision.

I chose to pay for something. Now, I never put it on a credit card, but maybe I had got like a buffer in my business that then got wiped out on a coach or a program. But the reason I really struggle with this one is because we have no idea if they're going to do the work. You could have the best program in the world.

I don't know that they can get the results. At the end of the day, even though I work with hundreds of online business owners, I can't guarantee anybody's results because the strategies that I teach, the tactics that we use, the methods that I know might not work for that person with that offer and that audience.

However, I still can't guarantee their results. So I would never feel comfortable someone getting into debt for me. Now, if they choose to make that decision themselves, that is entirely up to them. They're grownups, they're adults, they can do what they wanna do in their business. But I would never, ever encourage it or talk about it because that is In my mind, really irresponsible to encourage people to get into debt in order to do your program.

So it feels like, oh, okay, well, it's a bit like a part payment, right? And personally, I- if I'm buying something, I much prefer to pay it all in advance. If I'm receiving payment, I like a part payment 'cause I like the cash flow in my business. But that's one of the reasons part payments work, because you're deferring the payment, so it's helping.

Now, again, that's fine. That's not a horrible strategy. That's absolutely fine and perfect for, for someone to use that strategy. It's when we're saying, "Go put it on a credit card to defer that payment," that that's not okay. So when I looked at the research for this, it was really interesting, and actually was surprising to me because I was more looking for the research around, like, don't be a horrible human and get people to buy things on credit cards when they can't afford it.

For me, like I said, that's more of an ethical thing that I am like, no, I will never, ever suggest someone get into debt or ask someone to get into debt. I know and have seen evidence of people in launches saying there are 0% credit cards, and that, if anyone ever says that to you as a buyer- Run for the hills.

That, to me, is very ethical selling. So just to sum up, the three tactics that I will never use in my business is, one, using that yes ladder to get them to commit to smaller yeses so that when we give them the big final question of will they buy, they feel more compelled to say yes to that. Two, have plants in my webinars or my boot camps where basically they are there just to orchestrate either pretending to buy or encouraging other people to buy.

And this is a million percent away from what I want and how I sell. I want you to go into every purchase decision you ever make in your full judgment knowing that you have made this decision for you. And this is one of the reasons I get no refund requests. This is one of the reasons I have people who engage in my programs, because I am not getting them in there using some of these really crappy strategies.

Now, I will never call out individuals. That's just not who I am. I will never badmouth people on the internet and particularly say, "This person's terrible at this." Sometimes there's a part of me that wish I could because I would hope that it would stop other people that may be, like, buying from them, but I won't ever do that.

That's not me. And I like to believe that we're all trying our best and maybe they were taught those strategies from someone else and they don't really know what they're doing with those strategies. But this is one of the reasons I've chose to do this episode so that either, A, you don't use these strategies, or B, you don't, and again, I nearly used the word fall for them, but get manipulated by them because they are strategies that are designed to manipulate you and make you lose your own judgment and faith in your own decisions that you then end up going with one of theirs.

I hope this episode has been useful. I would love to hear your thoughts on this.