Selling Boldly

30Sell with Your Testimonials: Show Your Prospects How Happy Your Customers Are

In Part III, we discussed in depth how to get testimonials.

But what do you do once you have them?

Now what?

You can have hundreds or even thousands of wonderful testimonials, but if nobody sees them, they are of no value. They are like a tree falling in the forest: nobody knows about your happy customers.

We have to share these testimonials. They must be out in the world where they can help others decide if they should buy from us.

Basically, everything that leaves your office would be made more powerful with a testimonial. They make everything stronger. Testimonials make everything truer. It is the customer saying you are wonderful, which is quite different from you saying you are wonderful. Put them everywhere. In fact, if you have a catalog or a brochure, put them on every page!

What the Testimonials Should Look Like

Here are four guidelines for how to display your testimonials:

1. If your customers give you permission to share their testimonials—and the vast majority will—use names, titles, and company names. If you're not using them already, I'm wondering why not. If the customer did not give you permission, and you feel their testimonial would be helpful to share anyway, obviously follow the agreement you have with your customer and anonymize the testimonial as they allowed.
2. One or two sentences are enough. And it's okay to mix and match sentences, maybe one from the beginning of the conversation ...