Chad’s Blog
Pragmatic Technologies for Life and Business Success®
Testimonials are the powerful social proof needed to convince interested clients of your credibility, track record of success, and insights as to how they too can achieve such results. They become your business ultimate stamp of approval.
A client of mine just asked for my recommendations for testimonials best practices and here is my reply:
- The more testimonial you gain and have, the more you can use them on your site, newsletters, social media and such to gain credibility and interest.
- For testimonials to be effective they should be short 30 – 90 seconds each, especially you are going to create a collage of several testimonials.
- The key focus of the testimonial should be on the 1 to 3 key impact(s) your clients have achieved. In other words, the improvement and transformation they have recognized due to your involvement.
- Although the subtle objective of the testimonial is to gain credibility and persuade the other person to become a client, I would not recommend the person giving the testimonial attempts to “sell.” Focusing on their transformation will accomplish this objective.
- Example-1: “Hi my name is Bob Smith. I just attended the GROWTH program and I have to tell you that for me, as the CEO of my organization, this represents breakthrough thinking. For the first time, I feel that we can finally resolve our key challenges and decision process.”
- Example-2: “I have attended the GROWTH program last year, and the impact on our organization has been nothing short of remarkable. We have grown our profits by 28% and GROWTH is the reason”
- Notice in both examples there is no rambling, which unfortunately too many testimonials suffer from.
- The testimonials should focus on what you are trying to promote. For example, a variety of testimonials for:
- Sharing the amazing experience of listening to you as a speaker and how it mobilized them to take immediate action.
- Stating the growth to the organization due to brining you and your team as consultants.
- The ability for the organization to finally gain the clarity and make the right strategic decision to enter new markets because of the use of your products and services.
- The best opportunity and timing to get testimonials is when you are with your clients and they are excited about you or when they share their successes with you.
- The language I use is: “Bob, listening to how profound and impactful this (project / program / app / presentation / process / research) was for your organization, it would mean the world to me if you would be willing to provide me with a brief testimonial” Assuming they agree, simply ask them to state their name, title and organization and talk about the 1 – 3 key impacts. I always mention that I would like them to do it 3 times so I may then have the option to choose the one that is best.
- I often remind clients of what I believe has been the most profound impact to their organization. Once they agree, I ask for the testimonials.
- Another example is make some kind of an “offer” at the end of your presentations for those who volunteer to provide you with a testimonial.
- Make a list of clients that you can contact for such testimonials. If there is a way to record them on video in good quality that would be the best.
- Testimonials may be solicited or unsolicited. Both are powerful and effective although unsolicited testimonials are always a great and pleasant gift.
- Whether in person, or on the phone, or via email or through the social media platforms such as LinkedIn get into the habit of asking and requesting testimonials.
- Place them on the various pages of your site, your social media platforms, diverse publications and your books and let your clients do the bragging.
- Lastly, when asking for testimonials, it would be a great opportunity to ask for referrals as well. Example: “You mentioned how important our research project has been for your organization. Who else would you recommend we contact that would benefit from such research?” Once they mentioned some names, I would ask them to make the initial introduction.
Optimize your opportunities and timing to solicit testimonials from your clients. It will transform your business. And if the spirit moves you and you like this article, send me a testimonial as well. I will forever cherish it and you!
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