Mary Jo:Let me go ahead and open up the call so we can chat for a few minutes during the break, if anybody has a question. Then we’ll come back in about five minutes.
Okay, guys, how’s it going? Anybody found some ideas they can use in their business?
I don’t know about you, but I had light bulbs going off in my head about opportunities I’ve been missing. It really does come to a mindset of looking for opportunities and leveraging those opportunities you’ve already got.
Does anybody have a question that they’d like for us to try to address?
Caller:I think everybody’s just trying to process it, Mary Jo.
Mary Jo:That’s fine. Yeah, that’s a lot of material to go through. And remember, you can’t do all of these things at one time, you know. It’s important, as he said, not to do just one type of marketing, but you can’t try all of these at one time. You would be overwhelmed.
Start with those early things that he suggested then add these strategies and keep what works and punt what doesn’t work.
Martin:I would add, get an education everyday. Just be aware. Watch television ads; look at display ads; look at billboards.
I mean, I have an illness. I go down the street and say, “Why did they do that? That is silly.”
Caller:I do have a question. It was when Mary Jo was talking about setting the prices and you said that discounting is a slow death. Now would that include when you’re first getting started? I would assume that I would set some prices and then maybe discount to get some business in the beginning, if it’s like a one time thing to get people in.
Martin:Yeah, that’s what we call a lost leader where I’m very aware that I’m offering at a discount to get a new customer. But the best thing to do is give them a small sample that you charge for.
We generally end up with customers from hell, because if we get a puppy and we don’t train it, it stays that way. It chews on the carpet all the time. If we don’t rap its nose when it’s six weeks old, it’s going to keep chewing on the carpet.
It’s kind of the same with customers. If you discount them the moment they come in the door and then you discount to keep them and on and on, that’s what they come to expect.
For example, a book author will say, “I’ll give you chapter one,” or “I’ll give you chapters one, two, and three.” Sampling is a very successful way to win business. They do it in the grocery stores; they do it with books.
On Amazon now they let you see the table of contents; they let you see the first chapter. Then curiosity is brought into the equation.
I’m not saying don’t ever discount, but you just need to be very aware of your pricing and your margin. So if it costs you $50 to do a project and you’re charging $100, but you discount it $25 every time, you’re cutting your profit margin in half.
If you have a back end product; if I know I sell a $25 product even though it’s worth $75 and I’m losing $50, but I know that 50% of the people who try the product at $25 are going to buy my next step up which is a $175 product or service, then the numbers work.
So, great question. I’m just saying to do the math.
Caller:Okay.
Martin:That’s a great question. Move to the front of the class. So much for that impression of the teacher.
Mary Jo:All right, why don’t we start back up? For those of you who’ve just joined us, this is Mary Jo Tate at I’m interviewing Martin Wales from
We’ve been talking about marketing basics, but beginning in advanced techniques that you can use to grow your business and increase your profits.
Now we are going to look specifically at different ways to use testimonials. This is an application of my method of helping clients write their books and get their books out of them.
Martin’s going to tell me his book. We’re going to talk through the material about using testimonials and that is going to become part of the book that he is currently writing, and I’m sure we’ll be letting you know about that complete book when it’s available. I hope that will be soon. We just need to wrap that up.
Let’s go ahead and get started, Martin, by talking about why it is important to use testimonials. Why do we even need to spend this next hour talking about this?
Martin:Testimonials are the leading sales tactic, I believe. Other people are talking about you; you’re not talking about yourself.
Testimonials are a third party endorsement; an independent referral to your product or services. So they’re very valuable in that they’re very believable. They give you credibility. It’s a very affordable thing to acquire.
You can use different formats in testimonials. You can use video, audio, or text; or you can use in-person testimonials. If you are at a live event you can have your customers in the room stand up and say good things about you. We’ll talk more about those.
But really a testimonial is leveraging something that is already happening. That’s goodwill from your existing customers and clients. The only thing you have to do is have the foresight and the ability to collect that information at the moment that they’re at their hottest; when they love you the most. That’s usually immediately after delivering your product or service.
One mistake people make with their testimonials is they go back three months later and try and get it. So if I clean your carpets and I come back four months later and I say, “Oh, you know what? I’m collecting testimonials because I’m doing a new marketing campaign. I was wondering if you could comment for me.”
“Well, yeah, Martin came to my house and cleaned my carpets. I was very happy with his service and his people.” Like there’s no emotion, and it will come through even in your text versus if you collect the testimonial right after you clean my carpets and the night before my daughter’s first communion.
