The Power of a Customer Testimonial: Be Specific

There is no better endorsement for your products and services than having a respected third-party recommend you. Metrics in business-to-business selling now backs this up. Years ago, in the sales training sessions we would do with our sales reps, we would ask (beg, quite often) for them to get one new endorsement, on the customer's letterhead each week. They could go up on the walls of your office to help lift YOU up on a low day, and always show a customer walking into your office just who else is proud to be your customer.

Testimonials have been a standard for smart businesses owners for years and years - pre-Internet.

Now with technology - there are so many smart ways to have others talking about you.

The 2009 Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey of 25,000 consumers showed that recommendations from consumers posting online opinions and those opinions of friends and acquaintences are the most trusted forms of advertising. Are you hearing this? It means that a total stranger can impact your potential customer MORE than you can.

When doing sales training with nearly every client under the sun, it would be routine for us to ask,

"How many clients do you have?"

They would give an answer, like "500 or 5000"

Next question:

"Of those, how many current testimonials do you have from them?"

Nervous laughter. Sometimes they'd ask, jokingly,

"Define current."

We say, "Post-1999...."

Most people who are GREAT services providers or product sellers do NOT have many well written customer testimonials.  In talking about having well written ones on your website and elsewhere, let's focus on what makes a great testimonial.

You need to be specific - in other words, you want to help your customer craft an endorsement for you that is clear and concise - so that other people with the same issue can see how you solved it for someone else.

What I'm saying is that you need to hand-hold your customer with a specific request when you ask for them to recommend or endorse you. An example:

Wrong:

"Score More Sales Rocks! Keep up the great work, all of you!" - [THIS ENDORSEMENT is fluff. What did we do? ]

Instead, help craft what it is that you need. Create an email, or have a conversation that says something like this:

"John, you were telling me how valuable you have found our working relationship over the past two years. I wonder if you'd be willing to share about how your sales reps are more productive and have a strong process in place since we started working together? Also, you had your best year ever this past year - do you think there might be a correlation? If you do, it would be great for you to make that observation. I tell you what, I'm happy to create sort of a draft for you, that you can craft more in your own words, or I can just send you some bullet points - will that work?"

We suggest you ASK for what it is that you want. Do not leave it up to your client to figure that out - be specific.

What you will create by doing this is an army of salespeople who are not on your payroll. They are out int he world, and their words are championing you even BETTER than (or equal to) what you can say yourself. Who would NOT want that?

Next we'll talk about where you can post endorsements for the best results.

Do you use testimonials? Share your successes - I'll post all that have something to do with business-to-business selling. You can check what we do out at theScore More Sales website.  Look toward the top right of the home page.

Lori Richardson is on a mission to help 100 entrepreneurs create 100K in revenues. Learn more about this sales strategist and her crazy projects at Score More Sales.