Sales people often make the big mistake of trying to build a successful career on their own, without any help from their ‘Sphere of influence’.

Well a big part of that Sphere of influence is their current and previous clients. These people, if you have done your job well should be very happy with your service and the results you have achieved for them.

It’s just not practical to have everyone phone up your past clients for a reference so the answer is to ensure that you obtain a written testimonial that can be used many times, over and over again, during your sales career

The best time to ask for a testimonial is in the ‘post deal’ 24 hours of euphoria’. A good technique is to simply ask your clients if they were happy with your service. The answer will undoubtedly be yes!

At this point the trick is to ask the vendors straight up if they would be happy to give you a written testimonial to use at your next client appointment?

Of course they will be willing, but a big mistake would be to leave the request at that, in the hope that at some time in the future the testimonial will arrive in the mail.

No, the best solution is to let your clients know when your next appointment is, and that you would love to collect the testimonial from them prior to that, so you can use it to get this new listing on-board.

Perhaps it is this Thursday at 5pm. This clearly gives the vendor a time frame to work within and they will feel obligated to perform to this measure.
If they need help with writing one, you may like to leave your current testimonial book with them to give them some ideas of the style of writing that is required. Another good idea is to have the testimonial ‘undated’ so that it remains timeless.

You may collect a large amount of testimonials this year, but they don’t look to good a few years later. It says you were good back then, but are you still good now?

Getting the content right is important too. You may also like to prompt the vendors to mention how well you negotiated the price for them, or how the marketing campaign was such a success? How creative your marketing was or how reliable and efficient and you were.

If you employ assistants it may be best not to have their individual names included in case they later leave, making this letter out of date too? Perhaps just mention ‘your team’

Create a series of books with copies of all your testimonials, (keeping the original safe and sound) have at least 10 ready to go, so these can be sent out with your presentation.

You will need to have a few in the system, as not all of them will come back, especially if sent off to out of town clients.

What is a written testimonial worth? I estimate that each letter is worth at least $20,000, probably double that. Quite simply it can mean the difference between getting the business and missing out all together.

Using a testimonial book is a powerful selling strategy, especially if you know you are up against a competitor who the client is yet to meet; The script here is to remind the client to ensure they ask the other sales person to show them their testimonial book. And if they can’t produce one, then to ask them why?

Robert Yates once said
“It is amazing what can be accomplished when nobody cares about who gets the credit.”