Domino�s made waves in the 80s when they made this promise to customers: 30 minutes

or it�s free.

Promises are powerful.

But why?

To understand the importance of a promise, we need to step back and think about why
promises are important.

There was an article in the Harvard Business Review that summed up nicely what we
all already kind of get.

We all know it, but it takes someone saying it and publishing it in something like
the Harvard Business Review for us to say, �Okay, we�re all allowed to say that�,
it�s been validated.

So, they said this:

�If you�re running a business, you contend with the rampant assumption that
your main goal in life is to part fools from their money.�

That is a major source of friction for buyers. Fear of feeling like a fool.

My sister Sarah is a prime example of this.

When I told her that my best friend Angela had paid a sleep consultant $200 for an
hour of online coaching in order to help her baby sleep better, Sarah couldn�t
believe her ears.

It didn�t matter that Angela raved about this sleep consultant.

It didn�t matter that the sleep consultant actually helped Angela get her little
boy to sleep through the night, which in turn transformed her quality of life AND
made her feel more connected to her son.

Sarah just shook her head and said, �I can�t believe someone would charge for
that.�

People believe businesses are trying to separate fools from their money.

Nobody wants to spend their money on something that isn�t going to work.

So if you can make a promise to people, you put some skin in the game. There�s a
sense of a consequence. That�s powerful.

Now��.. a promise is something that people can actually put you to task on.

You could order a pizza from Domino�s and wait at the door with your stopwatch in
hand.

You could tell if they�d kept their promise or not.

But what WAS the promise, really?

It was just a repositioning of Domino�s money back guarantee, with a little extra
oomph.

They�d also give you your money back if you were unsatisfied. You�d get to keep the
pizza, of course.

And they could say that, 9 times out of 10, they actually delivered pizzas within
30 minutes of taking an order.

So they could turn their existing service and their existing guarantee into a
promise and risk very little while getting major pay-off: people love the promise.

So is there something you could promise in your copy?

Angela�s sleep consultant could say: �I promise that, after 1 hour of coaching,
your baby will sleep through the night or your money back.�

She could stand confidently behind that.

And to reduce her risk, she could get a bunch of testimonials from people saying
they got the promised result, which could make customers feel like social deviants
if they said the opposite.

But what about you?

What is an outcome of using your product?

And could you increase conversions by matching that outcome with your satisfaction
guarantee, then massaging it a bit until you�ve got a desirable promise on your
hands?

Think of it a little differently: what would happen to your business tomorrow if

you woke up to find that your competitors had started making a really, really
desirable promise?