Raving clients are amazing! In this episode, the founders of Basic Bananas discuss the four elements that make an awesome testimonial for your business!

1:08 1. Overcome objections
1:49 2. Be specific
2:14 3. People’s details
2:54 4. Add an image
3:30 The Experience Summit

Let‘s do it! Blow your customers‘ minds and get them raving about you!

PS: If you‘d like to meet Franziska or Christo in person, they are coming back to Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Newcastle, Perth and Los Angeles in the coming month! To find out details and book a seat (early-bird tickets only $27), this is the LINK.

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Transcription:

Franziska: Hi, and welcome back to basic bananas.

Christo: Hey, hey, hey. Welcome back.

Franziska: What are you on? Today we want to talk about what makes a really good testimonial.
Of course testimonials are amazing for your business because it’s someone else talking about your business, someone else really saying lovely things about you,

Christo: Credibility.

Franziska: which is, yeah, credibility and social proof. Now here’s a little footnote that I would like to share with you, which is really that you want to make sure that you never make up your testimonials.
There are sometimes questions from people who are like, “Hey can I just write something and pretend someone else said it?”

Christo: No. Never make them up.

Franziska: You can’t. Because we really want to make sure your marketing is ethical. You don’t want to lie in your marketing. It’s not cool. It’s uncool. #UNCOOL if you make up your testimonials.
Now, let’s give four specific ideas on what makes a good testimonial.
You have one idea?

Christo: Yes. I do have a very good idea.

1. The testimonial should help people to overcome objections. If you have testimonies, first of all you should get clear on what your most common objections are. This is a good marketing exercise for you in general.
Say the most common objection you have is to do with price. It could be anything. Might be that people think they can do whatever you do, do it themselves, or whatever it is. If it’s price, and you know that, and let’s say you have a testimonial that says, “I wasn’t sure about investing the money. As a result of spending it, I’ve saved x-y-z amount, wish I found you ten years ago. Love, John Smith.”
You know that that’s a very common objection that people, new prospects have when considering working with you. You know you want to highlight that throughout your testimonials. If you have that testimony you put that front and center.

Christo: Exactly. The second tip is:

2. You want to really be specific in those testimonials. Exactly what Christo said. Take some of the objections and then make sure that the testimonies are quite specific, talking exactly about the one or two things that people are considering when working with your or using your products.

Christo: More specifically, anything that’s changed for you or changed within the business.

Franziska: Exactly. And then we have the third one.

Christo: Third one is, and this is going to help you to not make them up:

3. Put in people’s details. It shouldn’t be that it’s … Obviously at different industries, there are a lot of different regulations, but if you can put the person’s name, even their full name and their businesses name if it’s businesses you’re working with or …

Franziska: You can also put their date of birth, the passport, credit card number …

Christo: Okay, Passport number, the …

Franziska: Yeah, definitely credit card details. These are always very handy to have.

Christo: Maybe not that much detail. But it just helps by having some details there because then obviously it shows transparency. Because if people wanted to look them up then maybe they could. But you might not have their phone number or something like that sitting there.

Franziska: Definitely don’t want to … Yeah, definitely not.

Christo: But you’ve got to have some details, like list their name and things, not just like initials.

Franziska: Then the fourth one is:

4. Having an image of the person if you can. If you’re allowed to. If you can’t have an image, if they have a business, maybe it’s an image of the logo or it’s an image of the business. Imagery always helps, because it makes it more personal when you have an image on your testimonial.
In the next video, we’re going to share with you how you can ask someone for a really good testimonial.

Christo: We have a very crafty formula for this.

Franziska: We do have a very good formula. Sometimes it can be a little bit like … Some people are a bit scared basically to ask someone for a testimonial. In the next video, we’re going to share with you exactly how to do that. We’re super fun.

Christo: Very cool, and we have something very cool coming up, which is cool to announce. The Experience Summit, which is our two-day annual event. If you would like to come and hang out with us for two days, which would be awesome.
We’re going to go through the latest innovations in marketing for small business and productivity for small business and a whole range of other things over two days. It will be mainly in Sydney in March. There’s about 90 of us that come to the event. It’s really kick-ass. A lot of awesome business owners and entrepreneurs at the event. We hand pick the best of the best that we want at this event.
It’s our two-day annual event. It’s a good celebration and a great way to get your year tracking really well. Check it out www.theexperiencesummit.com, I’ll put a link below on the blog post here as well.

