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Introduction HOLY TESTIMONIAL! Welcome to Get Great Testimonials, a super simple plug and play kit for curating the very best feedback for your business. As with everything at The Rule Breaker s Club, I want this kit to be all about action. No fluff. No excuses. JUST RESULTS. HERE S WHAT YOU LL LEARN IN THIS KIT 1. Testimonials are gold. 2. Elements of a killer testimonial. 3. Steal this testimonial collecting process. 4. How to organize and use testimonials. 5. Testimonial Checklist 6. Take the Testimonial Challenge www.rulebreakersclub.com Get Great Testimonials 2
Part One TESTIMONIALS ARE GOLD Adding social proof, via customer testimonials and/or case studies, to your website virtually always increases conversions. Dave Lavinsky How to Increase Conversion Rates forbes.com WHY DO YOU NEED TESTIMONIALS? Testimonials are one of the most powerful parts of your copy. The funny thing? They re the only part that you can t write for yourself. People are looking for two things when they look at testimonials: That your product or service can actually deliver the result that you re promising. That people like them are investing in working with you (and happy they did!) www.rulebreakersclub.com Get Great Testimonials 3
Part Two ELEMENTS OF A KILLER TESTIMOINAL Strong testimonials often push people over the fence when they emotionally are ready to say yes to your offer but just need a little bit more convincing before they click the button. WHAT MAKES FOR A GREAT TESTIMONIAL? 1. Great testimonials resonate with reader hesitations Have you ever shopped at Target? If so, you can totally relate to this analogy: Imagine walking into Target to do some shopping. You have a list. You re there to get Windex, chapstick, and a new lock for your bike. But if you ve been to Target you know that it s impossible to stick to a shopping list once inside. The clothes! Oh and the shoes! And how cute is this Nate Berkus pillow? Should I add it to my cart? By the time you turn the last corner on your way to the checkout you have 10x more stuff in your cart than you originally planned. And that s when you start re-analyzing the things you put in your cart. www.rulebreakersclub.com Get Great Testimonials 4
Do I really need this cute tank top? The Nate Berkus pillow is cute, but I already have a pillow for my couch. Etcetera, etcetera One by one, you take the items out of your cart and put them back on the shelf. Guess what? Your readers are doing the same thing when they read your copy! Even if they REALLY want what you re offering, as they get closer and closer to checkout, their brains are going to come up with reasons why they don t need your offer right now. There are several ways to address this hesitating or as I call it, Reshelving Syndrome. One thing that can cure Reshelving Syndrome is testimonials. If you can get testimonials from clients and customers that show that they had the same hesitations as your readers before they bought your service and that they re happy they bought it anyway, it can make a big impact on your readers and convince them to keep your stuff in their cart. 2. Great testimonials show quantifiable + tangible results Numbers, numbers, numbers! The more measurable the results your clients and customers have received, the better. When it comes down to it, your potential buyers are looking for one thing: results. Whenever you can use a testimonial to prove that your product or service can do what it says it can do, add the numbers. www.rulebreakersclub.com Get Great Testimonials 5
These numbers can be anything. Such as - Income generated - Money saved - Time saved - Productivity multiplied - Increased speed - Higher conversion rates - List growth - Percent revenue growth - Clients booked - Etc 3. Great testimonials elevate your authority Can you remember the last time you visited your local bookstore? I love to take trips to the bookstore. There s a delicious bagel place next door and like to eat a bagel while perusing the bookshelves. As I walk around the bookstore, I pick up the titles that attract me most (mostly selfhelp and business topics, of course). I always flip the book around and read the back cover. Do you know what s on the back cover of most non-fiction books? TESTIMONIALS. But they re not testimonials from fans or clients or customers. No, the testimonials on the backs of books are testimonials from mentors. They re from people who are even more successful than the author herself. These testimonials give the book authority. They make you think, Hot damn! This person has a testimonial from Barack Obama?! He must be the real deal! www.rulebreakersclub.com Get Great Testimonials 6
You can do the same thing by getting testimonials from your mentors and colleagues. I ll show you how in Part 3. 4. Great testimonials have a human factor Whenever possible, you should add photos with your testimonials. This adds a real human element to the testimonial and makes it feel real and genuine (the photo is the first thing that catches people s eyes when they re scrolling through your website). Do you have the type of business that makes it difficult to get photos (or even names) from your clients and customers? First of all, you might be surprised by what you can use if you just ask. I am in no way, shape, or form qualified to tell you what type of information that you can put on your website about your clients, but I do encourage you to do a bit more research. It does make a difference. You ll be surprised by how many clients say, yes to putting their face on your website especially if you ve changed their lives with your work. You can also add information like: - First and last name - Job title - Location - Website Remember, the more details you add, the more the reader can picture this person in their mind. It makes them think, If this person can achieve that result then I can too! (Dave Ramsey does a great job of this in his book Total Money Makeover). www.rulebreakersclub.com Get Great Testimonials 7
