Gathering Testimonials to Make Sales
Today I wanted to share some tips with you from my book, Steps to Win. I want in particular to focus on a strategy that will work for you right now in selling in the online space. And that is on gathering testimonials or client reviews.
We all know how valuable websites are when we're trying to make decisions on travel. But no matter what industry you are in, social proof is a very important tool to have to help clients to make a decision.
And that's really what sales is all about - helping the client to make the right decision, which hopefully will be working with you.
So it's very important to be having conversations with your clients right now, even if they are not buying. And a great excuse to call them up, or get them on a zoom call or email them, is in asking for testimonials.
Now you really want to get a testimonial that shows the value that you bring to the table. Every company will have customers that are happy and that will say;
"I had a great experience, love the product or love the service. Everybody was wonderful to work with.... etc."
But that is not going to help you to stand out. And a lot of your clients are shopping around right now. There's a lot of potential new business that can be gained. But - one thing is needed.
New clients need some social proof - that is testimonial proof from somebody else just like them. Someone who worked with you where they experienced a return on investment.
That's really what I always focus my clients on: how are you delivering that value - that return on investment.
I'm going to read for you some suggested wording in order to get that value-based testimonial that's going to help you to convert more business.
From Steps to Win, page 66 of my book (where I give you this suggested wording, in an email format, but I would suggest that you call them up or even better that you supply it via video, and have a zoom call and record it):
Hello/Greetings,
We are doing some research to help us evaluate this specific value that we bring in partnership with our clients. As part of this process, I am asking some of my favorite clients. I would appreciate your feedback about the areas of strengths and results that have been created through our working together. Please share what you consider to be my strengths in working with you or that of my team.
Okay, now you will find that you have clients that love working with you that are your fans, but you don't really want to be adding to their to-do list and having another thing to do. They might be thinking, "I'd really love to do that. But I don't have the time right now, or I don't have 20 minutes or 30 minutes to carve out to think about this."
So in order to get more testimonials, what you do is you make it easy for them and give them some suggested wording.
You can begin your response with one of the greatest ways that you add value is to outline what you did and let them fill in the blanks. You're going to get a great testimonial there, you've planted the seeds that you're very specific about the value that you bring to the table. You want them to tell you how better off they were after having done business with you.
Or you can give them this wording:
The biggest result we got from working with you is _______________.
This allows you to hone them in to be very specific and not give you a big long-winded testimonial. It's the kind of testimonial that can literally take just two minutes.
That is just one of my strategies in how to sell more effectively online because when you're doing presentations with clients, you do not want to bore them with lots of facts and figures, and big long PowerPoint presentations that might be too technical-focused. But also I've seen a lot of presentations that are all about your business instead of being all about the client's business and you need to ensure that but everybody needs some social proof because they are believing other people.
People are more likely to believe others versus believing you as the salesperson. So the Feely Focus for this week is to build your sales tools in terms of your social proof and asking clients for testimonials. Build a strategy around that.
Start with your top five clients, and then work it out from there. You may have different clients for different types of services or different products and ideally, you want to match their testimonial with the type of business that you are trying to win.
If you'd love more tips like that, on how to sell successfully in the online world, feel free to take a look at my online course here.
