Women Rocking Business Podcast With Sage Lavine

S2E6: How to Leverage Client Testimonials for Sales Success

One of the best tools you have to rock your offer and uplevel your marketing is…

Client testimonials!

Testimonials are like gold for your business, because they support you to:

  • Sell your programs through authentic success stories
  • Boost your offer with the voice of satisfied clients
  • Ramp up belief in yourself and the transformation you provide!

In this podcast episode, I’m sharing my best tips on how to gather testimonials and leverage them in your business. 

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

S2E6: How to Leverage Client Testimonials for Sales Success

Welcome to Women Rocking Business, where we are here to help you rock yourself, rock your life, and rock the world as a woman entrepreneur, because the world needs you and the time is now. I’m Sage Lavine, CEO, trainer, unretired, camp counselor, and best-selling author of the Hay House book Women Rocking Business. We’ve had the honor of serving over a hundred thousand women entrepreneurs around the globe, just like you, who are here to do more, be more and have more by giving your gift to the planet. Let’s do this. 

Hello, rockstars! I am so pumped up to get you some tips on how to gather a few more client testimonials this week and what makes those client testimonials awesome.

Sage Lavine

00:00:48

Because you guys, client testimonials are kind of like gold for your business. When we can hear from someone who’s gone through your program, your transformation, who’s made the changes, who’s had success… It not only ramps up belief in your program or your offerings, but it ramps up our belief in ourselves. That’s why they’re so crucial to be able to sell, because we need to believe in ourselves that we can make the kinds of changes in our careers, in our relationships and our sense of life purpose, in our health. 

These aren’t easy changes to make. That’s why it’s so important that you take a little bit of time to gather some testimonials, some success stories from people you’ve worked with, whether they’ve been paying clients or not, and include those when you make offers.

Sage Lavine

00:01:41

Now, I want to share a couple of tips on how to approach people, to gather those success stories, and then how to share about those publicly on video and on stage. If you haven’t had paying clients yet, you can still share stories of people who you’ve inspired, your friends, your family members, and you can just share those stories with the person’s name and how it is that you supported them. 

Be sure to get permission before you use success stories publicly. 

Sage Lavine

00:02:25

When you approach the clients that you want to use potential testimonials for, is what I’m trying to say.

You can approach them in a way that is oftentimes going to elicit a “yes’. So let me say a little bit more about that. When you approach people and say, “Hey, can you give me a testimonial?” It can feel a little funky, but when you approach people and say, “Hey, I’d like to feature your success so that other people can have the same kinds of results you’ve had. I’m wondering if you’d share a short success story with me.” …That can land just with a lot more friendliness. Can you feel that? Now you’re also going to want to be really specific, create some questions that are specific to the kind of work that you do, especially to ask people what they were struggling with before they found your work.

Sage Lavine

00:03:08

What were you struggling with before you found my work or my training?

What was it about the training that really supported you to have the kinds of results that you’ve had? 

What are the specific results that you’ve had that you would be willing to share with the public so that they could have similar breakthroughs like you did? 

Because when you can get the “before,” what they were struggling with, what kind of a process they went through with you, and then now what are they experiencing, not just what’s one result that you’ve had, but…how has this work affected your finances? How has it affected your health? How has it affected your emotional wellbeing? Because even if you’re a career coach, your client might be having, you know, incredible deeper relationships with their kids because they’re happy in their job now or vice versa. So don’t hesitate to really ask them to flush out all the results that they’ve had

Sage Lavine

00:03:58

Now, one of the things you’re gonna want to keep in mind is that once your client has shared that testimonial with you, you may want to rewrite it. You may want to nut it down into what you know are the most important pieces to share with the public. 

Once you do that, you might want to create a slide with a picture of them, and you know, some of the key words that they shared with you. You might want to actually edit down a video that they make for you. One of my favorite things to do is to actually, when I approach my clients to make me a video testimonial, I like to make them a short video.

Sage Lavine

00:04:42

This is just a really hot strategy because if they see me saying, “Hey, Emily, I’m wondering if you would get out your phone and next time you have some good, decent light on your face, just get out your phone, you know, click selfie video mode, and just, you know, head to camera, just share with me a little bit about what you’re struggling with before, before you found the work, what kind of breakthrough you’ve had, how my program helped you and what are all the results. Don’t worry about saying the exact perfect thing. I’ll kind of edit it up and clean it up, right? 