Then I’m like, “Martin saved my party! The house was a mess, the carpet was disgusting. I was going to be the talk of the neighborhood and it was going to kill me with embarrassment. But Martin’s cleaning company came in and made me shine, and made my house shine! My daughter was happy and her friends were happy, and I was happy that I wasn’t the negative talk of the neighborhood,” whatever it is.
But they used far more emotional content in their testimonials when you gather them when they’re hot. So if you do a live seminar, at the back of the room you’ll see people video taping, if it’s a smart marketer, collecting the testimonials the moment the people get the information.
“Oh, my God! I’ve never heard so many ideas! They’re swimming around in my head! I can’t even decide which one to use. I’ve never heard so many good points in my life in one place at one time! I’m coming back next year!”
You can tell when there’s a vanilla testimonial. “We’ve been using Theresa’s basket service for ten years and they’ve always helped us appreciate our clients.”
The only benefit I’m getting out of that is that they’ve used them for a long time. But it’s a very standard, boring testimonial. The thing that you want to do is bump your testimonials up to what I call a referral level, where they will actually handle an objection for you in the testimonial.
“First when I hired Mary Jo I thought she was expensive. Once I saw the work and what she did to transform my material from a putz into a Pulitzer was this.”
So what I call turn around testimonials are great.
Mary Jo:Great. Now I noticed you’ve identified nine different places for using testimonials and I think the first place that probably comes to most people’s mind is using testimonials on the web site for your business.
What are some good ways to use testimonials on your web site?
Martin:On your web site you can use them on your email signature. I’m sorry, that’s not your web site but on your internet marketing. I guess we can start there.
But in your email signature; so when you respond to a request or when you are even sending out a request yourself. If I’m sending out an email to anybody I know, in my email signature I might have a one-sentence testimonial.
“Theresa’s Basket Service has been fantastic for me. It really lets my customers know how much I care about them without spending a lot of money.” So high perceived value, low cost; whatever the benefit is.
Again, the big challenge people have is they don’t collect testimonials, and if they do collect them, they don’t share them. They let them gather dust on a shelf somewhere.
The email signature is often underutilized. Again, it can just be a statement underneath your name and your contact name and maybe your phone number. So definitely use that.
Use testimonials in your Ezine, in your newsletter, and even in Ezine ads. If I buy an ad in your Ezine, instead of just putting an ad that says, “Seven reasons why you should buy my book,” I would put, “Here’s what two happy readers had to say about the latest book on buying a used car.”
Then I would have hot links inside that testimonial back to the product site.
Mary Jo:Good.
Martin:The most successful television infomercials, if you look at any of them, 90% of them are testimonials.
Back to your web site; I would use video, audio, and text as much as I could. The reason why I suggest video is because that’s the most leveraged form of testimonial collection you can use.
If I gather the video, a picture is worth a thousand words. I can see the sparkle in their eye; I can see them smiling. I, as the service provider, might even be in the video with them, so they’re willing to say it in front of me.
They’re taking the time, energy, and effort to appear on camera. They’re letting their name and image be used.
Next, I can always strip off the audio. So if I’m only on dial-up or if my customers are only on dial-up, I can just say, “Here’s the audio only.” I can also use that audio in my products.
So even if I sell you a product, I want to resell you the product once it arrives at your house. I can use the audio that I just stripped off the video at the beginning of the product.
Next, I can transcribe what they’re saying on the video. So now I’ve got three forms of the same testimonial even though I collected it once.
Mary Jo:Right, that’s really leveraging it.
Martin:Right, so maybe you’re not ready to put video on your web site; you’re technically not ready to do it. It doesn’t matter; still collect it with a video camera. Then when you are ready, you’ve got it. Just put up the text for now.
Also on your web site, another tip for you, is bold the biggest benefit inside the testimonial. Gosh, if you go to we use the testimonial on that web site to encourage people to sign up for the opt-in to get tips.
But people on the web are scanners, so they may not want to read the full four lines of that testimonial. So we highlight the main point which is probably not killer sale tactics and mindset which we did highlight. But the most important one is “from next to nothing to near $300,000 within 60 days.”
That’s all they care about versus “By incorporating your ideas I was able to take my pipeline from next to nothing to near $300,000 within 60 days.” Everybody wants the $300,000 within 60 days. They don’t care about the pipeline; they don’t care about Martin Wales; they don’t care about anything. If you could have $300,000 in your bank account in 60 days, wouldn’t you be interested, Mary Jo?
