Testimonials are the very best marketing materials you have, bar none.  I truly don’t care how good your marketing department is, how much you invest in marketing materials, etc.  You will never have a better marketing piece than a testimonial from a happy customer. The trouble is that most salespeople don’t know how to get a testimonial.

That’s because a testimonial allows a prospective customer to see you through THEIR eyes – and that bridges the credibility gap.  That’s the hardest thing to do when attracting new customers.  So, with that in mind, I’m going to talk about a few ways to get testimonials, and show you a very recent example of the easiest way to get them.

Testimonials used to be hard to get.  You had to ask your customer to write a letter on their letterhead, and sometimes they would and sometimes they wouldn’t.  Even your happiest customers sometimes don’t take time to write a testimonial letter; they just get busy and it gets pushed to the bottom of the stack.  Technology makes testimonials a lot easier to get.  Here is how to get a testimonial in three methods, from toughest to easiest:

1. The old school. Yes, you can still ask for the testimonial letter.  And your odds of getting one are roughly the same as they always have been – about 50/50 if the customer is truly happy.  Those aren’t bad odds and if you ask enough customers, you’re going to get one.
2. The LinkedIn recommendation. Easier than the testimonial is the LinkedIn recommendation.  The Recommendations section is, fortunately, one thing that LinkedIn has left in their free option (thus far), and I like it a lot.  It’s pretty simple to use.  Here’s LinkedIn’s tutorial on getting them.  NOTE:  Do not confuse LinkedIn “endorsements” with LinkedIn RECOMMENDATIONS.  Their “endorsement” section is meaningless – it just asks people to check boxes.  I have endorsements for things that I don’t do and have never done.
3. The video testimonial. Now we’re talking!  This is one way you can really make tech work for you.  When you’re meeting with customers, they have a tendency to say a lot of nice things about you.  Wouldn’t it be great if prospects could see and hear them do it?  You have a smartphone, right?  All you have to do is ask the customer to say those things, again, on video.  Explain to them why.  My favorite way is to say, “I really appreciate that.  You know, one way that I attract new customers is through comments like that from customers like you.  Would you mind repeating those great words on video?”  The vast majority of customers will be happy to do so.  Then you turn on your video camera on your phone and record them.You can either just ask them to repeat what they said, or even do a little interview with them.  I had just such an opportunity yesterday after a Sales Audit with Excel Linen and the raw video is below.  The reason I left it raw, rather than editing out some of it (for instance, me asking questions), is that I wanted you to see how the process works.  It’s easy.  In fact, I probably didn’t do as good a job on this one as I could have; few of my clients are local these days, so I am a bit out of practice on face to face testimonial gathering.  Still, when opportunity knocks, you answer.

   Wait, you’re saying that most of your sales calls are video and not face to face, so this won’t work?  Sure it will.  All major video conferencing platforms have an option to record.  Record your conversation and then download it and convert it into a video you can use.  Make the tech work FOR you, not against you.

Once you have a testimonial, USE IT.  Post about your recommendations on LinkedIn.  Splash the video all over social media.  Have them handy on your phone to show your customers.  And don’t think that a testimonial on one platform has to stay there.  Transcribe video comments and put them in text form on your website.  Take a LinkedIn recommendation and use it as a video frame.  Once people have said how awesome you are, for the record, you have a duty to USE IT!

Now go get some testimonials.  Here’s my video from yesterday.

A few days ago, I got a message from a salesperson who used to work for me many years ago, when I was a sales manager. It said, “Troy, you’re not going to believe this, but I have found a sales job that I am not good at!”  From most salespeople, even those who have worked with me, this wouldn’t raise much of an alarm.  But this message was from one of the best salespeople I’ve ever worked with, who has had a long track record of success across multiple industries.  I immediately perked up. I asked her what she was talking about.

“My problem,” she said, “is that I’m trying to save customers from quitting their service – but when they tell me why, I actually see it from their point of view, and I feel like I’d probably do the same thing!”  It’s not a big surprise that she sees things from the customer’s point of view.  One thing that makes her great (and can make you great, too) is her empathy and ability to see situations from the customer’s point of view – and if seeing things from the customer’s perspective is a hindrance to success, that’s a signal that bigger changes are needed than a simple sales approach.

To make a long story short (I know I don’t do that often – don’t get used to it), the real problem is that the company’s business model is obsolete now, given the wider range of choices available to the consumer. Those choices tend to not only be priced lower, they also provide better service and better meet the customer’s needs and expectations.  Essentially, her company is selling high-priced buggy whips in a world that is adopting the automobile.

The larger problem, for her, is that it hurts her conscience when she “succeeds” in getting a customer to stay, even when she knows it’s not in their best interest to do so.  I understand that – I had a job like that in my sales career, and I stayed for less than a year.  When you make promises to customers that aren’t being met, and you know they won’t be, it’s a stain on your personal integrity.

Worse, she has caught her management in enough lies that she no longer believes in the integrity of her company.  She will leave this job, I’m sure, and the company will lose a quality salesperson.