But selfie videos are so often 5 to 10 times more effective than all these professional videos that people have. You guys I’ve literally shot selfie videos, and they’ve converted higher than like professional, you know, $4k-$8k video shoots. 

Sage Lavine

00:05:30

Your people love hearing from your clients. Just head to camera, just talking off the cuff. So gathering video testimonials can be really effective. You can have a videographer, or you can use basic video editing software to just clip together a few of the sound bites from several people that you’ve worked with. It can be really powerful to pop a little bit of music on that, pop a little bit of text. And now you have a video collage of some client testimonials you can play before an offer. 

That’s a great time to play that video, by the way, when you’re heading into an offer, even if it’s only like a t2 minute video with just a few people talking about their results from working with you, it’s like gold because it gets your people excited for the offer.

Sage Lavine

00:06:15

They get to hear several different faces of people talking about the work that you provide, the transformation you provide and –  added benefit –  you get a chance to take a little bit of a breath before you go into your offer, because you could have somebody play the video, stream the video onto the Zoom screen, or if you’re on a live stage, you know, play the video on stage. So you can take your breath and get grounded, so you can describe the benefits of what you’re actually offering. Brilliant! Some of you are saying, “Oh God, Sage, I don’t even really have 3 clients that I could ask for video testimonials.” Here’s a hot tip for those of you that are in our programs or in our community.

Sage Lavine

00:06:56

Why not practice trading services with other women who are also building their businesses? You guys can experience each other’s work and then make each other a short video testimonial. It’s worth, you know, the couple hours that you would take out of your schedule to experience each other’s work, experienced each other’s healing, coaching, transformation, and then just make a quick video endorsing each other’s work, you know, because as entrepreneurs and as leaders, we oftentimes really see the value of people’s work and can speak to it maybe even more articulately than one of our clients can – because we’re not afraid of getting visible. 

The truth is that your clients can sell way better than you can, because they can say things about your work that are, it’s kind of, you know, they can be bold and they can be radical. Just saying like, “This work changed my life.”, Right?

Sage Lavine

00:07:46

They can say things that might not even be that classy for you to say about your own work. Now, when you get to the point where you’re telling somebody’s story on their behalf, you’re talking about your clients on a video or on the life stage. I’m going to recommend that you share that story as a short hero’s or shero’s journey. Okay. Write that down. You’re going to share a short story in the form of like the hero’s or shero’s journey. And what that means is you’re going to want to share what that person was struggling with when they came your way.

Sage Lavine

00:08:28

Then you’re going to want to share what they got out of working with you. Okay. So you’re going to want to really position their shero’s journey from the challenge to the success. We always like to say from the low point of their story to the high point of their story. So an example of that would be, you know, 

“Melanie came to me struggling with X, Y, and Z. She felt like she had been dating the same person over and over again. She didn’t feel like people that she was meeting were really wanting a relationship and the same way that she was, she started feeling really sick and tired of the dating process.

 

We actually walked through my soulmate process together. She got really clear on what she wanted and what’s in the wa. We healed a lot of her trauma from the past around relationships and dating. And we really gave her a sorting process, so now she knows how to actually decide who gets to go out on dates with her and who doesn’t even make it to a date. So she’s not wasting her time. You guys just a couple months ago, she met the love of her life. She’s waking up every day, building a life with her incredible soulmate. She has love like she never even imagined having.”

 Right? So you guys can feel how I shared Melanie’s story from the low sort of the challenge that she was going through. And then we work together in XYZ process. By the way, please make a note. I gave that process a name, and now she has loved like, like she never imagined!

Sage Lavine

00:10:07

Okay, rockstar. If this content is resonating with you, and if you see yourself speaking, taking the stage, building an online speaking business in the future… I’d like to invite you to take my Speaker Superpower Quiz. It’ll just take 2 minutes. Whether you’re a visionary, a truth teller, a motivator, or a nurturer, I’ll send you a bunch of business growing hacks based on your speaker superpower, so you can take a deep dive into your superpower and really learn how to leverage it to rock the stage and find your clients online. You’ll get my favorite tips to use all 4 speaker superpowers to grow your speaking based business, grow your confidence as a leader and make an even bigger difference on the planet leading both virtual and live stages. Just take the free 2-minute quiz at www.womenrockingbusiness.com/quiz. That’s www.womenrockingbusiness.com/quiz. I cannot wait for you to discover your speaker superpower!

