Have you ever been to another business owner’s website and just saw all these raving reviews and testimonials that they had for their services, for their courses, for their products and thought, “How do they get such great compliments to put on their website when my people don’t want to seem to give me those kinds of compliments?” Well, that’s what this video is all about.
In fact, I’m sure that at some point, you’ve hired someone based on or heavily influenced on the testimonials that you saw from them. Testimonials are incredibly powerful. They can really make or break your sales experience and so you want to make sure that you’ve got a trunk load of testimonials that you can use for all of your products and services. That will help to share with your audience that you’re not the only one saying these great things about your work but there’s other people who feel that way as well. Don’t worry if you haven’t worked with anyone yet and you’re brand new. I’ve got a tip for you, just stay tuned and I’ll make sure to get you covered.
Superstar Testimonials
These are testimonials that you might see on the back of a book cover from an unknown author, from people who you’ve heard of before. Let’s say you pick up a book, it looks pretty good, you flip to the back and you see reviews from Oprah, from the New York Times. You think, “Oh, this person’s legit.” Often times, I’m sure you’ve noticed, those testimonials might not be directly referencing the book itself but are referencing that person’s work and character.
Superstar testimonials might be the hardest to get, especially when you’re first getting started but if you are working with a coach or a mentor or somebody you know have a contact with, who you believe would be a powerful testimonial for you, reach out to them and ask for a testimonial of your work. Unless you do not have a relationship with this person, it is very rare that they would refuse to give you a testimonial and either way, you never know until you ask. These are testimonials from people who might be at the same level as you but are familiar with your work and it kind of is in between the client testimonial and the superstar testimonial. These are people that can attest to the great work that you do.
Colleague Testimonials
Colleague testimonials are also a great way to get different types of language in your testimonial. Somebody who’s worked with you before is going to say different types of things about your work than somebody who you’ve done work for in the past and so, these are the types of testimonials you might want to add as well. Keep in mind, these are not asking your friends to say nice things about your work. If these people are not familiar with your work, they should not be giving you a testimonial.
Client Testimonials
Third and finally, the biggest category of testimonials are client testimonials. These are people who have been through your services, who’ve experienced your e-course, who’ve purchased your products and are giving direct feedback on how that product or service has changed their lives.
I’m going to walk you through the process of getting great testimonials from your clients.
#1 Elicit solid feedback
Step number one towards getting great testimonials from your clients is to elicit solid feedback. It all starts with feedback, not testimonials and at the end of your time working with any of your clients, you should be eliciting feedback from them by giving them a form to fill out, something that’s really easy for them to do and by giving it to them right after they finish working with you.
You also want to make sure you tell them when you ask for their feedback, why it’s so important for you to get their feedback because it’s going to help you to make your service or product better in the future. In addition, when you do ask for feedback, always give people a deadline for when you need that feedback because otherwise, people will have the best of intentions but they’ll just never get around to it so always give them, “I need it in 48 hours. It’ll take five minutes. It’s going to help me a ton. Can you please click the link below to fill out my survey?”
When it comes to your survey, here’s a bonus tip for you; ask specific questions that will elicit the exact type of response that you want. It’s not a leading question that’s going to make them say positive things. You really want honest feedback but you want to make sure that you’re asking for them to give very specific answers so you don’t get just like, “Yeah, everything was good. It was okay. I wouldn’t change anything.” Second bonus tip is to always add questions that will lead to information that will make for great testimonials.
The types of questions you might want to ask in your survey are things like; what was your favorite part of this service? What would you tell someone who’s thinking of working with me? What specific results have you seen working with me? Once you’ve gotten feedback from your clients, it’s time to move on to step number two, which is to draft your testimonial.
#2 Draft your testimonial
Yes, you are going to be drafting the testimonial for your client. We are not putting words in your clients’ mouth. We are just making the process infinitely easier for them.
Here’s what happens when most people ask for testimonials; you reach out to a past client, you ask them if they’d be willing to give a testimonial and they want to but they’re so afraid of not knowing what to say in the testimonial that would be helpful, that they procrastinate it. This is why we want to ask questions in our surveys. What you then get to do is go through that feedback and pick out the pieces that will make for a great testimonial and just put them together as an example or a draft of the testimonial.
#3 Email the client for approval
Then all you have to do is email that client, say, “Hey look, based on your feedback, this is the testimonial I put together for you. It’s just a draft. You don’t have to use this one. You can write your own, you can change it, you can modify. Whatever you want to do. If you could just let me know by X date if this is okay and send over your beautiful photo or headshot, that would be great.”
In all the years that I’ve done testimonials this way, in only one occasion did anyone even modify the testimonial and they added additional results that they had gotten since they even filled out the feedback form. That’s really it. That is how you get testimonials for your services from your clients.
What if you’re just starting out?
My first tip for you is that you need to beta test your services. This is the process that I teach all service based business owners in my program Yay for Clients. Before you launch anything, you have got to test your services for free, on three clients. Then, you will get feedback from those three clients and hopefully, if you do a good job, testimonials from them as well, which will help you to get started and gain momentum for your business.
The other option for you is to reach out for other types of testimonials for previous work that you’ve done in the past.
You could get a testimonial from a previous employer or colleague or somebody who knows your work well. Don’t use getting started as an excuse for not grabbing some testimonials for your awesomeness.
I hope you enjoyed this video. Thank you so much for watching. One more thing, please make sure if you haven’t yet, to subscribe to my channel. I would also really appreciate it if you would like this video and leave a comment below and let me know; which type of testimonial are you most excited to get for your business that you learned about in this video. I want to hear about it.
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