How to find good testimonials

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What happens when you have zero customers but you still need testimonials?

Good question, not a lot of answers browsing through IH so here is my take.
You go and find some the good ol’ way!
⁉️…but how?

Why/what/which testimonials should go on your homepage?

You need to write find testimonials that address the value prop you’re trying to sell to your audience. You need to be picky with your testimonials, if they suck no one will read them and it will be a waste of homepage space and your own time effort.

  • The people whose testimonials end up on your homepage should be from the most credible people you can find.
  • Testimonials themselves (the content) must address the value proposition and its benefits, highlighting at least one of your selling points.
  • The author’s details must be known by the audience that you want to convert into customers.

Scenario A: Say you’re working on a new 🚀 spaceship fuel. You post the idea on Twitter with your landing page and what-not…..a bunch of people reply to your tweet with “neato, love this idea, we need better fuel to go to mars”….you take the tweets and put them on your homepage..

🧨 WRONG!

That is because Susan N. and Mike V. from unknowntech are hard to relate with, but everyone knows about NASA, SpaceX, and BlueOrigin.

It is not simple feat to gather a testimonial from a person such Elon Musk, but there are a lot of people out there that you can reach out to from credible and reputable companies in your same business vertical.

That’s right! I can’t possibly have Elon Musk as a testimonial, how do you find OTHER testimonials?

Here’s what I do:

  • Create a list of people who you think would be a perfect testimonial: make sure these people are in your industry (for the product you’re selling) and are reachable within the limits of your network.

  • Analyze the network and reverse engineer a path to them: using tools like LinkedIn you can see how many degrees of separation you are away from being able to reach out to the person whose testimonial you want.

  • Contact them (template at the bottom of this post) and establish a connection.

  • If they reply with a yes, schedule/send your invite for call/video/in-person (yeah right, but sometimes if they’re in the same city this works) and have a chat with them/show them screenshots/bring notes, have them play with the idea of your product: 🌟 MAKE IT SIMPLE FOR THEM TO EXPERIENCE YOUR PRODUCT - sell them the idea like you’re meaning REAL BUSINESS.
    This can be hard, I empathize with you all, I know…& there’s probably a great book about this somewhere but I think these are skills acquired by being prepared and practicing a lot).

Ultimately you want to show them you have thought of this a long time and you’re serious about improving the life of your audience with your solution.
Remember this formula:
Recognized value = [Your solution’s (time saving + cost) / Exisiting solution (time + cost) ] * Betterment Factor

  • Ask them for feedback on your idea, there are a million ways and questions you could ask, but make sure you specifically ask:
    – What made them trust you with some time/want to meet you
    – What part of your product/solution/idea they liked the most
    – Whether they’d like to be featured on your homepage

Then simply use your meeting notes to craft a testimonial, but don’t forget to send it to them first to get permission to use it. 9/10 they won’t say NO, especially if you write it for them based on what they said.

🌟 During our meeting you mentioned you liked X Y Z, so I wrote a testimonial to go on the homepage of my product. I featured you and what you liked: X Y Z, is that okay? Would you like me to link the quote to your linkedin and/or some other page?

  • If nothing happens, rinse and repeat with another person from the list you compiled in 1

  • 🌟 Offer them a back-link to any page/profile they want say thanks: even if you’re a small website, it still counts.

And that’s all you need to know about how you can also now get testimonials for your landing page in my experience, and some times being helpful gets rewarded!

Danger zone - Can you fake it till you make it?

A lot of people could simply decide to fake a testimonials, sure that works too - but if the author of the testimonial finds out you’ve lied about the testimonial, you might end up in a sea of trouble! Double think your choices!

Template Example shaped from the book the Mom Test:
Hey , I’m trying to make spacesuit that feels comfortable for people who will travel to Mars (Mission). I have an early prototype and would love to show it to you, and possibly have you try it on, I want to make sure that what we’re building is useful for travelers (Framing). I’ve never been on a space mission nor worked with astronauts directly so it is hard for me to get a read on what’s most important for them (Weakness). You have worked on multiple space missions and spoke to a lot of astronauts and could really help me get the insights needed (Pedestal). Do you have time in the next couple weeks to meet up for a chat and test the suit? (Ask)