Sage Lavine

00:11:11

I have a client named Susan Peirce Thompson. She has an incredible company called Bright Line Eating. And Susan has weight loss solutions for the masses that are, to me, they’re the most cutting edge, but simple, holistic and most powerful weight loss tools. Now, when Susan came to me, she was a psychology professor. She had 3 small girls and she was under a ton of pressure to make money for the family and deliver on being like a very high powered psychology professor. Yet she had this body of work that was burning inside of her from the decades that she had spent on her journey of healing, food addiction.

Sage Lavine

00:11:52

You know, when Susan was younger, she was swinging back and forth between a size 4 and a 14. She went through many rounds of addiction and food addiction. Before she discovered the tools that she teaches in Bright Line Eating. She was going crazy as a psychology professor because she wasn’t able to get this knowledge into the hands of the people she knew needed it most. It left her feeling unsatisfied at work and unsatisfied and frustrated as a mom, because she felt like the biggest thing she wanted to bring to the world just wasn’t happening. I took Susan through a process of learning what we call the Leverage Your Business tools here at Women Rocking Business and through that set of tools and implementing them and growing her team, Susan began to reach 10,000 and then 20,000.

Sage Lavine

00:12:38

Over the course of a year, working together, she started reaching over 100,000 of her ideal clients. She stepped away from her professorship at the university, and she was finally getting to teach what she knew the world needed. She got so lit up so inspired by her career, her journey as a mom, improved and improved and improved these 3 girls that she’s raising are just incredible. And she was even able to tell her husband to go ahead and fire his boss and come to work for Bright Line Eating because it’s so big now that it’s supporting the whole family.

Sage Lavine

00:13:18

I get so excited and inspired when I think about Susan and the journey she’s been on and what she’s been able to do by putting the Women Rocking Business tools into place. 

So just to recap, I didn’t read Susan’s testimonial word for word, but I told a story about what she was struggling with, the process that we went through together, where she ended up. Most importantly, I told you how proud I am of her, how much I care about her. These are all components of a rockstar client testimonial. All of you can do this. Whether you do this with clients that have officially hired you, or whether you do this with clients who have worked with you and maybe they just haven’t paid you – doesn’t matter. This is about you just choosing a handful, 3 or 4 or 5 people who you’ve gotten to contribute to, and get their success stories on paper.

Sage Lavine

00:14:09

Even if they don’t make you a video, have them write down a testimonial for you. Then it’s your responsibility to nut that down into what you feel like you want to say. Ten don’t forget to get final permission from them. If they send you over two paragraphs and you want to use three sentences, shoot an email back to them and let them know, “Hey, this is great. Here’s the heart of what I’d like to use. Does this sound okay? I shortened it up a little bit. There’s situations where I’ll use the whole thing. There are situations where I’d like to use the shorter version. And are you comfortable with me sharing this on stage?” Okay. And if they’re not, you could also say, “Would it be okay if I share your story, but I changed your name that way you’re anonymous.” Right?

Sage Lavine

00:14:51

So what I’ve found is that when you position this as a success story, and you let your clients know people that you’ve worked with know that you want to be able to use their transformation, to support others, have a similar transformation. 98, 99% of the time, people are so excited and cool. 

So that being said, I hope this has motivated you to remember that this business is not all on your shoulders. It’s about you going out and changing lives, gathering those stories and including those stories in the offers that you’re making and remembering that this is so much bigger than you and that you can take these steps one day, one week, one month at a time, and enjoy the journey – because your clients are out there waiting for you. They’re not just waiting for someone like you. They’re actually waiting for you and you can use these client testimonials again and again and again. 

Until we meet again, have an amazing week, and I’ll see you next week! Mwah!

You’ve been listening to Women Rocking Business. I’m Sage Lavine. The next step is to join our private Facebook group. The Women Rocking Business Sisterhood and introduce yourself over there for the real and vulnerable conversation of what it really takes to launch and scale a business you love in that Sisterhood group. We have each other’s backs, each other’s sides and each other’s fronts. This is true collaboration. So go grab a seat in the Sisterhood because we can go so much further when we go together, you’ll find a link to the private Sisterhood group and do our upcoming events in the show notes.

And if you have a woman in your life, who’s growing a business or starting a business, please share this podcast with her so she can create her big dreams and take a moment to subscribe and rate and review the podcast, because at the end of the day, we go so much further when we go together. I’ll see you on the next show and don’t forget, your clients are waiting. They’re not just waiting for someone like you. They’re actually waiting for you.

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