How Social Proof Sells Without Saying a Word
In October 2011, right before he launched Empower Network, Dave Wood got invited to speak in front of a room full of buyers, the kind of pitch event he’d always hated. So he ran an experiment: sell something without ever describing what it actually was, and see if people bought anyway. In this episode he tells you exactly what happened when two-thirds of a 250-person room ran to the stage with cash and credit cards. And traces the principle back to a direct sales convention in 2006 where he first learned how social proof actually works on a crowd. Here’s the episode.
I’m currently reading Robert Cialdini’s bestseller Influence. And on page 116 he asks what political rallies, canned laughter, and buying rushes all have in common. That question reminded me of a bizarre story from selling in front of live audiences, one I remembered while reading chapter four today.
What Happens When You Sell Without Describing the Product
In October 2011, before I started Empower Network, I was invited to speak in front of an audience teaching internet marketing strategies. I’d never been a fan of pitch events, because getting a room of people to pay for training and then delivering nothing but three days of pitches built to get their credit cards out is incongruent with my own value system. And I just don’t like doing it. As I sat there watching people rush to the front of the room, buying offer after offer, I kept thinking about how people can sell almost anything. And people will buy it, once they see other people start buying first. That creates evidence that buying this particular thing is automatically going to produce what you want in your life. So I decided to try something: I wanted to see what would happen if I sold nothing, meaning I never described exactly what I was offering, just to see if people would buy it anyway.
Where I First Learned Social Proof
The first time I really understood social proof was at a convention hosted by a direct sales company called Agile Enterprises, where I was a distributor from 2006 to 2007. Randy Gage was talking about hotel meetings and presenting opportunity, and he held up a copy of Influence and started explaining how social proof works. I learned that the real decision mechanism in live meetings was testimonials and social proof, that you could run the best meeting in the world with no testimonials and nobody would buy. But a bad presentation stacked with relatable social proof could close 80 percent of the room. Randy explained that when people watch testimonials they usually roll their eyes and hold back, until something shifts and they lean forward, their belief state flipping to I’m going to be rich, reaching for their credit card almost automatically.
He trained distributors on constructing social proof live, in front of the room, and it was something to watch. What fascinated me most, and what I learned the most from, was the level of specificity behind creating that social buy-in. Distributors sat at the front, leaning forward, taking notes, so the guests behind them would see it. We were told to laugh at every joke, even the tenth or hundredth time we’d heard it, so other people would hear our laughter and start laughing too. Testimonials were picked specifically for demographic relatability to the guests in the room. And people were coached exactly how to tell their story so it would land with people like them: a single mom, a baby boomer, a college student, a busy professional, a black person, a white person.
Here’s the interesting part: it worked, and it didn’t matter that the stories were modest. Nobody had a giant income, this was our local town. It was as simple as: hey, my name’s Don, and before I found this company I was a struggling truck driver, waking up every day dreading my job, praying for a way out. Then one day I found this company, and now I’m excited because I see a way out of truck driving, and the product is working for me. That was it, and it worked. As each testimonial walked through their decision and their struggle, the audience would perk up in waves, and you could see it in their body language from the front or the back of the room. As one person leaned forward and started deciding to buy, the people around them would buy into the idea too.
Two-Thirds of the Room Ran to the Stage
Which brings me back to my story from 2011. I walked on stage with one goal: to see if people would buy something without ever knowing what it was, stripping the sales process down to nothing but storytelling, price conditioning, urgency, and social proof. I had real stories to tell, because I’d been helping people make money online for years. And I had real proof of dramatic change all around me in my own life and relationships. As the timer counted down, the body language of the audience began to change. As I lowered the price and another testimonial crossed the stage, the buy-in kept increasing across the room and the resistance kept dropping. Two-thirds of an audience of 250 people were literally running to the stage, throwing money and credit cards at me, cash in hand, in a buying rush I can only describe as, what the hell just happened.
It was only $47, and afterward people were walking up to my assistant Chris, a friend of mine from growing up, asking him what the hell they’d just paid for. The room genuinely couldn’t tell you what they’d bought, and they bought it anyway. Of course I delivered value well beyond that $47. That product later became something we sold about $30 million of, called the 15K Formula, at $1,000 a copy, and we built a great experience for everyone who pulled out their card. But that’s not really the point. The point is, isn’t that story surreal? Social proof creates more responsiveness than logic or data ever will, for way more of the population than logic or data will ever convince.
Which is why today’s question is this: how can you use the unconscious, automatic decision response of social proof in your own business?
Full episode transcript
Lightly edited from the original recording — fillers removed, nothing added. Income disclaimer.
