Get
Trust-Building Testimonials for Your Consulting Firm
By Jay Lipe
 It’s
hard to deny: today’s buyers are a distrustful bunch.
Address this issue head-on by featuring testimonials from
satisfied clients in your marketing materials to show that
your consulting firm has what it takes to get the job done.
Three Reasons Every Consulting Firm Should Use
Testimonials
- Build bonds of trust -
Tooting your own horn will only get you so far in the
trust-building game. To build stronger bonds of trust,
let your satisfied clients do the tooting. When a buyer
reads a testimonial about your company, it’s more
likely to be seen as objective feedback, and oftentimes
is viewed as more trustworthy.
- Improve credibility - A client of mine
provides telecommunications services to Fortune
500 companies. Yet, nowhere in my client’s materials
do the names of these companies appear. This is a mistake.
Prospects, especially Fortune
500 companies, want to know you’ve worked with companies
like theirs in the past.
- Demonstrate success - First-time clients
want to work with successful firms—hoping a little
of that success will rub off on them. Read this next testimonial
and ask yourself if it doesn’t make you want to
do business with this firm:
“XYZ Consulting Company was there from day one. They
took the time to teach me everything I needed to know about
outsourcing my HR department. In the end, we saved tens
of thousands of dollars.”
The Two Types of Testimonials—Unsolicited
and Solicited
Unsolicited testimonials are those that arrive
at your doorstep, without any effort on your part. Some
clients do take it upon themselves to contact you directly
with their stories. Expect to receive unsolicited testimonials
via email, snail mail, and from random conversations.
When someone says something you like, ask if you can write
it down and use it. If the speaker says yes, add this to
a file folder. Then when the time is right, break out this
folder and sprinkle these testimonials liberally throughout
your marketing materials.
Solicited testimonials are those you consciously
pursue through tools like:
• Comment cards
• Post-project surveys
• Website “contact us” sections
• Blog comment sections
After more than two decades of helping clients develop
testimonials, I’ve found that more than 90 percent
of all testimonials are solicited. This means if you want
testimonials from satisfied clients, you’re going
to have to put time and effort into obtaining them (just
like everything else in your marketing effort).
Who Should Write a Testimonial—You or the
Client?
You should write testimonials because if you leave
it up to clients, it may not get done. They have more important
things on their to-do lists. The right way to get testimonials
from your clients is for you to write two different versions
for them and then let them choose which one they prefer.
After you’ve drafted the two testimonials, include
another section titled “I Can Do Better Than That”
and leave some blank space underneath it for the client
to write an original testimonial. Put both of these sections
on a single-sided sheet of paper and send it to the client.
If clients like either of the testimonials you’ve
written, they can just sign and return the form to you.
But, if a client feels moved to write a different version,
space is provided to do that. An important note from my
experience: whenever satisfied clients write their own testimonials,
99 percent of the time, they end up being much
better than what you would have written.
What Should a Testimonial Say?
The most convincing testimonials focus on one key idea.
This single focus gives a testimonial greater impact. Here
are two examples of testimonials that concentrate on one
key idea:
Service specific
“One Friday at 5 pm, I called ABC Consulting in
a panic. Not only did they answer their phones, but they
sent a team over here immediately. You can’t beat
service like that.”
Person specific
“Phil Jones was Johnny-on-the-spot. Every time I
needed help, he was either on-site in less than an hour
or he counseled me over the phone.”
Three Elements Every Testimonial Should Have
- A name at the bottom - When your testimonials
have names attached to them, they’re more believable.
Plus, there’s an outside chance the reader of the
testimonial knows the person who wrote it. If that’s
the case, very often the two people will talk about your
company—without you present—with the reader
asking the testimonial provider “Is it really true
what you said about XYZ Company?”
When this happens (and it has numerous times for my business),
the testimonial functions as a word-of-mouth business
generator.
- Emotion - Which of these testimonials
engages the reader better?
“Wow, was I surprised. I never thought I could get
my accounting questions answered so quickly.”
Or
“I got my accounting questions answered quickly.”
Wouldn’t you agree that the first testimonial, because
of the underlying emotion in it, actually draws the reader
in more?
- Definable benefits - With any testimonial,
the reader must see a clear benefit to be gained from
what your firm offers. It’s not enough for a testimonial
to just say: “They really know their stuff.”
Instead, the head-turning testimonial says: “They
know their stuff so well that they saved me over twenty
hours of my own time.”
This second statement points out the tangible results
of working with the firm and grabs a reader’s attention.
Using this same logic, which of the following two quotes
carries more impact?
“XYZ’s service helped us launch three new
initiatives and saved a week’s worth of management
time.”
Or
“They really helped us a lot.”
Don’t Wait until the End
Clients often ask me "how do I get testimonials from
clients after we’ve finished working together"?
My reply is that you should be asking for them much sooner
in the relationship—like right at the beginning.
Why not insert a clause in your contract that makes obtaining
a testimonial a standard part of doing business with your
firm? It could look like this: "After completing this
project and obtaining your approval, ABC Consulting would
like to feature our work together in a testimonial."
A contract clause like that sets the expectation, at the
very beginning of the relationship, that a testimonial will
be furnished right after the project is completed.
A Final Word
In judicial systems, a testimony is a solemn statement
made under oath that authenticates a fact. Testimonials
do much the same for your consulting firm. Not only do they
authenticate facts, but they sway opinion. Incorporating
testimonials into your firm’s materials will prove,
beyond a shadow of a doubt, that your consulting firm has
a standout identity.
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Jay Lipe is the president of Emerge
Marketing LLC, and the author of two books, The
Marketing Toolkit for Growing Businesses
and Stand
Out from the Crowd; Secrets to Crafting a Winning Company
Identity (September 2006).
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