Customer growth as proof claim

We continue the section on proof claims, which are pieces of evidence you include in your prospecting conversations to demonstrate results in an attempt to convince prospects of the value of your products.

Another popular proof claim to build credibility for your products or services is customers’ growth. If you want to show that your solutions, your coaching, your software, your CRM help businesses, discussing their growth in sales is pretty compelling.

Except it could be misleading for two reasons.

The first is size. It’s easier to grow when you are small. Many sellers could use growth as a way to hide the small size of their customer base. Growth indicators can have importance when combined with the average size of the customers. Otherwise, they could be misleading.

The second is the growth stage. What if it’s not your service that causes growth, but growing customers are more likely to purchase your services? Most times, companies in mature stages might have internal processes that manage the services you offer. Young companies in growth stages might not have the skills or internal capabilities to solve the problems you can solve, and thus choose your company as a supplier. But they are growing on their own, not because of your services.

There is one metric that is really powerful here. Change ingrowth: Before our services, client companies were growing at 10%. After using our services, they are now growing at 30%. That is powerful. It still, of course, does not remove other possible causes for growth. Attributing growth entirely to your solutions is a speculation. But, with a larger customer base, the data becomes more reliable. So, when you have a larger customer base, improvement in growth can be a really powerful proof claim to use in your prospecting messages.

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