Welcome to the Daily Shortcut. My name is Dave Wood, and before we dive deep down into today's lesson, let me ask you a powerful question. What do you think the political rallies, canned laughter, and also buying rushes have in common? Well, I'm currently reading Robert Cialdini's bestseller book called Influence, and on page 116 he says this. He says, What do I mean by that?
Well, let me tell you a bizarre story I learned from selling stuff in front of live audiences that I remembered while I was reading chapter 4 of Influence today. In October 2011, before I started my company in Power Network, I was invited to speak in front of an audience. I was teaching internet marketing strategies. I had never really been a fan of pitch events because the idea of getting a room of people to pay for training and then delivering nothing real but three days of pitches that are constructed to get people to pull out their credit card, it's incongruent with my personal value system, and I just don't like doing it. As I was sitting there watching people, they were rushing into the front of the room, they were buying offer after repetitive offer, and what I was thinking about was how these people...
People can literally sell anything and people want to buy it when they see other people who start to buy it first, creating evidence that buying this particular system is going to automatically create what you want in your life. So I decided to try something out. I wanted to see what would happen if I literally sold nothing. I mean, specifically, never describing exactly what I was offering just to see what would happen. I wanted to see if people would buy it.
What do you think happened? Well, more on that in a minute. The first time I understood the principle of social proof was actually at a convention hosted by a direct sales company called Agile Enterprises that I was a distributor for in 2006 to 2007. Randy Gage was talking about doing hotel meetings and presenting opportunity. And he held up a copy of the book Influence and started talking about how social proof works.
I learned that the core decision mechanism in live meetings was actually testimonials and social proof. That you could literally do the best meeting in the whole world with no testimonials and nobody would buy. But if you did a bad presentation with tons of relatable social proof, you could close 80% of the room. Randy shared that when people are watching testimonials, they usually roll their eyes and they balk until something happens. And then what they do is they lean forward and their belief state shifts into, I'm going to be rich, as they.
Again, reaching for their credit card, having the automatic desire to buy. He then did a training on testimonials and constructed social proof at local live hotel meetings in front of the room. And it was amazing to watch. But the level of specificity for creating social buy-in is what fascinated me the most and what I learned the most from. The distributors were supposed to sit in the front of the meeting, leaning forward and taking notes so the guests would be.
They would be behind them and watching them take notes. We were instructed to laugh at every joke, even if it was the 10th or the 100th time we'd heard that joke. So other people would hear our laughter and they would start laughing too. Testimonials were selected specifically based on demographic relatability of the guests in the room and were taught exactly how to share their story in a way that was relatable with people who are like them in the audience. So we wanted a single mom, a baby boomer, a college student, a busy professional, a black person, a white person.
Here's what the interesting thing was about the training. It worked. It actually didn't matter that the stories were unsubstantial. There wasn't any giant incomes or anything because it was in our local town. Things literally that were just like this.
Hey, my name's Don. And before I found this company, I was a struggling truck driver. I used to wake up every single day dreading my job, literally, praying for a solution to come my way. And then one day I found this company. Now I'm excited because I see a way out of truck driving.
And the best part is the product is working for me. And I'm more excited than I've ever been in my life. And that worked, right? Now, what would happen is as the testimonials were walking through their decision pattern and their struggles, the audience would actually perk up in waves. And you could literally see it in their body language from the front or the back of the room.
As one person leaned forward and began making a decision to buy, the other people around them would automatically buy into the idea. And they would also make decisions to buy, which actually brings me back to my story in 2011. So I walked on stage. And I had a single goal, to see if the people would buy something without ever knowing what it was, removing all of the sales process but storytelling, price conditioning, urgency, and social proof. Of course, I had real stories.
Because I've been helping people like you make money online for years. So this could work for me because I have a real proof of dramatic change all around me in all my relationships in my life. And you know what happened that day? As the timer counted down, the body language of the audience began to change. As I lowered the price and another testimonial walked across the stage, the buy-in to what I was selling increased across the room.
And the resistance decreased. And two-thirds of an audience of 250 people literally were running to the stage, throwing money and credit cards at me. I mean, literally, they had cash. And they were throwing cash and credit cards in a buying rush that can't really be described in any other way but, what the hell just happened? The room, they literally couldn't figure out what they just bought, and they bought it anyways.
Of course, I delivered value, way more than the measly $47 that they bought, and I created a product that we actually later sold about $30 million of, called the 15K formula. It was $1,000 to buy. And we created a great customer experience for the people who decided to pull out their credit card. But that's not the point. The point is, isn't that story surreal?
Social proof. It will actually create more responsiveness than logic or data in way more of the population than logic or data will be a convincer pattern for, if that makes sense. Which is why today's question is this. How can you utilize the unconscious, automatic decision response of social proof in your own business? Let me know in the comments your thoughts.
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