2 builders who never spoke to each other

Let the volume of evidence make the claim

Rather than stating how many companies use the product, publish a hundred customer quotes and let the reader draw the conclusion, including quotes from your own staff when the claim is about how the company behaves. Point at the evidence instead of asking to be trusted, and admit you picked your best examples. The counterpart obligation is that every logo has to survive being asked what the work actually was.

The method

1. 01

   Rather than stating how many companies use your product, publish a page of a hundred customer testimonials and let the volume make the point.

2. 02

   Point at the evidence rather than asking to be trusted, and be open that you picked your best examples when you have plenty of them.

3. 03

   Publish testimonials from your own staff as evidence of how the company treats people, instead of claiming a good culture.

4. 04

   Only put a customer logo on your site if you can tell the full story behind it, because a serious prospect will ask what the scope was, what you were responsible for, what the outcome was and when it happened.

What it returned

• His sample line invites readers to judge the customer quotes themselves and admits they are cherry-picked from a hundred equally good ones.

• He points to Fog Creek's page arguing that programmers should be treated like stars and that management is the support function.

• He has repeatedly seen logos justified by sub-subcontracting, a few meetings in a previous job, one minor task years ago, or advice once given to an acquaintance of someone employed there.

Sources

• Communicating Values: Show, don’t TellJason Cohen · longform.asmartbear.com · Communicating Values: Show, don’t Tell · 2009-05-18
• Dishonest Customer LogosGreg Kogan · gkogan.co · 2017-10-01