A Freelancer’s Guide to Getting Client Testimonials | Rebecca Livermore | Skillshare
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A Freelancer’s Guide to Getting Client Testimonials

teacher avatar Rebecca Livermore, Microsoft Office for Creatives

Watch this class and thousands more

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Intro

      1:00

    • 2.

      The #1 Thing

      1:48

    • 3.

      Be Testimony Worthy

      0:34

    • 4.

      Ask for the Testimonial

      1:12

    • 5.

      Make it Easy

      2:09

    • 6.

      Watch this Demo

      5:17

    • 7.

      Verify Testimonials

      1:30

    • 8.

      Your Project

      1:37

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About This Class

Hello and welcome to A Freelancer’s Guide to Getting Client Testimonials.

My name’s Rebecca Livermore, and I’ve been a full-time writer for more than 8 years.

Other than when I first started my business, I have NEVER had to try to find clients. As a freelancer, that’s a dream come true.

A lot of freelancers have asked how I’ve done that, and in this class, I share one of my secret weapons – client testimonials.

Client testimonials provide an opportunity for others to brag about your business. The bottom line is, why try to convince people about how amazing you are when you can let others do it for you?

In this short class, I share with you a simple technique that I’ve used to get testimonials that has worked for me 100% of the time.

If you’re a freelancer and you want to increase the odds that you’ll be hired over your competitors, this class is for you.

So, let’s go ahead and dive in.

Meet Your Teacher

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Rebecca Livermore

Microsoft Office for Creatives

Teacher

Hi, I'm Rebecca Livermore, also known as The Office Creative. I'm a bestselling author, blogger, and the owner of Professional Content Creation. I've been a freelance writer since 1993 and have served as a content manager for top bloggers such as Michael Hyatt, Amy Porterfield, and Marcus Sheridan.

I've always loved PowerPoint, but it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I began to discover the many ways to use PowerPoint to create content. I use it for everything from blog and social media images, lead magnets, low content books, printables, videos, digital planners, and more. The more I use PowerPoint, the more amazed I am by the many types of content you can create with this one powerful tool.

I'm constantly learning new ways to use PowerPoint and other Micro... See full profile