Mary Jo:Absolutely.
Martin:So that is what you do.
The other tip there on the testimonial on your web site is it’s got the full name of the person, her title, and the company she works for. The more information you have in the testimonial about the person giving it, the more believable and credible it is.
Mary Jo:Because, you see, if that testimonial simply said, “Kim,” or even “Kim. H.,” it doesn’t have nearly the impact.
Martin:Right, exactly. The other thing is here we’re using a testimonial to “sell” something that’s free. So we’re encouraging people to sign up for tips using a testimonial on the web site.
The other place people can use web site testimonials, or testimonials on their web site, is throughout the web site on every page. So many people just have this testimonial section. They expect you to go click on “Happy Clients Say” or “Testimonials Here” to go and read this accumulation of testimonials.
Put them everywhere. On your page about your speaker, even though you’ve got a consulting site, let’s say, one of those pages is “Hire me as a speaker.” You have speaker testimonials there.
“I’ve never heard a better speaker.”
“We’ve had lots of speakers, but we got more information out of Martin.”
“Listening to Martin is like drinking from a fire hose,” right? Which may not be such a good thing for your teeth.
Really what you want to do is have a testimonial related to the topic or subject or product or service that you’re talking about right next to it.
If you use auto responders, so you sign up to use auto responders. In your auto responders put a testimonial. “Congratulations, you’re now signed up for 52 weeks of Customer Catcher Tips,” and there’s another testimonial down at the bottom of that page.
Mary Jo:So that’s reinforcing what made them sign up in the first place.
Martin:Right, only it’s a different testimonial.
Mary Jo:Right.
Martin:Put them on your order pages, so if you’re selling your product online, put it on the order page. If you send out direct invoices or if you send out invoices via email or in the post, put a testimonial on your invoices.
Mary Jo:Great.
Martin:There’s no better time to reinforce that they made a good decision than when they are supposed to pay you.
Mary Jo:Getting ready to write that check.
Martin:So that’s not necessarily on your web site, but it’s related. You really use them everywhere on your web site because you’ve got unlimited real estate. Every time you add a page, you can add a testimonial.
The other place you can use them is in your ads on other people’s sites; your banner ads on other people’s sites.
So really, testimonials are copy written by customers.
Mary Jo:That’s a great line.
Martin:Copy written by customers. It’s truthful, it’s meaningful, and it’s real; like real world comments versus “What can I say about me that’s going to influence you?”
We all know, right, when we read copy that it was written by a company that wants to say they’re good, so they’re blowing their own horn. So if you have trouble promoting yourself, just let your customers do it.
Mary Jo:Great.
Martin:I’ll let you continue asking me the questions.
Mary Jo:Well, you can just charge ahead, but the next thing I was going to ask you about is how you might use your testimonial in a personal introduction.
Martin:Well, a personal introduction, so I’m introducing myself to you. I’m introducing myself to an audience. Who do I want to use as an example here?
Let’s say editing, for example. So I’m giving a talk to a bunch of people who are authors about how to hire an editor. And when it comes time for me to offer my services, I’m going to read some testimonials.
“If you don’t mind, I’d love to share some testimonials with you from some of our existing clients. Is that okay?”
“Yes.”
“Mary Jo from Tupelo, Mississippi, said about our services, ‘Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.’
“Tom Smith from Los Angeles, whose book went to number 15 on Amazon last week, said this about my services, ‘Blah, blah, blah, blah.’”
So what you’re doing is pretending you’re that customer and you read out the testimonial. So you personally introduce the testimonial yourself.
Mary Jo:Good, and you know, one way that I saw that applied that really impressed me when I was at the Big Seminar in Atlanta where I first met you, I was walking down the hall from my room back to the conference meeting area and stopped to speak to someone that I wanted to find out more about his services.
He happened to have one of his coaching clients walking down the hall with him, so he didn’t tell me a word about his business. He said, “Here, let A.J. tell you about it.” And it worked because I was very impressed. It was much better than if he had told me the exact same things about his own service.
Martin:That’s what I call the buddy system at a networking event. In that case he was with a customer, so the customer was personally introducing or he introduced his customer to you.
But let’s say we’re business associates and I do know you and I have worked with you. I may or may not have used your services directly, but I do know who you are so I can give you a professional testimonial.