Client testimonials are essential for growing your business. They provide your business with credibility and give your potential clients both a sense of security and trust but also confidence that your services will actually help them like they helped others. If you are just starting out it can be hard to get your first few clients without any testimonials or social proof so I usually recommend offering your services for free or discounted in return for a great testimonial that you can display on your website.
But how do you actually get high quality reviews that will lead to more clients and bookings? You think it’s as simple as asking a client, “hey so and so! Would you mind writing a testimonial for me?” And then waiting for them to send you a pretty generic, albeit super kind and sincere – “Jessica was awesome to work with, she was responsive and I love the website she created for me!”
Which is awesome to hear, don’t get me wrong, but honestly when your potential clients see that, all they are getting out of it is that you are a good person or a good designer. But those are a dime a dozen in all honesty.
They aren’t seeing HOW you are going to help them other than the fact that you create something beautiful, just like your competition. You guys know I’m a big fan the Storybrand framework by Donald Miller and his method of marketing really focuses on your clients or customers story. So in order to stand out from the crowd and really speak to your dream client you want to find out the answers to the following questions when it comes to getting high quality client testimonials…
1. What were you struggling with before working with me / using my product?
2. What made you decide to go with my services or product vs. a competitors?
3. How did you feel after our process was complete – how has your life or your business benefited from my services or product?
Those 3 questions will guide your past clients to provide you answers that you can use that potential clients want to know as well! Knowing your client’s pain points before purchasing your service or product is so crucial in order to start speaking to your customer’s story. And you want to focus more on the psychological or emotional pains more so than the physical need.
Were they feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, lost on how to do something, lacking confidence, struggling with self-value, struggling to book their own clients, not in control of some aspect of their life?
Find that out because chances are your next client will probably be feeling similar. Knowing they can relate to someone you previously worked with will help them to feel like you are the right person for them too.
Next, focus on what about your product or service stood out to them verses your competition and what was the selling point that made them reach out, connect, and book or buy? Something you said or provide spoke to them and you want to find out what that was.
And lastly, honing in on how they have benefited from working with you or purchasing your product. And again – dig deeper than the surface / obvious level – I provide a website for my clients and customers, but I’m also providing a greater sense of confidence in their business as well as a greater sense of confidence in being able to maintain their website on their own and not feel lost. They feel like they can continue to grow their website needs as their business grows.
How are your bettering their life? Finding that out and displaying it on your website is exactly what will drive more clients just like them, to you.
Now for sending these questions to your client, I recommend automating it a bit by creating a form or a canned email that you can easily send when the time is right! I have a questionnaire form that I send to clients after our project has wrapped up. I ask these three questions as well as a couple other more specific one and wrap up with questionnaire with a form field where they can provide a summary or testimonial. This allows them to work through the questions I want to provide as direction and answer specifically, but then also gives them a spot at the end to piece it all together into a full testimonial that most likely touches on the points intended!
You have something awesome to share with the world. Getting high quality client testimonials and feedback about what you are doing right (or wrong) is only going to help you reach more of your target market and lead to growing your business in an impactful way!
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