I always suggest you have people in your target market read your copy to make sure you haven’t used any jargon or other types of “foreign” language that would confuse your prospects. I stand by this advice but have recently realized I need to add a caveat–it’s good to get their opinion on the words you use, but tread carefully when it comes to any additional advice they may offer. Here’s why:

1. You (and probably your friends) are NOT your prospect. Sometimes there’s an obvious difference, if you’re targeting people of a different age, gender, industry or revenue-level. But there’s more subtle big difference as well–you DON’T NEED your services. Because, hopefully, you’ve been drinking your own Kool-Aid(R). And if you’re not hungry, you’re not going to look at the menu the same way as someone who is.

2. People are horrible at predicting their own behavior. If you’d asked me a year ago whether I would go to a $3,000 workshop that fall, I would have said you were nuts. About a month later, I signed up to do exactly that.

If you would have asked me whether I’d read a 15-page sales letter for the workshop–again, I would have said you were nuts. Who has time for that? But that letter turned out to be a big factor in my decision.

Truth be told, I never did read the entire letter. I looked at a few key items–like exactly what the workshop would cover, what was included, and a few testimonials. And those items gave such detailed information that I was almost ready to sign-up. (I didn’t actually do so until the last day to spread the payments out. But that’s a whole other post.)

Yet at the workshop, she asked for a show of hands of people who had read the entire letter. And some people had not only read every word–they even called the people who gave the testimonials.

3. Research and testing trumps your and your friends’ opinions any day. Marketers with deep pockets and research firms have done a lot of work to find out what’s most effective based on actual results achieved–not mere speculation. Save yourself the trouble and start with what they learned, tweaking as needed as you track your own results. It may seem counterintuitive to you–but so is pumping the brakes instead of stomping it down to the floor when your car’s skidding (prior to ABS brakes). Do you want to do what seems right or what’s most effective?