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Transcripts

1. Intro: Hello and welcome to a freelancers guide to getting client testimonials. My name's Rebecca Livermore, and I've been a full time writer for more than eight years. Other than when I first started my business, I have never had to try to find clients as a freelancer. That's a dream come true. A lot of freelancers have asked how I've done that, and in this class I share one of my secret weapons client testimonials. Client testimonials provide an opportunity for others to brag about your business. The bottom line is, why try to convince people about how amazing you are when you can let others do it for you ? In this short class, I share with you a simple technique that I've used to get testimonials that has worked for me 100% of the time. If you're a freelancer and you want to increase the odds that you'll be hired over your competitors, this class is for you. So let's go ahead and dive in 2. The #1 Thing: If you only do one thing to grow your freelance business, I recommend gathering testimonials from every client, even if the job you did for them was small recommendations from others, be it A personal recommendation from a client or testimonials on a website can go a long way toward gaining the trust of potential clients and customers. Here's just one personal example of how this worked for me. After finishing a project for a brand new client, I asked, How did you hear about me? She responded. I noticed you from a guest post you did on Amy Porterfield site. I liked that you were thorough and professional. When I went to your site, the Pat Flynn testimonial put me over the top. I'm a big fan of Hiss, and I know that he has his stuff together and wouldn't recommend just anyone. Notice how the first thing that got her attention was that my blawg post was thorough and professional. Now this underscores the importance of good quality content, but the thing that put her over the top was the testimonial. This is an excellent example of how content such as blood post combined with testimonials, congealed trust and lead to sales as a side note. Before I continue, I want to say that I've been fortunate to have some big name clients recognized in the world of online business. This is no doubt helped me, as people are sometimes impressed if they recognize the name of someone on my testimonials page. But never, ever feel that testimonials from quote unquote everyday people don't count. Now let's get into how to get testimonials from your clients. The good news is, it's not as hard as you might think. Here are a few things that I found that helped tremendously. 3. Be Testimony Worthy: Let's face it, if your services or products stink, people aren't going to want to provide testimonials for you. So the first step in gaining testimonials is to always at the bare minimum. Do what you promised or even better, go the extra mile and exceed the expectations of your clients. If you find that you're embarrassed to ask for a testimonial, it could be that you're not confident in the quality of what your business provides. And if that's the case, that's the first thing you need to fix. This brings me to my next point. 4. Ask for the Testimonial: while some people may voluntarily provide a testimonial without prompting most will not even if they're delighted with your products or services. However, I have found that in most cases, even very busy people will provide a testimonial when asked. Now that's dependent, of course, on if they're happy with the work you did for them or the products they purchase from you. Now here's a pro tip for you. Be sure to ask for a testimonial right away. As soon as you complete a project, people feel the most positive about you right after you finish work for them, particularly if you've hit the ball out of the park. On the project, I found it helpful to sent a thank you email toe. Let a client know that I appreciated the opportunity to do the work for them and then let them know that it would mean a lot to me if they would provide a testimonial. Now, note that the testimonials that people provide can be video if they like doing that, or it can be written. And in the next video, I'm going to get into how to make it easy for the person to write the testimonial 5. Make it Easy: Now let's get into why and how to make it easy for the person to write the testimonial. So I believe that there are two main reasons why people may not provide a testimonial for you, even if they're happy with you. First, a lot of people get stuck, and they just don't know what to say. This is especially true if they haven't written testimonials before or if they don't like to write. Second, people are busy and may have good intentions, but never quite get around to writing the testimonial for you. So I want to share with you a solution that I found that has up to this point worked 100% of the time for me. I provide a short series of questions for the person to answer, and then I offer to write the testimonial for them once they give me the answers. This is work great for me because people often respond immediately after receiving the email for me because it's so easy and takes him on Lee a few minutes. The questions that I ask are list three things you liked about the product or service. Would you recommend this product or service to others, and if so, why? And is there anything else you'd like to add? Now, this last question is extremely important, and I use it every time I have someone to a survey or anything like that, because they often come up with things that I never would have even dreamed toe ask. So be sure to ask, Is there anything else you'd like to add now? I also asked for a photo and what website they'd like me to link two of theirs. I then right the testimonial based on their responses to the questions. This is a natural process for those of us that are writers. But even if you don't consider yourself a writer, you probably have decent enough writing skills that, based on the answers to what the people gave you, you can write a good testimonial. I events in the testimonial to them for their approval before posting it on my site. 6. Watch this Demo: Okay, Now I'm going to give you an example of a testimonial that I wrote based on the answers of those three questions that I told you to ask people. This is a testimonial by Pat Flynn. Now, Pat, if you don't know him. He's an extremely successful blogger and podcaster and he puts out all kinds of content. Very, very busy guy. And he was fantastic toe work for, But I hadn't gotten a testimonial from him. And so I asked him for one and he said, Yeah, I'd love to do that. I'm really busy right now, but I'll get to it when I can. And so I said, Well, how about if I provide you some questions to answer, you answer them and that I write it for you? You know, I