In this session, you will discover the immense value of client testimonials in selling your services. We will explore how testimonials serve as powerful social proof, helping to build trust and credibility with prospective clients. You will learn strategies for soliciting authentic and compelling testimonials from satisfied clients and techniques for presenting them in various formats, including case studies and video testimonials. The session will also cover best practices for integrating testimonials into your marketing and sales materials, such as websites, proposals, and presentations.
TRANSCRIPT
Greg Alexander: Yeah. And this is a perfect example of a done-for-you service. Because you’re right. You know, all of our members and listeners are running their firms, and they know they need to do this. They don’t have the time to do it, and just to be able to hire somebody like you to make it happen is a good thing. So let me dive into my questions if I can. So first, you mentioned social proof, and I want to talk about this. So just a quick definition of social proof is when somebody is buying a service, it is a sales campaign that requires a leap of faith. What I mean by that is, you know, if you’re buying a car, you can go take it on a test drive. You know, if you’re hiring a caterer for a wedding, you can taste the food. You know, when you’re buying a consulting service or an IT service or something like that, you don’t get a chance to take it for a test drive, so you gotta make a leap of faith. And that’s scary for a lot of people. So what helps people get over this fear is this social proof concept. So tell us what social proof is, and then a follow-up to that is, when in the sales campaign, is it best used.
Sam Shepler: Yeah, it’s so many good points you hit on there. You know, the super simple definition of social proof is essentially you’re creating a dynamic where your buyers can trust you because they see evidence from people like them. Right? They see proof, you know, socially out in the marketplace, whether it’s, you know, in this case, you know, we’re talking mostly online, right? And they see it from people they feel look like them and have a lot of their own challenges. So this is a key part in your strategy. You know, we’re kind of jumping ahead a little bit. But, like all social proof, is not created equal. Right? If I’m a marketing director at a Fortune 500 company, like, you know, video testimonials from another marketing director at a Fortune 500 company are going to be more important. And that’s going to move me more. Right? So basically, you know, whenever you’re thinking about your social proof, you know more isn’t better, better is better. You want to think about who your ICP is, and align that your social proof with your ICP, your ideal customer profile. In terms of where in the buyer journey you want to be using social proof. This is such a great question, because this has actually changed a ton over the past, you know, 10 to 15 years. I like to say we used to operate in a world where it was like a trust, but verify world, right? We would hop on the call with the sales rep. We would trust the sales rep or the owner of the firm we’re talking to. We would do 2 or 3 calls, and we’d let the seller lead us throughout this buyer journey, and then at the end, we’d say, Okay, great. You know this all makes sense, Mr. Seller. Now let me talk to a few customers. I want some references, or I want to see some case studies, right.
Sam Shepler: That was the trust, but verify world. But trust has decreased massively in general in society over the last 10 years, and people are busier than ever. So now we live in a verify, verify, verify constantly world. So we actually need, right now, today, if you don’t have enough social proof early in your buyer journey, like right when they land on your website or on your social media content, which is typically, traditionally, top of the funnel, guess what’s gonna happen? People aren’t even going to get to your sales call in the first place; they’re just gonna drop out of your funnel. So the answer to your question is, to be maximally effective today, if you want to grow as fast as possible and have the highest sales velocity, you need social proof throughout your entire buyer journey. You just need to align the topics and the length in the format with what your buyer is actually going to consume at that time. So, on social media, when they haven’t even been to your website, you have a 30-second video testimonial snippet. And then, on your website, you have a 90-second snippet. In the sales process, you have very specific, what we call objection crusher testimonials that you preemptively use to address your most common QFDs, your most common questions, fears, and doubts. So I’ll pause there. But that’s the real answer: it’s all about matching your buyer journey and questions buyers have with the content from your customers.
