The guarantee nobody in the industry would offer

Years ago I was running a real estate brokerage in the UK, in a market where every single competitor did the same thing. You signed a sole agency agreement, you were tied in for twelve or sixteen weeks, and if the agent did nothing for three months you sat there and watched them do it.

Everyone hated it. Every seller hated it, and every agent knew they hated it. It stayed because it had always been there, and because no agent wanted to be the one who gave up their protection.

So I looked outside the industry and stole an idea from a pizza company.

Domino's had built an empire on a promise that sounded reckless. Thirty minutes or it's free. They were not really selling speed. They were selling the removal of a specific anxiety that every hungry person had at eight o'clock on a Friday night, which was: I have no idea when this is turning up.

Estate agency had exactly the same anxiety wearing a different coat. Sellers were not frightened of the fee. They were frightened of being stuck with someone who had stopped trying.

So we removed the tie-in. Leave any time, no notice, no penalty. If you are not happy with what we are doing, walk.

What actually happened

Two things, and only one of them was the one I expected.

The first was that instructions and listings went up. Obviously. We were the only firm in town where the risk sat with us rather than the customer, and that was enough on its own to change the conversation on the doorstep.

The second was the one that mattered more. Our own performance improved, because the guarantee was pointed inward as much as outward. When a client can leave on a Tuesday, you do not let a property sit for three weeks with no contact. The promise disciplined us. It removed the option of coasting, which is an option most businesses quietly leave open for themselves.

That is the part people miss about risk reversal. They think it is a marketing device. It is actually an operations decision that happens to be very good marketing.

Why it has to come from outside

If you look at your competitors for ideas, you will find the industry average, because that is the only thing a group of competitors can produce.

Everyone in your sector is optimising against the same constraints, learning from the same conferences, and reassuring each other that the tie-in, the retainer, the twelve-month minimum term or the non-refundable setup fee is simply how it is done. It is not how it is done. It is how it is done here.

Go and look at how a different industry solves the same human problem and you will find a move that is unremarkable there and startling in your market.

The removal of risk from the buyer is the most portable idea I know. Nobody sends it back.

How to find yours

Do not start with the guarantee. Start with the fear.

Ask yourself one question, and answer it honestly rather than defensively. What does my buyer quietly worry about when they are deciding whether to work with someone like me?

It is rarely the price. It is usually one of these. That I will be handed to a junior after the pitch. That I will not know if it is working until it is too late. That I will be locked in while nothing happens. That it will take four months to see anything at all. That the person I met is not the person I get.

Now guarantee against the actual fear. Not a generic money-back promise, which everyone discounts because everyone offers it. The specific one.

You will not be handed to a junior. The person you meet is the person who does the work.

You get your first result inside thirty days or we keep working without charge until you do.

You can leave any month, and we will hand over everything we built.

The condition

You can be as bold as you like, but you have to be able to back it up.

A guarantee you cannot deliver is not positioning, it is a debt. And a guarantee that costs you nothing to offer is not a guarantee, it is decoration. Your market can tell the difference immediately, usually faster than you can.

The right test is simple. If the promise does not make you slightly uncomfortable, and does not force you to change something about how you actually operate, you have not made one yet.

Find the thing nobody in your industry will say out loud. Then say it, and mean it.