pitched this this easy way of doing it. He's like he had That would be great. So this is a testimonial that resulted from that. I'm going to read the whole thing, and then we're gonna break it down bit by bit. Rebecca is super friendly and responsive and always willing to make sure I get what I'm looking for. She takes great care to make sure everything she does is virtually error free. Rebecca is an amazing communicator, honest, professional and always a delight to talk to both in person and over email. She always looks ahead for her clients and goes above and beyond to make things even better without the other person having to ask for it. I would definitely recommend Rebecca and her team at professional content creation. Okay, so great testimonial, right? I mean, he hits all the things that really matter. And again, at the beginning of this class I shared with you how one person hired me based on this specific testimonial. All right, so now let's look at it bit by bit. The first thing that I asked people is list three things you like about the product or service. Okay, so now let's look at the testimonial and you'll see those three things. Number one Rebecca, Super friendly and responsive Number two. She's always willing to make sure I get what I'm looking for. And number three. She takes great care to make sure everything she does is virtually error free. So do you see? I asked for three things and he just had him like in bullet points. And then I took them and formed them into this paragraph. So I asked for three things. I got three and then I put them together in a way that kind of float and made sense. OK, so now let's look at the second thing that I say to ask, Would you recommend this product or service to others? Kanell. We're going to skip down to the bottom paragraph because that's where that is. I would definitely recommend Rebecca and her team at professional content creation. So even though that was the second thing I asked, I concluded with that cause that's a good way to end. Now you'll see in a minute why it was the second thing asked. But why? I ended up putting at the end. Now, I mentioned to you that one of the most important things to ask is, is there anything else you'd like to add? And I told you, you never know what you're gonna come up with, what people will come up with when you ask this question and they will say things that you maybe never even thought of. Okay, so here's Here's how that happened in this particular testimonial. All right, so the middle paragraph there, Rebecca is an amazing communicator, honest, professional and always a delight to talk to both in person and over email. She always looks ahead for her clients and goes above and beyond to make things even better without the other person having to ask for it. So you'll see that in addition to the three things that were listed in the first paragraph , there's that I'm an amazing communicator. I'm honest, professional. I'm a delight to talk to both in person and over email. Another thing I look ahead for my clients. Next, I go above and beyond and that the person doesn't have to ask me to go above and beyond. So all of that came from that final question, as Is there anything else that you would like to add? So I hope that that demonstrates to you why it's really important to ask that question and then just let the person share whatever they want, and then you can take it in, form it into a paragraph that makes sense. After I got this, these responses from Pat, I wrote them, put them together, and I ran it by him. I think he might have made a tweak or two to it. But for the most part, it was what I wrote based on what he said in his answers. This took him on Lee a couple of minutes, probably at the most to get this testimonial done. It made it easy, and because of that, he did it. And I got this fantastic testimonial by someone who is well known in my specific niche, and it has resulted in a lot of work for me. So I definitely recommend making it easy for the person to get their testimonial written in the next video, we'll get into how to verify that the testimonials on your site are legitimate. 7. Verify Testimonials: Okay, now let's deal with the elephant in the room. There could be skepticism regarding testimonials on a website. After all, a business owner could write anything and put it on a website. But there are a few ways to give people peace of mind regarding the validity of the testimonials. Now here are a few ideas to get you started. First, you want to include both the first and last name. Now you may not be able to do this if the service or product you provide would embarrass people in some way. But for most businesses, this shouldn't be a problem. Next, include a photo of the person. If you're unable to obtain a picture of the person they're local, will do. But unless the company is well known, it's not his ideal. Since Photos Fillmore, personal and authentic and number three include a link to their website. Also, since it's now easy for people to check your business out online whenever possible, have the same testimonials posted places that you don't control, such as lengthen now? I didn't do this at the beginning, but after writing the testimonial, I now sent a request for recommendation via linked in. Since the testimonial has already been written, it takes just a few minutes for the person to help me out in this way, and assuming that they're on linked in, most of them are happy to do so. 8. Your Project: thank you so much for taking this class as your project for this class. You'll first of all, make a list of past clients you'd like to ask for testimonials. Focus on your most recent clients that, you know we're very happy with your work. Next, contact them and ask for the testimonial. If you since there is any resistance or if you know they're super busy. And if you're comfortable writing a testimonial for them based on their input offer to do so to form the basis of the testimonial, ask them the following three questions Number one. Name three things you like about the product or service number two. Would you recommend me to others? And if so, why and number three. Is there anything else you'd like to add? If you write the testimonial for them as a courtesy, send it to them for their approval. Once you receive the approval, or if they've written a testimonial themselves, added to the testimonials page on your website and feel free to post a link to your testimonials page or to your linked in profile where you have recommendations. Feel free to post that in the project area of this glass. If you have any questions, post them in the community section of this class and I will be happy to answer them for you . Also, if you enjoyed this class, I'd really appreciate it if you'd leave me a review. I wish you all the best in all of your business endeavors.