How to Get Testimonials

Do you often wonder how to get testimonials that ACTUALLY bring in new customers and ensure customer retention? Today I’m going to share my secret system and template, and explain the knots and bolts of why it works!

I have been using this testimonial template for years now and it has helped me get really, really good testimonials. What I do is I always ask for five different things in a testimonial:

  • Your name
  • Your business or what you do
  • Your before and after
  • If it’s a testimonial about a person, I’d say:

“Before working with that person, what was your experience? And now that you’ve worked with them, what’s been the change?” “How have you grown or developed?”

“What was this transformation that you’ve experienced?”

  • Can you give that person an endorsement?

Why do I have people give their name and tell me what they do?

testiWell, for some reason, people are hesitant to give testimonials, but if you ask their name, it’s automatic. Also, they’re used to answering the question ‘What do you do?’. What this question does is it breaks the ice. The idea is to loosen their tongues just enough to get them to talk MORE.

It gets them talking and speaking; whereas if I had them start with the before and after, there’s just a lot of hesitation. They would want to think and come up with a more articulate answer. The key is to have them start with their name and what they do or what business they’re in.

Why do I ask for their ‘before and after’ experience?

expI have had great results with this because it truly gets people to think about good things to say about a person, product, or service. How? By remembering and thinking about their TRANSFORMATION.

Thinking about it in terms of ‘How has this person made me better or helped me in some way?’ instead of just thinking about ‘Yeah it was fun’ or ‘Yeah that was cool’. This way, they think a little bit DEEPER.

Some of the great examples we get by asking the ‘before and after’:

“I actually was trying to figure out where I’m heading and if I’m trying to bite off more than I can chew.”

“While I was here, I realized that my dreams are a lot bigger than that. I wanna influence a lot more people and I wanna make more difference and I wanna do this full time.”

“As I went through this, I… there was some several ‘aha’ moments and one of them was that ‘you don’t have to be stuck in what you’re doing’.”

Why do I ask for an endorsement or recommendation?

recommendYou’d want for people to hear endorsement or recommendation to either work with you or attend your event in their testimonial. Now this can easily bore the viewers or come off as fake, scripted, or even forced UNLESS you make it light and fun.

How? At the end of the video, you can take a part of each person’s testimonial and string them together to make one flowing, fun, and genuine testimonial!

I never use one and two in the video. I mean, if I’m making a marketing video for somebody, and they’ve got a dozen people that’d give them a testimonial, why would I crowd out that three minutes with people saying “Hey, I’m John and I do this. Hey, I’m Mary Ann and I do this…”. Basically, things that you don’t necessarily need in your video. Take all the fun and genuine parts, put them all together in one video, and you save time and make the testimonials sound more authentic and fun.

But how do we get testimonials??

testisWell, putting on an event is THE very best way. Have a 1-day boot camp or something like that. A lot of times I’m invited out to the third day of someone’s 3-day retreat or to the end of the day. The reason I go at the end is because the people have had a chance to experience that person or that event. They’re inclined to give you more to talk about as they’ve already had that experience.

Now, if you’re not putting on events of your own, then perhaps you can go to someone else’s event that many of your clients will be attending. That might be an easy way of getting them all together in one place. Do not waste that opportunity!

If in case you’re presented with that opportunity and you don’t have your lighting equipment with you, don’t stress about it. You’ve got a wonderful camera in your pocket you can use. If you’ve got several clients in one location, pull them aside, go somewhere where there’s good lighting and get a testimonial on your phone.

Having good testimonials is so worth it that I would recommend putting on an event where you can give away tons of free value to get some of your best clients or raving fans there, and say “In exchange for me just letting you come for free, would you be willing to give me a testimonial?”. Who wouldn’t want to do that?

Additional tips!

  • Let people know IT’S OKAY TO MAKE MISTAKES as you can easily edit them out. They can repeat something, stutter, or pause and reflect on what they’re going to say. This way, the testimonial looks a lot more genuine and authentic.
  • DO NOT USE SCRIPTS. No teleprompters either. The goal is to make the testimonials as natural as possible. If the client insists on a script, compromise. Let them do it their way, but they’ll have to do it your way afterwards. Most of the time, we don’t even get to use ‘their testimonial’ as they notice it’s less convincing.

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