Even if you are recommended; I believe that most of us are not using recommendations as affective as we can.
Let me show you how you can formalise your recommendations and use it in this low trust business world we live in. The world where I will not trust you just because you work for a brand name, you have a pretty face or you are the doctors wife. No! I need more. And I prefer to hear from a third party if I can trust you. If they recommend you I will use your services because I trust my friend’s judgment.
It’s all based on the principal of social proof:
It states that one means we use to determine what is correct is to find what other people think is correct. Robert B. Cialdini. He continues, when the situation is unclear….,when uncertainty reigns, we are most likely to look and accept the actions of other as correct.
Let’s get into the practicalities:
What I recommend is that you turn your recommendations into testimonials. According to the dictionary a testimonial is “a written affirmation of another’s character or worth; a personal recommendation.” The difference is the word written. Therefore you need to get the person who makes the recommendation to write it down.
An example of a testimonial I received recently:
Hi Johan I wanted to thank you for your e-mails. As you mention it is all about trust, and service to your clients. Just wanted you to know how much I enjoy reading your great e-mails.You honestly motivate me to getting my sales up. I work for myself, as do many other agents whom I forward your e-mails too. thanking you kindly
Maria |
Let’s get the testimonial process going:
- When you have done business with someone ask them for a written recommendation.
- If you have no recommendations go back to clients and ask them. Ask your friends and colleagues to give you an honest recommendation.
- Ask them if you can publish their recommendation.
- Now you can use their recommendations on your blog/website, on your ads and as part of your portfolio (CV).
- Make it easy for them. See the conclusion.
- This is what I friend of mine Jon Zolsky does: After the closing, or a interesting meeting, I would send a thank you e-mail and say how much I enjoyed the meeting and how highly I think about the participant, etc. And I then get a very nice e-mail returning the compliment. Now, I have a testimonial. Of course, I do not do it for the testimonials. I am sincere when I am writing to them, but these testimonials are a byproduct.
The impact is two fold:
- People who are uncertain about your skills and trustworthiness can now read about other peoples recommendations.
- The person making the written recommendation will always support the commitment to you.
If you want to read a great article on testimonials go click here
To conclude:
Design a form to collect testimonials. On this form you need to start of by giving examples of other peoples testimonials and under that create space for the name, phone number, email address and then a larger space for the testimonial.
If you liked this article please send me your comments 
Love to talk to you.
Johan Horak
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