The Power of Testimonials: Building Trust and Driving Sales

If you are selling online, this episode is a must-listen. I see so many business owners struggle with this and it is literally critical to growth. This episode is all about the importance of social proof, particularly testimonials. Online businesses, course creators, membership owners, and coaches, listen up... In this episode I’m sharing how testimonials, case studies, and 'wins' can really boost buyer confidence and drive sales. I also share detailed strategies for how to collect and effectively use the testimonials you gather.    KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST   If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to Apple podcasts or Spotify and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.   LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE Connect with Teresa on Website, The Club, Sign up to Teresa's email list,  Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter   Transcript When buying online, how often do you go and look at the reviews? It's been proven that a product on Amazon with lots of reviews will sell better than the same product with less reviews. We need social proof. We need people to confirm that the thing we want to buy is going to be okay, that when we spend our money we're not taking a massive risk, and social proof and testimonials and case studies do that. They help us have the confidence to make that buying decision, which is why having testimonials, having case studies, and having wins in your marketing is so, so very important. But how do you collect testimonials? What do you ask them for? And where do you put them? That is what we're covering in today's episode of the podcast. And this episode should be one that every business owner should listen to.[00:01:00] An international bestselling author, award winning speaker, TEDx speaker, certified coach, and the host of this number one ranked podcast. I am so excited to guide you on the journey of creating a business and life that you not only love, but one that perfectly aligns with you and the season of life that you're in. In each episode, I'll share with you easy, actionable, and insightful strategies to grow your online business. Plus, we'll be diving into some mindset tools and strategies that keep you focused, motivated, and motivated. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast. I hope you are doing well. Okay, today we're jumping straight in and we're talking about something that is so important For every business out there, but even more important for online businesses. So course [00:02:00] creators, membership owners, and coaches, if you are selling things online, then this is probably one of the most important things you're going to need to listen to, and you're going to need to act upon. We're going to be talking testimonials. Now. I know that sounds like it's not very dramatic or not very big or not very important. Hopefully, you know, maybe you were sat there hoping that I was giving you some crazy hack that no one ever knew about, but this is something that I see so many business owners struggle with. Whenever I am going through someone's sales page, whenever I'm looking at someone's webinar slides, whenever I'm doing any of those things and helping them to curate them better, the one thing I will say without doubt is you need more testimonials. You need more people saying good things about you and what you do. And it's not just a case of just a straight testimonial. We're going to get into that, but you need to prove that you can do the thing that you're saying you can do. And [00:03:00] we just don't put enough in and I'm going to say we because I include myself in this because this is something that I have also been a little bit rubbish at and I need to improve on this. So this episode is for me as much as it might be for you. There is so much to cover that I'm going to try and break it into sort of areas that make sense, but let's talk about, first off, a testimonial and what is it, because I'm actually going to use three different terms and they are different. So you can have wins that you share, testimonials and case studies. So the main difference between these three, And some are better in different places and some of them you'll use in different places but wins are things like when someone in a Facebook group on social media or messages you and says hey I just did your so and so and I've got this or I've had wins that come in of someone saying, Oh my goodness, I just did my webinar and eight people have bought straight off the bat. Those [00:04:00] are wins. So those are kind of really short snippet things of someone telling you that they've just had a win based on what the, what you've done with them or the work that you're doing with them. And they can be really helpful, especially If you don't have a full test, test, testimonial, gosh, that's going to be hard if I can't say that as this whole episode's about it. If you don't have a full testimonial or if you don't have a case study, so at the very least, those wins are great and ideally those wins are screenshotted and they're still really useful to have even when you've got full testimonial and case studies. It's still great to have some screenshots of wins of little, you know, yay, I did this thing and I got this win. Then testimonials. So testimonials tend to be a quote from a client, someone you've worked with, someone who's bought your course, someone who's in your membership, that is talking about what impact you have had on them. And it could be talking about, I did this thing and I got this result, or I just love being part of this community, or [00:05:00] they're great to work with, but it tends to be a kind of quote. And a case study tends to be a bit more in detail. So a case study will probably go into who they are, what they do, what they did previously, what they did with your help and how they changed their business, their life, their whatever it is. And it gives you more details. And I would use case studies on things like a webinar or part of a launch or something like that, where you can get into the weeds a little bit. You can also have case studies on your website. You can have case studies on sales pages, but it tends to be the kind of real detail. You're going into real detail. So when I talk about testimonials, we could be talking wins. We could be talking case studies. And if I'm specifically talking about one of them, I will mention it. But I just wanted to say straight off the bat that that's the three different things that I see. I see wins, testimonials, and case studies. Okay. The other thing I need to get straight away or that I need to say straight away [00:06:00] is it is 100 percent your responsibility as the business owner to get your own testimonials. I don't mean that as in someone else on your team can't get them. Absolutely. But as the business, we have to get the testimonials. What we can't do is hope and expect that our clients and our customers are just going to want to give you a testimonial. It's so important that we get them and we need to be very considerate. We need to be very kind of, you know, actually make the moves of getting those testimonials, but it's our responsibility. The way I want you to think about it is I want you to think about adding it in as a kind of regular thing that you do. So for instance, if you are sending an email once a week, maybe once a week, you reach out to a client and ask for a testimonial. If you are posting on social media. Like a couple of times a week, maybe as part of that, you, every time you do your social media batching, maybe you do it once a month, you reach out to two or three social [00:07:00] people to ask them for testimonials. Every time you see someone say something nice about you, you screenshot it and put it in a folder, which I always do anyway, because I've talked about this before, but in case you haven't heard me talk about it, I have what's called a love folder. So anybody who says anything nice about me, I screenshot it, put it into a folder on my desktop, and I also have a physical love folder and I have a noteboard where the people send me things, which is lovely. And then when I feel rubbish about myself, or if I have a day when I'm thinking, am I really cut out for this? Am I really any good? Which we all have as business owners. Then that's the day I go and read my love folder. And I remind myself that. I'm good at what I do and people genuinely love working with me and get results. So that's good practice anyway, but also getting into the habit of having them screenshotted so that you can then use them is awesome. So how do you get testimonials, case studies, how'd you get the wins, and what do you do with them, where do you post [00:08:00] them, and where do they come in handy to be used? So we're going to cover all of that. One of the first things that you can do, let's talk about how we get testimonials. And like I said, I want you to treat it as a regular thing that you do