If every day you buy lunch at the same restaurant, and a new restaurant opens up across the street, you now have a problem.  You might be considering trying the new restaurant across the street, . . . → Read More: How to make it super easy for people to buy from you]]> Every time two people do business, one of them is taking a risk.  What does it mean?  Think about it this way.

If every day you buy lunch at the same restaurant, and a new restaurant opens up across the street, you now have a problem.  You might be considering trying the new restaurant across the street, but this is the problem.  You already know every time you go to this familiar restaurant, what you’re paying, and what you’re getting.  You feel it’s a worthy exchange.  You gave something, you received something, you made a deal, and you’re happy about what you paid or you wouldn’t have returned again and again.

Now this new restaurant that just opened across the street “calls to you.”  You go in there, pay money, buy lunch–but it doesn’t taste very good.  You just wasted your lunch hour.  The change was not worth the risk so you returned to the place you’ve always gone to, pick up your usual lunch, and go back to work.

But, if the new restaurant is a pizza place that says, “Come try our food.  If you don’t like it after the first bite, we’ll give you your money back.”  What happens?  A lot of people that wouldn’t have tried it say, “The pizza is about the same price.  I think I’ll try it.  What’s the worst that can happen?  I’ll just get my money back, and won’t be any worse for the wear, and I’ll try something new that maybe will be good or better than what I usually eat.”

This is called risk reversal–whenever you do business with somebody, if you can take any risk off them and put it on yourself, many more people will take you up on the offer.

How can you reduce the “risk” that your customer takes when doing business with you- and make them more comfortable doing it?