Things slowing down? I bet they are. How do I know this? More than a few clients and people in my programs have called me and asked what they should do about it.
Most of you haven't been around as long as me, but here’s what I know, from experience. The higher the wave of good times goes, the harder the downside comes. Now, I'm not an economist and I don't know when, and I don't know how hard, and if I did, I'd be in a different trade. What I'm saying is this tends to be a thing.
To combat this, you need to double down on getting great testimonials from your happy customers right now—and then put a process in place to make sure you are continuously getting them no matter if the times are good or bad. So, if getting great testimonials hasn’t been a priority for a while because the business was just rolling in, the time to change that is now.
So, what is a “great testimonial”? There are three types:
- One is a testimonial where a customer is bragging about whatever product or service you sold them that has made their house warmer, cooler, the water tastes better, they are saving energy, whatever that is, and you get their testimony on video preferably, or even a photo still works, but where they are at least 50% of the whole thing. The equipment, although you love it, means nothing to the people you need it to—your customers and prospective customers.
- The second type of testimonial is where the customer is bragging on how great you are. You're here fast. It doesn't matter what time, night, weekend, holiday, you respond. Everyone is courteous from the phone to who shows up. They always leave my place clean and neat.
- The third type is what I call the “home run” testimonial, which is where they are saying how much they love what you did and love how you work, and they recommend you to all of their friends and relatives, so referrals build off of testimonials as well.
Testimonials can be used for sales, no question about it. When I taught Sales Power, I always talked about the power of testimonials because when you're talking to me as an owner or a tech, or system advisor, a fancy name for a big ticket salesperson, I think you're trying to sell me something. And it's not that I don't trust you, but what I really want to know is who like me is also recommending who's experienced first—we want that third party testimonial
And if you don't think that counts, I can tell you I traveled all over this great country consulting with many of you, and when I did, I stopped asking people for restaurant recommendations. I just go to Yelp. I know how to read Yelp, right? I don't expect perfect reviews, but I expect enough four, four and a half star reviews and plenty of them, and I know how to read between the tea leaves, if you will. And the same thing applies to your clients.
Now Google five-star reviews. Again, you can't get enough of those, and you should because that's where I'm going to go check you out, but that's not what I’m talking about here.
When I was a tech, to get great testimonials I would say:
“The way I'm going to work here today, if you choose me, will go so well that you're going to allow me to get a video testimonial from you so that we can share this great experience with other people. Does that sound good?”
What that does is set the expectation of what level I work at. I then earned that testimonial and I took the video of the customer right then and there.
Now you do have to get a release to use these testimonials, but the more you ask, the more the staff asks, the more you’ll get. (You also can do some incentives—some technicians even share that there's a contest, but you don't want to make it a pressure situation for your customer.)
Here’s what that sounded like when I would go out as a big ticket salesman (aka System Advisor):
“If you should choose me amongst the companies to do this expert job—and I've shown you some great customer videos and testimonials of people just like you—I want to earn that same testimonial so that I can get a video of you bragging on the way we do it. That is the way we will work when our installers come here. But here's the kicker, I'm coming back in one to two weeks and I'm going to check myself that everything I promised was delivered and that you love what we did, so I have earned my testimonial. Sound like a good deal?”
That really makes a difference.
Here's what I'll leave you with. Every marketing and advertising thing that you do is all based on “who says so other than you?” Direct mail postcards have always worked, and they really work during downtimes if they're designed really well but they will have no traction if they don’t include that great testimonial.
I've given you a lot to think about, but it's the best thing to be thinking about right now.