Real proof, not placeholder proof

Forte Growth ran a proof audit on its own homepage: every card that claims a name, a number or a result was checked against one source, a placeholder testimonial was replaced with the Wyzr founder’s film, and every proof surface now routes to one live booking page.

The lesson is to walk the site again a week later, because signed off is not the same as live. Wyzr, the client in the spotlight, got 17 calls and 53 interested leads in under 30 days.

We publish real client outcomes because we build and run the whole function, not a framework or one channel of volume. That only works if what’s on the page is real, and ours wasn’t, in one spot, for longer than it should have been.

So we ran the audit we’d run on a client’s site, on our own:

• Walk it like a stranger. Every card that claims a name, a number, or a result: is it real, or a stand-in?

• If it’s a stand-in, replace it this week or take it down. A missing proof section reads better than a placeholder.

• Follow every proof surface to its next step. We found ours quietly ending at a contact form that didn’t exist any more.

• Check every number against one source. Not the deck, not the version someone remembered. One source.

Then we did the part that’s easy to skip. We ran the whole walk again a week later.

• Ajit’s Wyzr film is published, and it’s in the spotlight below.

• Every proof surface routes to one live Book a Call page. The dead contact route is gone.

• And the one we didn’t expect. We signed the Ajit fix off on 31 August. When we walked the site again a week later, his card was a play button with no film behind it. Signed off is not the same thing as live.

This is the story that was sitting behind our placeholder.

Wyzr’s outreach was intermittent before we started. We turned it into a GTM system Wyzr owns, with a weekly review built in.

17 calls and 53 interested leads in under 30 days, from a standing start.

“Before him I was guessing. After him I had a system that ran every week whether I was in it that day or not.”

Ajit, Wyzr

Rather than take my word for it, here he is:

Ajit Barik, founder of Wyzr, in his own words.

Run the audit on your own site this week. Every card claiming a name, a number, or a result: real, or wearing a client’s logo over a stand-in? If it isn’t real, take it down before a prospect finds it.

Then run it again next week. Ours moved.

The version of this we trust isn’t a page at all. It’s the client portal, where the campaigns, the pipeline and the weekly numbers are the proof. That’s the first thing below.

Inside the portal. Campaigns, pipeline and the weekly numbers in one place, no reporting deck required. This is what a client opens on a Monday morning.

The Forte client portal: campaigns, weekly priorities and live numbers in one workspace.

What Forte does, from me. The £250K marketing team you don’t need yet, and what we build instead.

Alper Yurder on what a first marketing team really costs.

-Alper

• Wyzr case study: from intermittent outreach to 17 booked calls and 53 interested leads in under 30 days

• We need a marketing department, not five new hires. Can we outsource it?

• All case studies

• All GTM Journal issues