How to use testimonials to boost your sales!

This week, a brief reminder about the importance of using testimonials and how powerful they can be when used in a selling context.

Testimonials are third party references about the value of your goods or services; of course, you know this.

Why are they important? During the selling process, your customer expects you to artfully tell them about how absolutely wonderful your product is, what it does, how it is going to make their life perfect, what unbeatable value it is… And that’s the problem, your buyer expects you to say all these things so the value of your statements are discounted in their eyes.

Weak sellers, when failing to convince their buyer in this way, move straight into turning the volume up, they “push” harder. We’ve all seen it (most of us have done it) and it doesn’t work. The harder we try, the more we push, the less convincing we become.

I could write about this subject forever (relax, I won’t). Selling to sceptical buyers transforms sales results and is just one of the important sales processes our customers learn from our sales training. One of the mechanisms for persuading any buyer is by using a reference from a third party, a testimonial. Instead of the seller pushing harder, turning the volume up, they start to propose from a third person perspective. “Mr Smith from anon company signed up last month, and he told me yesterday ‘we really pleased, your service works just like you said it would, and now we’re enjoying XYZ benefits…’ it was great to hear from him”.

Buyers will happily listen to sellers presenting references. Delivered well, it’s like listening to a story, creating curiosity and providing rationality for the purchasing decision. Top sellers can present different product features from a third person position using a range of references

And you don’t even have to be specific about who gave you the reference. “You know, we had a customer with us last week who was concerned about the XYZ feature and whether it would deliver precisely the ABC benefit she needed. She was concerned about the costs, and eventually decided to have one so that she could test it out. Can you imagine how surprised I was when she called me this morning and ordered ten more? She told me she was delighted, ‘I am so pleased I bought it’ she told me ‘it does exactly what you promised me” I was really pleased for her”.

Can you see how this could work in your own sales environment? Remember the “good enough” rule. Just try it and see for yourself.

Of course, you may be wondering where do you get all those good references from? A question I’ll answer next time.