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Part 2 of a four part series by Michel Neray from choice Magazine
Sponsored by:
TESTIMONIALS:
The Strategic Imperative For Testimonials
Part Two: Build Your Dream Testimonials With The Four Components Of A Great Testimonial
Anything positive that someone says about you and your service is a good testimonial. A great testimonial, however, is one that fully supports and strengthens what I call your Essential Message - your true differentiation.
Experts in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) talk about 'away' people and 'toward' people. If the person is an away person, he or she is more motivated to act based on moving away from negative experiences, or the challenges. 'Toward' people are more motivated to move toward positive experiences - these are the benefits and results you offer. A great testimonial speaks to both types.
We'll take a close look at four components : challenges, promised results (benefits and outcomes), unexpected results and perhaps most importantly skepticisms.
They are in a different order here compared to how you'll use them later. Don't worry - I did that on purpose. As you go through each component, brainstorm and write down your clients' responses to each. In Part 3, you'll refine what you wrote with what I call Believability Enhancers -- four different ways to express testimonials as you build your library of dream testimonials.
- Hoped-For Results
While it probably won't be the thing you'll actually lead with in your dream testimonial, 'hoped-for results' is the best part to start with because it's the part you're likely to be most familiar with.
In traditional 'marketingspeak', your hoped-for results are commonly known as benefits - these are the positive results your clients enjoy as a result of working with you or using your product.
Hoped for results must be directly related to the goals of the prospect.
So if you are a consultant who sells to business, rational benefits might include things such as increased revenue, greater productivity, greater competitiveness, lower production costs, greater customer loyalty and so on.
If you are a track coach who works with elite athletes, rational benefits might include faster time track times, lower incidence of injury, more efficient metabolism and greater likelihood of moving up in rankings.
Much as been written about emotional benefits vs rational benefits, and you may have heard the expression that 'people buy on emotion, but justify their purchase decision with logic'. Do not be confused by this - it does not mean that emotional benefits are more important. It does mean, however, that you want to include a mix of both rational and emotional benefits.
Emotional benefits are related to the needs and desires of the individual, regardless of the industry, profession or tangible goals of the prospect. Because of the sensitivity of emotional benefits, it's usually better to allude to them rather than identify them outright. But for now, simply jot down which ones you think might be most appropriate for your clients.
They might include things such as feeling more accomplished, feeling more in control, having greater self-esteem, increased confidence, doing the right thing for your family, stronger security, being looked up to, feeling loved or special, attaining higher status or prestige, and so on.
Questions To Ask Your Client To Probe For Hoped-For Results:
- What were some of the results you got from working with me/us?
- What were you looking to accomplish?
- How are you better off now than before we started working together?
- Unexpected Results
While everyone competes on the basis of benefits - the expected or hoped for results, very often it's the unexpected results that point to your most compelling differentiators. The unexpected results also tend to be more personal to the testimonial writer, and that's what makes them so compelling and persuasive.
Because generic results manifest themselves in different ways for different people and businesses, unexpected results allow you to give expression and variety to your testimonials.
And remember in the previous section, we talked about how emotional benefits are more difficult to write because they tend to highlight more sensitive issues? Well, unexpected results are an excellent way to incorporate some of those more sensitive issues in a respective and appropriate manner.
For all these reasons, unexpected results may relate to emotional benefits, additional (unexpected) rational benefits, or unique aspects of your approach or process that distinguish you from what people have come to expect from the stereotype of people in your industry.
What's more, probing for unexpected results is one of the most gratifying things about collecting testimonials - I have learned so much about the value I bring to the table through The Essential Message approach simply by having conversations with clients about the 'unintended consequences'.
Questions To Ask Your Client To Probe For Unexpected Results:
- What were some of the other results you got from working with me/us that you wouldn't have predicted in a million years?
- What surprised you about the way we worked together?
- What surprises you now about yourself (or your business) after having worked with us?
- Challenges
How often have you heard someone say, 'you don't understand, my situation is different!'?
Everyone seems to think that his or her challenges are unique. That's why challenges are at the core of your Essential Message, and being able to demonstrate that you understand your prospect's challenges are the key to your credibility.
Challenges are the negative experiences that 'away' people want to move away from - and in all my years as an advertising copywriter, I have found them to be more compelling than positive statements alone.
Simply stated, people have problems and they are looking for the answer to them. Without a problem, they won't recognize the solution. If they don't have a problem that you solve, quite frankly, they don't need you.
By including challenges in your testimonials, you help your other prospects see that you have helped other people with similar challenges. Even though we seem to be hard-wired to think we're unique, it gives us great comfort to know that other people are 'in the same boat'.
However, a common trap in brainstorming challenges is to try to think of the biggest, most challenging ones. (eg: What keeps you awake at night?) While the major challenges can provide excellent fodder for compelling testimonials, don't overlook the smaller challenges. As with unexpected results, small challenges can often uncover unique differences in your approach that make a big difference to your differentiation.
Questions To Ask Your Clients To Probe For Challenges:
- What were some of the challenges that were getting in your way as you were trying to accomplish your goals?
- How did you know it was a problem?
- What made you think you needed this service/product?
- Skepticisms
A skeptic lives in the back of everyone's mind. I've got one. Your clients have one. You've got one.
Your skeptic is the little voice that tells you all the reasons why the solution you are considering won't work and why you won't succeed.
Sometimes that little voice is a whisper; other times it's a shout - but it's always there. That's why you might as well speak to it.
If you've been to one of my speeches or workshops, you might have heard me talk about 'Frequently Thought Questions'. Those are the skeptical questions that people are too polite to ask outright - and testimonials are one of the best ways to answer them.
With each testimonial that addresses a 'skepticism', you increase the confidence that the testimonial reader (or listener) has in you and your product/service. Like addressing challenges, it counters the 'it may have worked for that person but my situation is different' mindset.
Also like challenges, when skepticisms are based on past negative experiences with competitors (even remotely competitive products and services), they can help you uncover a small gap in the market that's a big differentiator for you.
So does that mean you have to address thousands of skeptical questions? No. You can usually narrow down the list to three common questions plus a few less common ones.
And that's what you're going to do right now. If you've never done this research with your clients, take a guess and then check your guesses with them later.
Questions To Ask Your Clients To Probe For Skepticisms:
- Were you skeptical this would actually work?
- Most people have a healthy degree of skepticism whenever they try something new -what were you thinking when we first started working together?
- Have you tried other products/services like this? Were you afraid that this would be more of the same?
Action Steps to Take Now:
Imagine that you are interviewing your 'dream' client. How would he or she respond to the questions above? Try to come up with three or four 'best case' responses for each of the four components. For now, simply jot them down in bullet form -- in Part 3, we'll refine what you wrote with what I call Believability Enhancers - basic copywriting principles that relate specifically to testimonials.
ABOUT OUR AUTHOR:
In the past 25 years, Michel Neray has been an award-winning copywriter, an Internet pioneer, a tradeshow pitchman and a senior sales and marketing executive.
He created The Essential Message to help companies and individuals discover their true differentiation and communicate it in the absolute, most compelling way. Thousands of coaches, consultants, salespeople, and advisor-based businesses have used The Essential Message to turn more people into prospects, and more prospects into sales.
You can too.
Subscribe to Michel's free newsletter at www.essentialmessage.com
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