Remember the last time someone said something really nice about you? Remember how you felt? Perhaps you felt grateful, accomplished or recognised in your field.
A heart-felt, genuine testimonial is a great way to boost someone and these days they can be posted all over social media or, for maximum impact, face-to-face while others are around to hear.
Many people struggle to put fingers to keyboard and tell a story or to verbalise one convincingly. So here’s a quick and unbeatable formula for you to follow that will result in knockout testimonials every time:-
- Be yourself and speak/write from the heart.
- Describe the problem honestly – don’t inflate it! It may come back to bite you!
- Engage your audience by describing how you felt exasperated/dejected/overwhelmed/furious or all of the above. But don’t overdo it – you’ll look like a basket-case!
- Say how helpful/calm/knowledgeable/inspirational Mary, say, was as she quickly and efficiently fixed your problem.
- Relay the benefits of Mary’s actions. For example, you were now able to get back to work on that huge contract.
- Next mention how relieved/thankful/happy you were once Mary’s work was complete.
- Finally, say something like, “I would certainly recommend Mary to anyone with a similar problem.”
People relate to stories because of their emotional content. If you notice people habitually switching off during your stories put some feelings into them. By and large, humans are an empathetic lot and ladies, we are even more so than men. Use this knowledge and give your audience something to be empathetic about.
The value of the testimonial is not to be under-stated. Firstly, it’s to congratulate Mary and make her look like the expert in her field you believe her to be. Secondly, it won’t hurt you to be seen to be grateful to another. Finally, you’ve just put another coin in the Bank of Goodwill.
You can collect it later.