Part Three HOW TO GET GREAT TESTIMONIALS It s time to set up testimonial collecting systems for your business! By the end of this section, you ll know how to systematically and regularly get great testimonials from everyone you work with. Ready to get started? Great! There are two types of people you will get testimonials from: 1. Testimonials from Clients + Customers 2. Testimonials from Colleagues + Mentors First I ll walk you through how to get testimonials from clients + customers and after that I ll show you how to get them from colleagues and mentors. www.rulebreakersclub.com Get Great Testimonials 8
GET TESTIMONIALS FROM CLIENTS + CUSTOMERS Step 1: Create a Survey The first thing you re going to do is create a feedback survey for each of your products and services. I recommend keeping your survey to 10 questions or less. Here are the types of questions you can ask: Questions about pain points like: - What was the number one hesitation you had before signing up for this offer? - What 3 things were you struggling with before you signed up for this offer? Questions about improvements like: - On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate this product / service. - What s one thing that you would change about this program if you could? - Finish this sentence: It would be really cool if {insert something we could add to this service} Questions about successes like: - What was your favorite part about this service? - Would you recommend this service to a friend? Either way, what would you tell them? - What specific results or changes have you seen to your {insert specific area of life / biz} since taking this program? Don t forget to ask them for their name, email address, and if they re willing to give a testimonial! www.rulebreakersclub.com Get Great Testimonials 9
Step 2: Request Feedback Once your survey is done, it s time to send it to your clients + customers and ask for feedback! You ll need to send an email with the following information: 1. A sincere note of gratitude for investing in working with you. If this is a client, give a personal note of why they were a great client. 2. Tell them that the last step in the process is the short feedback survey. It will only take 5 minutes of their time. (Avoid phrasing it as asking for a favor from the client. Filling out a feedback survey should be a step of the process, not an add on). 3. Give them the link to the survey and a deadline for completion (I normally send surveys on Monday and tell them to finish it by Friday). If you don t give a deadline, no one will fill out the survey. 4. If you re sending a survey for a product (like an ecourse), it s not a bad idea to offer a bonus for filling out the survey. You ll get a MUCH higher response rate! (Make the bonus something really simple like a PDF worksheet.) 5. Make sure to check back on the due date and remind the client about the survey if they haven t completed it yet. (I like to say something like, It s such a big help to get your feedback, but I don t want to bother you. If I don t hear back from this email I won t contact you about this again. Normally that makes people say, Oh no I m so sorry! I just got really busy and forgot. I ll do it right now. www.rulebreakersclub.com Get Great Testimonials 10
Step 3: Write the Testimonial This is the magical part! You are actually going to write the testimonial for your client. Once your clients fill out your feedback survey, you re going to look at each client s responses individually and draft a testimonial based on this survey. I normally copy and paste all of the client s answers to a google doc and then I play around with the answers to create a testimonial. Look for these types of nuggets for your client testimonials: - Language that mentions a specific result that they achieved. - Language that addresses a specific hesitation they had that you know other people have too. - Any language that says something like, I m already referring you to my friends and I can t wait to work with you again! Write a testimonial for your client using their language that s about 50-100 words. Then, draft an email to the client like this: Hi Sally! Thank you so much for filling out the feedback form. It d be spectacular to get a testimonial from you! Based on your responses to the feedback form, I ve drafted a testimonial for you. You can approve this one, modify it, or write an entirely new one. It s totally up to you! (This testimonial is from you after all). {INSERT TESTIMONIAL} www.rulebreakersclub.com Get Great Testimonials 11
Could you please send me the final testimonial by Friday with a headshot and the link you d like me to add with the testimonial? Thanks so much, Your Name Step 4: Try a Submit Your Success Story Page Eventually, you can even create a submit your success story button for your ecourse or online program. You can also get creative with social media (see the end of this guide for how I m asking for testimonials! I m waiting for yours!) For bigger programs, I recommend contacting customers via email with this as well, because they will be much more likely to respond. All you need to do to create a submit your success story page is to add the link to your survey (you may want to beef it up for this) to a button on your website. And voila! Testimonial magic achieved :) www.rulebreakersclub.com Get Great Testimonials 12