Greg Alexander: Yeah, so significant changes. Traditionally, you’re right. I’ve been using testimonials for 30 years. It was always at the end, and we would use them in substitute of reference calls because it was so hard to run down some clients and say, “Hey, would you be willing to take this reference call for me?” People are so busy, just a logistical nightmare of setting all that up. So we would say to clients, members, what have you, “Hey, in the absence of that, we’ve recorded these videos. Will that suffice?” But that’s at the very, very end of a sales campaign. Using it top-middle of the funnel is an interesting thing, and you’re right. Trust has eroded, unfortunately, for the right reasons. There’s been a lot of scandal, etc. So all of us are a little bit more skeptical now than we once were. I can see how using it up and down the funnel makes a lot of sense. I also can see how video is so much better than some static generic text quote buried on some web page somewhere. It kind of brings things to life. Let me play devil’s advocate for a moment, not because I disagree with you. I wholeheartedly agree with you. But some members inside a collective would say, “I don’t even believe testimonials anymore because they’re canned, they’re polished, they’re scripted, it’s not real.” So what do you say to that?
Sam Shepler: Yes, it’s a great question. My first thing would be, you shouldn’t believe a testimonial if it’s a single line and it’s written, because we all know how that works most of the time. Me or you as the marketer, we write those things, and we send them to our customer to approve, and we think we’re doing them a favor, but we end up with just a generic, happy quote. Actually, I know this is a little bit biased here, but video is how you can tell how genuine their testimonial is. Because 97% of communication is actually nonverbal, depending on the study, but it’s significant. So with video, you get tone of voice, body language, and all of those things. You get to see the person’s eyeline. You can tell if someone really doesn’t like the product in video; you can usually tell because you get all those other signals. You can also see how much it’s being edited. In general, if it’s a super choppy video and they had to work really hard to say anything very good, that’s clear evidence that they really had to scrape the barrel to have something good to say. So the answer to that question, in my opinion, is video in specificity. The more high-level and vague anything is, the less credible it is, whether it’s text or video. The more specific and granular it is, the more trustworthy and helpful it is to the buyer as well.
Greg Alexander: So the more granular you get and the more relevant you make them, the more of them you have to do. If, for example, this is an objection killer, you could have 50 objections. So you need to create 50 testimonials. Maybe this is an unfair question, but how many of these puppies do you need?
Sam Shepler: Yeah, it’s a great question. I think it really depends on the strategy and the complexity of your product offerings. You probably need at a minimum, you know, 3 different customer testimonials for each of your core service lines. If you only do one thing and have a very simple product offering, 3 video testimonials every 12 months or so, like 3 new ones per year, will see major uplift. The reason I say getting more over time is because your messaging, if you’re running a great company, your offer is going to evolve, your position is going to evolve, and the competitive landscape is going to evolve. So you do want to refresh your testimonials. If your offer is not that complex, 3, and make sure you add to them yearly if need be, a lot of people will see massive uplift from just that.
Greg Alexander: How are you dealing with artificial intelligence and digital twins, and fake avatars, and all that? I mean, is that affecting your business? And is that something we should be worried about, or is that still down the line?
Sam Shepler: It’s a great question. We specifically are focused on serving B2B customers. We sell to B2B customers and capture testimonials for B2B use cases. It’s harder to fake because, first of all, we would never engage in that. It’s really hard to fake B2B because once you’re in a testimonial video, a lot of people will actually shoot you a message on LinkedIn and say, “Hey, I saw your testimonial for Company X. Did you really feel that way? Tell me more.” I get messages like that. The real identity verification layer of B2B and LinkedIn makes it easy to look someone up and see if they’re really the marketing director at X Company. That currently solves that problem. If LinkedIn didn’t exist, it would be completely different. I do think it’s a huge problem in consumer testimonials, where there’s no way to actually verify who is who.
Greg Alexander: Alright. Well, very good. So we try to keep these shows to 15 minutes in length. This was a fantastic reminder of a very valuable tool. It was a great update on how this is changing top, middle, bottom of the funnel, video versus text, all that. Our members are going to have a ton of questions, and Sam, we’ll have you on the private member Q&A session. For members that are listening to this, look out for that notification. Attend that session. You’ll be able to double-click on this and ask Sam some really good questions. For those that are not members, if you’re a prospect and you think you might want to become a member, go to collective54.com, fill out an application, and someone will get in contact with you. But until then, Sam, thanks a bunch for being on the show again for us and giving us an update on this valuable tool. We look forward to our Member Q&A session.
Sam Shepler: Thanks, Greg. Yeah, this was a blast. My pleasure.
Greg Alexander: Alright, until next time, everybody. I wish you the best of luck as you try to grow, scale, and someday exit your firm.
Note: This transcript was generated by Zoom.