"You have 9 guests booked and 1 episode recorded. That's social proof. Why the hell isn't that in your reply?"
That's what one of my AI Advisors (I have 10 of 'em) told me when I asked it to audit an email I was about to send.
It was blunt but it's the kind of feedback I needed.
You see, the person I reached out to responded to my outreach with a skeptical tone, saying, "I appreciate the invitation, but I am trying to make sure this is a legitimate ask and not fraud."
I was about to respond that my 'website is down" and explain why when I thought of consulting with one of my AI Advisor persona, Dan Henry. And I'm glad I did.
My AI made me see my mistake: I was volunteering a weakness. Unprompted.
The prospect was already skeptical and instead of showing social proof to address that skepticism, I brought up a non-working website, which would make me look less legitimate.
My AI Advisor, Dan, went on and say: "She's asking 'is this real?' and you've got receipts — you're just not showing them."
And I thought to myself, "you're right, why the hell would I do that?"
In hindsight, I thought I was just being honest. Turns out, it was actually self-sabotage.
I was so fixated on trying to justify that I'm legit so when she asked where she can check my work, I immediately thought of my website and LinkedIn. But my website is under maintenance and I haven't been posting on LI.... I wanted to be honest about it.
But here's what I realized: I don't have to bring those 'weaknesses' up, if it wasn't asked. And it doesn't mean I'm being dishonest either.
I'm just being strategic on what I share. In order to address skepticism, I have to show proof. And at that point, I already finished 1 interview and booked 9 guests for the show that I was inviting her to.
I had proof. I wasn't just leveraging it.
And if you're like me, you've probably done this unconsciously multiple times.
I mean, how many times have you done something great but you brushed it off?
How many times have you gotten messages from your clients thanking you for something you've done for them but you didn't document it?
How many screenshot-worthy results have you gotten for clients but you forgot to save it?
So here's what I'd encourage you to do:
Take an inventory of all your social proof, like DMs or emails from clients, screenshots of performance dashboards, or positive reviews/comments on your programs...
Save them. So you can leverage them in your marketing and sales activities in the future.