Today you have the opportunity to try out another form of testimonial. This style provides you with another way to stand out from the crowd and help your ideal clients choose you.
Transformative testimonials leverage tension that is created by a problem and its eventual resolution.
Transformative testimonials demonstrate how you have helped people. How you helped them move from one situation to another. Moving from problem to solution. In this case how you helped them overcome and get what they were after.
In another post, I wrote about how you can intentionally collect testimonials that deal with objections. Now we’ll look at how you can collect ones that help demonstrate how you provide a transformative experience for your clients.
By using specific questions you will be able to gather testimonials that reveal the value you offer, the results you got for your clients, and the experience people had working with you.
The basic idea is to convey what life was like before they worked with you and what life is like now that you have helped them. These testimonials help demonstrate the overall value you bring by demonstrating the change you deliver for your clients.
If you aren’t already scheduling when you request testimonials from your clients be sure to start now. Decide exactly when you will ask them, seven days after the completion of the project, three days after, or two weeks after. You decide but then schedule this so you are consistent in the future.
When asking your clients for time to create a testimonial remember you can set the stage by asking them to help other people like themselves be able to get the help they need from your services. Their testimonial will resonate with people like them making it easier for them to choose you.
You can ask your clients to answer these questions via email, a survey form, or schedule a call to ask them the questions. If you call you can request permission to record the call so you can then write up the contents of the call into the testimonial.
Once you create the testimonial if it isn’t exactly word for word run it past your client for final approval before you use it.
Then it’s time to use these testimonials in relevant places like your website, emails, videos, interviews, print material, and anywhere else it would be beneficial to highlight these transformational stories.
You could also work their responses into a case study which could help people see how you are able to help them transform their situation.
Okay, here are the questions you can use to generate transformative testimonials:
1. What was the problem you were having before you discovered our product?
2. What did the frustration feel like as you tried to solve that problem?
3. What was different about our product?
4. Take us to the moment when you realized our product was actually working to solve your problem.
5. Tell us what life looks like now that your problem is solved or being solved.
People are drawn to transformation. When they see a transformation in people like them they are more willing to trust that you can make it happen for them. So use this type of testimonial to help your potential clients feel that you can help them.
So give this approach to creating transformative testimonials a try and see if it helps you communicate your ability to help your potential clients through their own transformation.
Inspired by the book, “Building A Story Brand”, by Donald Miller