But believe it or not, this article isn’t about her.  It’s about you and your company, and the need that we all have to take a quick self-check from time to time about what we do.  If you aren’t having the kind of success and results that you feel you should have, you need to ask yourself a few questions:

• Does what I’m selling still have value in the marketplace? Sure, everything has SOME value – but is your product or service worth what you charge for it?  If time has passed you by, it’s time to update and evolve.
• Is my customer making a good decision by buying my stuff? This is the crux of selling.  My definition of selling is this:  Selling is the act of helping customers make positive buying decisions.  If you’re winning when you make a sale, but your customers aren’t winning, it’s time for a re-evaluation.
• Am I asking my salespeople to make promises that I know I won’t fulfill? Yeah, it sounds awful, but it happens every day.  I once left an industry when the service manager at my company said, “Troy, your department’s job is to sell fantasy – my department’s job is to re-sell them on reality.”  If there is a significant difference between the sale and the service, you are being unethical.  Stop it.

It can be tough to know when to evolve or change.  And not all evolution is good – many businesses have evolved themselves right out of business, when staying the course would have kept them viable.  But if the answers to the first two questions are “no,” and the third is “yes,” you have a problem.  And there’s no better time to fix it than the present.

My former salesperson will be fine (and frankly, I’m a bit honored that after nearly 20 years, she still comes to me for advice and counsel).  She’ll end up leaving this company and find another position where her skills are more appropriate.  Her company, however, won’t be fine.  They might be okay this year and next year, but soon, the obsolescence of their business model and the nature of their sales process will catch up to them.

If you’ve read my work before, you know that one of my common statements is that our profession of selling has changed more in the last ten years than in the hundred years previous.  That’s 100% true.  And it’s also true that 2020 has put the pace of change on fast forward.  We’ve talked about that in this space before (and if you haven’t seen those articles, visit my blog here; there are a lot of them).

Some things haven’t changed about selling.  It’s funny – in many of my speaking and training programs, I refer to my “Number one rule of selling,” which we’ll discuss below.  I’m often asked what my OTHER big rules of selling are, so for the first time, here are my Top Five Rules of Successful Selling.

1. If it works for you, and it’s not illegal, immoral, unethical, or against the best interest of your customers or company, do it. This is the one I refer to all the time in my speeches.  Not everyone sells exactly the same way, which means that some people are going to do things that I (or you) might not do and might not work for us.  BUT – I always say that if you are having success with a technique that doesn’t match my teachings, with the above caveats, keep doing it – but consider at least trying a different approach.  Great salespeople are constantly learning, and you’d be amazed at how many people have a technique that works for them, finally try something new, and then have a new technique that’s working better for them. In this case, the rules of successful selling are very personal.
2. They can’t buy from you if they don’t know you exist. This is probably the greatest reason to keep prospecting.  Social media is great – but it’s still a “crank and hope” strategy for most B2B salespeople.  You should always be working to make sure that every potential customer in your territory or market sphere knows you exist and has an opportunity to buy from you.  I’ve always used what I call the “blanket” philosophy of prospecting – I throw a virtual blanket over my market and then work to touch every prospect under it.  You should too.
3. The only real market research happens when you ask someone to buy. Sure, focus groups, surveys, and other hypothetical approaches are great – but if you really want to know if a particular product or service has legs, try to actually SELL it to someone.  I’ll never forget working for a company about twenty-five years ago that rolled out a new product. It was well researched; in fact, some of my own customers were very positive about it – right up until I asked them to write a check for it.  It wasn’t just me, either; the entire product flopped because, in the hypothetical sense, it looked great. In the actual sense, nobody was all that excited about paying for it.  Your salespeople are always the best market researchers.
4. Comfortable Customers Buy. This simple three-word statement forms the basis of my sales training and approach, and it’s one of the biggest rules of successful selling.  Think about all the manipulative and phony techniques that are designed to maneuver a customer into a corner – and throw them away forever.  Customers that are comfortable with you and your sales process (which respects their buying process) buy, buy more happily, buy more often, and pay more.  When you make a customer uncomfortable in their dealings with you, they’ll find someone else – or just buy it (whatever “it” is) online and not have to deal with a salesperson.
5. You must love the ACT of selling, not just the result. Sales is a hard job.  What makes it harder is that, for even the best salespeople, the majority of their activity does not result in a sale – that’s why we have sales funnels.  We recognize that not every call results in an appointment, not every appointment results in a proposal, and not every proposal results in a sale.  Salespeople who only love the sale (the result) tend to burn out quickly; salespeople who love the calls, the appointments, the proposals, and the rest of the work not only have longer careers, they have more successful ones.

Now you know my top five rules of selling. There are definitely more guidelines – but most of them fall under one of those top five rules.  Which one is most important?  I’m not sure there really is a hierarchy, despite my numbering them.  Follow them all and you’ll have a great career – even in the weird selling world of 2020 and beyond.