Testimonials & Raving Fans Make Business Easier

by Rick White, President 180BIZ                                                             (Estimated Read Time 4 minutes)

Today I want to talk about preaching and I promise I'm not going to get on a soapbox or anything like that. That's not my goal for today. What I mean by that is not us, not me, not you, but your clients. I want you to start thinking about your clients, and getting your clients to do some preaching for you. What I want to talk about is testimonials. Reviews and testimonials get confused all the time. I want to separate them, so you understand what the difference is.

Moments of magic or misery will definitely get you a review.

A review is someone's experience with one interaction with you. You're not going to get a review if you're mediocre. You either have a moment of magic where you stepped outside of the box, did some cool stuff for them, and they're blown away by it. They'll leave you a review for that. Or you did something really bad in their eyes, and then you will definitely get a review. Right? It's either going to be really, really good, or really, really bad to get a review. They tend to be based on a transaction.

However, a testimonial is different. A testimonial is an endorsement. A testimonial is someone stepping up and saying, “I know these people. I do business with these people, and these are good people.” A review typically says, good job. A testimonial says good people, and that's what we're looking for.

The issue here is we think that marketing our businesses, and advertising our businesses is a solo act. That it's something that you are responsible for and that is absolutely not the case. We want advocates. We want as many people talking about our businesses as we possibly can get.

Advocates spread the word about you.

I've been blown away lately by the people that clients and past clients have been saying, somebody's asking about a coach and they're saying something about us. That's amazing. And you want people out there for your shops that are doing the same thing, that are so enthralled by what you do and how you do it, and the way they feel when you're doing it, that they are advocates. They're walking down the street, they are stopping people and saying, you got to go see so-and-so. That's what you're looking for. Getting your advocates so that they want to help spread the word.

You are not supposed to be the only one talking about your business. You're going to get somebody to give you a testimonial that is to provide a great service over and over again and get them to climb the loyalty ladder until they're raving fans. Because raving fans are where you're going to get your testimonials, and I want you to be more intentional about building those raving fans. That's what this is all about.

When I say something about me, it’s bragging.
When someone else says it, it’s proof.

I know you got some people that just love what you do, but I'm telling you most of the time those are by accident. It wasn't intentional. I want you to create an environment and create a relationship where testimonials become a natural byproduct. When you have those testimonials out there, they really speak well. Why? Because when I say something about my company, I'm bragging, but when someone says it about you, that's proof.

The general public is going to believe a stranger before they believe you, and it's just because we've been lied to so many times. We're extremely skeptical when it comes to attracting new people, so the more you can get advocates, disciples, these raving fans out there talking about you, the more clients you’ll attract.

What can I do differently that will create raving fans?

I want you to just think this through a little bit. Ask yourself, how can I show up a little bit better today that will move people up to that raving fan status? What can I do differently that will get people to that raving fan status? The more you have of those, the easier business gets.

Please share this video. There are lots of people that need to hear this stuff. I want to thank you all for being here, and also we're going to be teaching about testimonials in our pocket business genius webinar series.

God bless. stay safe, have some fun, and go make some money.

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