Franziska: That’s amazing. Hopefully see you there.

 


Transcription:

Franziska: Hi, and welcome back to basic bananas.

Christo: Hey, hey, hey. Welcome back.

Franziska: What are you on? Today we want to talk about what makes a really good testimonial.
Of course testimonials are amazing for your business because it’s someone else talking about your business, someone else really saying lovely things about you,

Christo: Credibility.

Franziska: which is, yeah, credibility and social proof. Now here’s a little footnote that I would like to share with you, which is really that you want to make sure that you never make up your testimonials.
There are sometimes questions from people who are like, “Hey can I just write something and pretend someone else said it?”

Christo: No. Never make them up.

Franziska: You can’t. Because we really want to make sure your marketing is ethical. You don’t want to lie in your marketing. It’s not cool. It’s uncool. #UNCOOL if you make up your testimonials.
Now, let’s give four specific ideas on what makes a good testimonial.
You have one idea?

Christo: Yes. I do have a very good idea.

1. The testimonial should help people to overcome objections. If you have testimonies, first of all you should get clear on what your most common objections are. This is a good marketing exercise for you in general.
Say the most common objection you have is to do with price. It could be anything. Might be that people think they can do whatever you do, do it themselves, or whatever it is. If it’s price, and you know that, and let’s say you have a testimonial that says, “I wasn’t sure about investing the money. As a result of spending it, I’ve saved x-y-z amount, wish I found you ten years ago. Love, John Smith.”
You know that that’s a very common objection that people, new prospects have when considering working with you. You know you want to highlight that throughout your testimonials. If you have that testimony you put that front and center.

Christo: Exactly. The second tip is:

2. You want to really be specific in those testimonials. Exactly what Christo said. Take some of the objections and then make sure that the testimonies are quite specific, talking exactly about the one or two things that people are considering when working with your or using your products.

Christo: More specifically, anything that’s changed for you or changed within the business.

Franziska: Exactly. And then we have the third one.

Christo: Third one is, and this is going to help you to not make them up:

3. Put in people’s details. It shouldn’t be that it’s … Obviously at different industries, there are a lot of different regulations, but if you can put the person’s name, even their full name and their businesses name if it’s businesses you’re working with or …

Franziska: You can also put their date of birth, the passport, credit card number …

Christo: Okay, Passport number, the …

Franziska: Yeah, definitely credit card details. These are always very handy to have.

Christo: Maybe not that much detail. But it just helps by having some details there because then obviously it shows transparency. Because if people wanted to look them up then maybe they could. But you might not have their phone number or something like that sitting there.

Franziska: Definitely don’t want to … Yeah, definitely not.

Christo: But you’ve got to have some details, like list their name and things, not just like initials.

Franziska: Then the fourth one is:

4. Having an image of the person if you can. If you’re allowed to. If you can’t have an image, if they have a business, maybe it’s an image of the logo or it’s an image of the business. Imagery always helps, because it makes it more personal when you have an image on your testimonial.
In the next video, we’re going to share with you how you can ask someone for a really good testimonial.

Christo: We have a very crafty formula for this.

Franziska: We do have a very good formula. Sometimes it can be a little bit like … Some people are a bit scared basically to ask someone for a testimonial. In the next video, we’re going to share with you exactly how to do that. We’re super fun.

Christo: Very cool, and we have something very cool coming up, which is cool to announce. The Experience Summit, which is our two-day annual event. If you would like to come and hang out with us for two days, which would be awesome.
We’re going to go through the latest innovations in marketing for small business and productivity for small business and a whole range of other things over two days. It will be mainly in Sydney in March. There’s about 90 of us that come to the event. It’s really kick-ass. A lot of awesome business owners and entrepreneurs at the event. We hand pick the best of the best that we want at this event.
It’s our two-day annual event. It’s a good celebration and a great way to get your year tracking really well. Check it out www.theexperiencesummit.com, I’ll put a link below on the blog post here as well.

Franziska: That’s amazing. Hopefully see you there.