Melanie Deziel - Prove It: Exactly How Modern Marketers Earn Trust

Learning how to build customer trust is essential for small business success, and this book is the perfect how to guide!

Melinda Emerson , SmallBizLady; author, Become Your Own Boss in Months

Marketers spend so much time marketing when they should be earning trust. Prove It shows you exactly how to do that. No fluff. No wasted space.

Ramon Ray , founder, SmartHustle.com

Praise be to every deity ever named, we finally have a book that recognizes what content marketing is actually for: trust. Everything else flows from that. Which means everything else flows from this book.

Jay Acunzo , author, Break the Wheel ; former marketer, Google, HubSpot, and ESPN

Melanie Deziel is someone Ive watched and respected for years, and this book is just further evidence of her complete mastery over the content marketing space. Id consider this a must-read for anyone looking to earn the trust of their audience.

Kaleigh Moore , freelance writer and consultant

Prove It is something amazing: a brief but comprehensive instruction manual for truth in marketing. If you hate bullshit, youd better read thi s... and put it into practice.

Josh Bernoff , bestselling author, Writing Without Bullshit

Modern marketing has been elevated to a new leve l... know, like, trust, and proof . The title of this book says it alland the content of this book teaches it all. A classic.

Mike Michalowicz , author, Get Different and Profit First

If you want higher quality leads that are easier to convert, your marketing and messaging must be excellent. In Prove It , Melanie Deziel and Phil M Jones provide an easy-to-follow framework that increases the quality of your leads by positioning your company as the most transparent and trustworthy option.

Chris Smith , author, The Conversion Code

If you want to rise above the noise, give your customers something they dont hear often proo f ! More referrals, more testimonials, and more customer loyalty are waiting for you. A quick read with a big impact.

Todd Herman , author, The Alter Ego Effect ; creator, Day Year

This book provides a mighty one-two punch with Melanie Deziel introducing important concepts for todays business environment and Phil M Jones offering actionable strategies we can implement right away! Prove It is an essential read to understand todays well-informedand rightfully skepticalconsumers and stakeholders.

Jeffrey Shaw , author, The Self-Employed Life

Finally, a book without the content fluff. The specifics in Prove It will help anyone with any means become a leading expert in their field.

Joe Pulizzi , founder, The Tilt and CEX

It wasnt too long ago that prospects automatically trusted you unless given a reason not to. But today, they visit your website or walk into any potential transaction with their guard firmly up. Prove It shares a simple solution to many of todays marketing and sales challenges. It may just be the most practical and timeless marketing book ever written.

Oli Luke , co-founder, Orange & Gray and The Business of Hearing

Prove It could have been called Do This Now to Instantly Improve Your Sales . The frameworks outlined in this book transcend the social media fads of the day and provide mar-keters with the essential skills to create sales campaigns that work. The best part Prove It ? Its easy to implement. After reading this book, you can immediately apply the lessons youve learned to drive better results for your business. This is the marketing book you dont want your competition to read.

Jimmy Mackin , CEO , Curaytor

Finally, a book that demonstrates that successful marketing is all about earning trust !

David Horsager , CEO , Trust Edge Leadership Institute

Businesses that differentiate on trust and truth create competitive advantage. This book is, quite literally, the proof of how brands become a trusted source of interesting things, and what separates those brands from the pack.

Robert Rose , founder, The Content Advisory

Copyright 2022 by Melanie Deziel and Phil M Jones

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For a copyright licence, visit accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to --- 5777 .

Cataloguing in publication information is available from Library and Archives Canada.
ISBN -- 77458 -- (paperback)
ISBN -- 77458 -- (ebook)

Page Two
pagetwo.com

Edited by Melissa Edwards
Copyedited by Jenny Govier
Proofread by Alison Strobel
Cover, interior design, and illustrations by Fiona Lee
Printed and bound in Canada by Friesens
Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books
Distributed in the US and internationally by Macmillan
Ebook by Legible

peoplewhoproveit.com

This book is dedicated to your customers,
who will soon know just how dedicated you are to them.

Introduction

By Phil M Jones

T he very first time I was introduced to Melanie Deziel, it was in fact before I had even met her. Her headshot and the topic, title, and description of her speech at a large upcoming conference just leaped off the screen. In a sea of speakers claiming a commitment to providing the new secret to ABC or the winning formula to XYZ , Melanie was inviting us to Think Like a Journalist.

This curiosity-sparking title captured my imagination and instantly began to reframe my thinking on how businesses, leaders, and practitioners really choose to communicate. She was right: gone are the days of making bold, audacious claims and expecting consumers to buy them. All of us now live in a world full of noise, full of promisesand the only way to stand out from that clutter is to focus your effort and energy on collecting and presenting assets that deliver the proof that we are what we say we are.

Months after that moment, Melanie and I met in real life and began a never-ending discussion on what it really takes to win today. That discussion has led to an evolution in how I approach my own business-building activities and the strategies I implement for my clients. It has changed the way I think about marketing forever .

The problem for most marketers today is not a lack of ideas or opportunities, but instead a lack of resources and focus. The latest shiny object can easily distract, and with the plethora of new platforms and the rise of FOMO (fear of missing out) connected to the relentless demands of being on trend with the latest and greatest, it can be all too easy to find yourself insanely chasing your tail but not really accomplishing anything that truly moves the needle.

One thing I feel certain of, and why this book matters today more than ever, is that the need for businesses to create content that attracts, converts, retains, and educates their audiences will be here for the foreseeable future. Amid the throngs of largely pointless look at me assets being created and the experts telling you to simply re-purpose your content everywhere you can, this book is providing an alternative, smarter approach: to pre-purpose your efforts, so that you can achieve a lot more return with a lot less effort.

Phil M Jones

1

The Case
for Evidence

S o much of the sales processincluding all of the marketing that supports itis focused on reassuring prospects that we are what we say we are, and that we do what we say we do. That imperative can lead to some pretty bold claims: