Testimonials Are Important – Get Good Ones.

As a small business owner do you do a great job for your clients, but still have difficulty attracting new clients to your business?

Do you have a limited marketing budget so need to maximise the return on every dollar spent? One solution is to create credibility and trust with ‘social proof’ so prospects will choose to do business with you.

One way to increase trust is to use testimonials.  Testimonials allow your clients tell prospective clients how good you are at what you do – (your prospective client may not believe you, but they will believe others who are ‘like them’!). Put testimonials everywhere there is space to do so (your website; your business card; any flyers you do).

The best testimonials aren’t just “I think XXXX is a great person – XXXX’s Mum” (if ‘fuzzy’ character references are all you have, use them but replace with better ones as soon as possible).

Great testimonials provide concrete examples of the changes you have brought to your client, so others can ‘see’ the value you can bring them.

Some testimonials carry more weight than others.

Ranking of Testimonial types (ascending order – the higher the ‘ranking’ the more powerful the testimonial)

1. Success Stories – about your clients, in your words
2. Written testimonials – in their words
3. Written testimonials, with photos
4. Audio – which can be turned into a written testimonial
5. Audio, with photo
6. Video is great – can be turned into audio or written
7. Positive feature in print media
8. Featured on a book cover
9. Positive feature in electronic media

Effective testimonials have the person’s name/company name, (not just initials – overcomes the suspicion they are made up) and location (state will do). The more details the more credible the testimonial.

For privacy reasons, do not show client’s contact details.

Four important points for getting the best testimonials possible and minimising problems when using the testimonials:-

1. Always ask for testimonials, AND, get written approval to use their names and testimonial – don’t ‘assume’ because they complimented you, they are happy for you to use them publicly.
2. Ask for the testimonial to be as specific as possible.
3. Ask for the testimonial when the client is enthused and grateful, ask if they are okay –
   1. With you videoing them as you are a ‘referral’ business and would like to use their testimonial
   2. To write their comments down so you can use with prospective clients (in fact offer to write it and send to them for their approval – ‘to save them time’ – in many cases they will return it as you wrote it!)
   3. And if you didn’t ask initially, do something for them now to ‘remind’ them of what good service you give, then ask them – it is never too late to ask, the worst that can happen is they say no.
4. A good testimonial structure is
   1. “Before I met you (your name) …..” (then describe the prior situation).
   2. “The biggest, (thing/lesson/difference) I learnt …..” (then describe what you helped with).
   3. Then the result …. (what was done/changed)
   4. Then the benefit they got …. (as specific as possible)
   5. And if possible they finish with how they feel about the results. Feelings/emotions are very strong elements in people’s decisions (they rationalise later with ‘facts’).

To conclude, Good Testimonials should have as many of the following as possible:-

Results; Benefits;

Name of your company and the service/product;

Real/Sincere;

Mirror your offerings;

From an ‘average’ type of client of yours;

Emotion;

Help to overcome some common objections (where appropriate);

State why they used you;

For Audio/Video should be good quality, but not ‘polished/rehearsed’;

Brief (if given a long one don’t reject it, just edit it).