The power of testimonials (part 1 of 3)

I’ve got a bit of a confession to make:

Over the years, we’ve been much better at giving testimonials than we’ve been at asking for them.

If we haven’t weighed in publicly on why testimonials are so valuable, allow me to do so in four quick bullets.

1. A testimonial isn’t coming from you. Of course YOU love your product or service. But what does your client or customer think of it?

2. A testimonial is authentic proof of goodness. If it has a full name attached (and even a web address), your prospects can – if they want – dig deeper and hear more from the horse’s mouth.

3. A testimonial reflects your prospects’ wants and needs. By sharing testimonials, you tap more directly into your prospcts minds than you could with the same message coming from your sales or marketing messages.

4. A testimonial tells a story that connects with its readers. A simple “I like it” isn’t a testimonial. A true testimonial wraps the positive feedback in emotional story elements. And people buy based on emotion – they use facts later to justify their emotional decisions.

These are just a few reasons why it’s good to collect testimonials for your business. But as it happens, it’s also good for business to GIVE testimonials.

For instance, in February 2007, we gave this testimonial to Alexandria “The Ezine Queen” Brown for her Online Success Blueprint Workshop home-study course:

After working our butts off for several years as “freelancers,” we put all our work on hold so we could radically reinvent our business. On March 6, 2006, we met in our living room. Our first order of business was to press “PLAY” on our CD player. Why? Because we had invested in your Online Success Blueprint, and we were determined to give 100% of our attention to it. We knew you held the answers to our financial freedom.

Now, less than one year after that fateful meeting, we’re on track to make $150,000 – $200,000 MORE than we did last year…and that’s without any new clients. (Did we mention it’s only February???) Your OSB course gave us the specific steps to take, the strategies to implement, and the mindset to succeed – AND it inspired us to take bold actions we hadn’t had the courage to pursue previously. Your course literally changed OUR course. And now that we have our second child on the way, we’re more grateful than ever that we trusted you with our success. THANK YOU, ALI!”

- Lani & Allen Voivod, “The Content Lovers”, Epiphanies Inc., Gilford, N.H., www.epiphaniesinc.com

Granted, she’s not the only person whose materials we’ve studied – and we’ve worked more closely/personally with other people, including a certain “Marketing Mentor” I’ll mention in part 2 of this testimonial rant on another day – but Ali helped us lay much of the groundwork that got us to where we are today.

And here’s how it’s good for business: Ali’s using that testimonial on her website for the live, in-person Online Success Blueprint Workshop coming November 8, 9, and 10 to Los Angeles. So everyone who sees that page has a chance of finding and connecting with us.

And she’s promoting that workshop to an ezine list of over 21,000 people. 21,000! Not to mention any other joint venture promotions she or her affiliates have done for other large list memberships.

What’s more, she’s offering a series of free teleclasses in advance of her workshop, and I’m going to be speaking on the live call tonight at 8PM Eastern to the 500 live attendees, plus the 2,000-or-so other folks who register for the call so they can receive the free MP3 recording to listen at their convenience. That’s up to 2,000 more exposures to coaches, consultants, authors, speakers, and other solo-preneurs – a very targeted audience, if I may say so.

In short, the act of GIVING a testimonial has served as a marketing tool for our business! Cool, huh?

So, if you, like us, are not so good at collecting testimonials yet – or you feel shy about asking, resist asking, fear asking, whatever! – then try it the other way around for a while, and send a few unexpected testimonials out to the folks whose products or services made a big impact in your life.