GET TESTIMONIALS FROM COLLEAGUES + MENTORS The second type of testimonial you want to get is testimonials from colleagues and mentors. These testimonials from your peers and people you admire do wonders to raise your credibility level. (Side note: Have you ever stumbled on a new website and been underwhelmed until you saw a testimonial from a name you recognize? It totally changes the way you view that website + business!) Here s how to grab great testimonials from your colleagues and mentors: Step 1: Send an email! All you have to do is send a personal email to each of the colleagues and mentors you d like to get a testimonial from. Put the following in your email: 1. A personal hello Always, always, always make a genuine connection with the person opening your email. Mention something you know has been going on in their life. Ask them a specific question about their work. 2. Tell them you re working on a new product or service and that you thought of them. You ve picked this person out of all of the people in the world and they deserve to know that! 3. Tell them you d like to feature them on your website. Would they be willing to write a short testimonial for you? www.rulebreakersclub.com Get Great Testimonials 13
Always show the person what s in it for them. If they have a business, remind them that their business website will be featured in the testimonial and that they will be positioned as an expert. 4. Give specific, step-by-step instructions. - Use bullet points! Tell the person here s what I would need - Submit your testimonial by {Insert Date}. - Use the following questions to guide your testimonial: - Why would you recommend other people work with me? - Do you have any specific examples of the results I ve been able to produce? - Is there anything else you d like to add? - Please attach a high resolution headshot - I ll be adding your full name, job title, and website to the testimonial. Can you please verify that information? Of course, don t forget to check in on your colleagues + mentors on the due date. They might need a little reminder to send over that testimonial! www.rulebreakersclub.com Get Great Testimonials 14
Part Four ORGANIZE + USE TESTIMONIALS Great job! Now that you ve got all of those great testimonials, what are you supposed to do with them? There are two answers to that question! First, you need to keep them organized and easily accessible. And secondly, you need to put them in your marketing materials. Here are my best tips for those two things: HOW DO I ORGANIZE MY TESTIMONIALS? I m going to teach you exactly how I organize my testimonials. It might not be the sexiest method, but it certainly gets the job done. Create a Google Doc called Testimonials I use Google Docs for everything in my business, so this is my recommendation! Once you ve created the doc, do the following: www.rulebreakersclub.com Get Great Testimonials 15
1. Make a list of all of your products and all of your services. 2. Paste each testimonial under the appropriate product or service (you may also want an option for general testimonials ) 3. Upload each person s headshot into your website s media and add the link to the image to the testimonial. It will look something like this: General Testimonials for my Awesomeness Courtney is literally the coolest person who has ever been born. Everyone who came before her should be ashamed of how they pale in comparison. The best part about her is her modesty. Bob McBob, CEO of Trillion Dollar Enterprises (photo link) WHERE DO I PUT THESE TESTIMONIALS? Now that you have an entire document filled with testimonials of your awesomeness, you must share them in your marketing or no one will ever know about them! You can put your testimonials in the following places: - On your work with me page - On your sales pages - On a testimonials page on your website - In your email marketing - In your powerpoint slides - Get creative! There are so many more ideas! www.rulebreakersclub.com Get Great Testimonials 16
Part Five TESTIMOINAL CHECKLIST Need to get great testimonials? Take the following actions to get started now. Make a list of all of your past clients for your services. Contact them individually to remind them how much you enjoyed working with them. If you never got feedback, tell them that even though it s well into the future, you regret not getting feedback from them and would really love to know their opinion of your work. Have them fill out a feedback survey OR simply request a testimonial (always tell them why this is important and that it s obviously totally their call). Can you get a list of the email addresses for your past customers (people who bought your products?) Use the process in Part Three to request testimonials from this list. Set up an autoresponder so that future customers will automatically get this email when it s time to give feedback. www.rulebreakersclub.com Get Great Testimonials 17
Brainstorm a list of your colleagues (peers) and mentors (coaches). Highlight the names of people who would be willing to give a testimonial. Draft an email (Part Three) to send to these people. You should send email individually with a personal note but you can use the same basic template for everyone. Feel the vulnerability and do it anyway! People are more than happy to give you testimonials. All you need to do is ask and make it EASY for them to to do so by giving them a deadline and a framework! www.rulebreakersclub.com Get Great Testimonials 18
Part Six TAKE THE TESETIMONIAL CHALLENGE! None of this stuff matters if you don t take action. Here at The Rule Breaker s Club, we don t make excuses. When we ve got work to do, we suck it up and get the work done. If you know you need to get some more testimonials, take the Testimonial Challenge blow to get it done fast. Take out a piece of paper and write the following: I, (name) am going to get at least (#) new testimonials for my business by (date). www.rulebreakersclub.com Get Great Testimonials 19
One more thing I hope you love and use this Get Great Testimonials kit! Print it out. Put it in your operations manual. Dog ear it and abuse it! I ve truly put my VERY BEST, most actionable tips in this guide as I wanted it to be B.S. free and easy to follow and implement. If you liked this guide and would recommend it to other entrepreneurs, please take 10 seconds to tell me why you loved it on Twitter! What to put in your tweet: - What tip stuck out most for you from this guide? - Tell me about a testimonial you ve gotten since following my steps! Thank you SO much! www.rulebreakersclub.com xo, Court Get Great Testimonials 20