Most entrepreneurs understand that testimonials are an important part of their marketing mix.
However the truth is, if you want to help to accelerate a prospect’s desire to work with you, you don’t want a basic testimonial. What you need are Outcome Driven Testimonials.
Let’s face it, having a testimonial that says you are a nice person, were easy to deal with, professional in your dealings and pleasant to work with is nice, but it’s unlikely to drive the desire to work with you.
Being friendly, easy to work with and professional are a buyer’s minimum expectation.
If you want to accelerate a new prospects decision making process, then you need to highlight the types of results that you can produce for them.
We call these Outcome Driven Testimonials and I’m going to show you what they need to contain.
There are 5 key elements to a truly powerful and effective testimonial. To demonstrate, I’m going to breakdown one of our testimonials for you.
Here’s a testimonial we received from Lorenzo:
I had become a slave to my business
After five years of hard work in my business, I realised nothing was changing
. I kept saying it’ll get better next year, but it kept getting worse. I needed help!
Since joining your program, the transformation on my business has been profound.
My thinking is clearer; I finally feel in control and by following the advice of Paul, my revenue has jumped over 34%.
The business is not only making more money, I am finally creating the life I’ve always wanted.
Lorenzo Capitanio, Director, The Music Education Academy
* * * * *
Let’s look at the key elements.
1. State the problem
The bold headline frames a common problem felt by many of the entrepreneurs who join the Marketers Club.
They don’t feel like they own their business; they feel like it owns them. They have inadvertently become a prisoner to their own enterprise.
2. The implication
In Lorenzo’s case, he had been battling with this feeling for 5 years and assumed it would get better over time but instead it got worse, until he’d reached his breaking point and decided to reach out for help.
In the Marketers Club, we know that the Zen proverb holds true, ‘When the student is ready the teacher appears’. Until people are READY to hear the message, we can’t help them. This testimonial acts as a powerful reminder that putting off getting help seldom works and the sooner you act, the sooner things can turn around.
3. The Transformation
A good testimonial shows a specific transition and ideally will quantify exactly what the size of the impact you had was.
In this case, a jump in revenue of over 34% was the result. This number provides a measure for prospective clients of just how much money they could be potentially losing by not addressing the problem.
4. The Outcome
Lorenzo went from feeling trapped to liberated; from being out of control to creating the business and life he wanted.
Hundreds of clients join the Marketers Club every year in the exact same predicament that Lorenzo found himself in.
What his testimonial does is demonstrate that with professional guidance, you can quickly turn things around and start building the business you want.
5. Ownership
If you’re using written testimonials, you will substantially increase the credibility of them by ensuring you include the full details of the person who provided it, and wherever possible, also include their photo to truly bring it to life.
OK, it’s time for you to start building some Outcome Driven Testimonials of your own, so you’re going to need to do FOUR things.
1. Your first task is to write a list of the MOST COMMON reasons people come to you for help.
• What are some potential problems they are facing that they want answers to?
• What keeps them up at night or is costing them money on a daily basis?
• What are their fears or concerns (if any) about working with someone like you?
2. Once you create a list of all the major problems, then you need to identify a current client who could testify to having overcome of each of those issues and ASK them for a testimonial.
To know how to ASK for a great testimonial and get it, CHECK OUT last week’s post on HOW TO ASK – HERE.
If you want your testimonials to help convert more prospects into clients, then make sure you upgrade them from simply being NICE, to being truly Outcome Driven.