Last week, I helped The Great And Powerful Abbey Woodcock and The Indomitable Chris Orzechowski get a testimonial from their awesome live event on how to get clients.
So I wanted to share a bit on how we did it. Plus I included other tricks on how to get awesome client testimonials from live events.
And because I’m a copywriter I put it in 3 simple steps. Because by law 85% of direct response copy must include a specific number of simple steps.
Step 1: How to get people to agree to give you testimonials
Couple things you can do here.
If you’ve got dozens or hundreds of people at your event over multiple days, tell them from the stage that you would love for them to give a testimonial sharing what they think of the event. Then have a sign up sheet and/or a designated spot they can do to do them on breaks.
Another trick, have people on your team mingle with participants on breaks. Have your team members ask about their experience and nudge them to sign up for or go do a testimonial.
Finally, have a testimonial happy hour or hang out. I mean, you’ll just call it a happy hour or party or whatever. But you can also set up a booth and have your team wrangle people up to sing your praises in front of the camera.
Step 2: Questions to ask
Here’s my go-to list of questions to ask:
- Name, where you live, brief background description that’s relevant (example: If your event is business based have them say what kind of business they’re in and how long they’ve been doing it.)
- Of all the events you could have gone to, what specifically made you decide to come to this specific event?
- What has been your favorite part of the event?
- What has been your single biggest takeaway?
- Would you recommend it to a friend? If so why?
- What’s possible for you now going that wasn’t before?
- Anything else you want to add?
Question 1 provides context. It’s like when you watch Billions. The first shot of the screen is the city of New York. So you understand “Oh, that’s where we are.” Literally, every movie and TV show does the same thing. That’s what you’re doing here. Just a simple way for the viewer to understand who this person is and see if they can relate. Also, it helps the person your interviewing relax because it’s an easy question.
The opening shot of Billions
Question two is important because it shows people why you are trustworthy. It’s can also help you dive into the struggle your audience has.
Questions 3 and 4 help you get concrete highlights — things the viewer of the testimonial can get excited about.
Question 5 is sneaky. So many testimonials just say “What would you say to someone thinking about joining?” You’ll end up with an answer like”Come! It’s great!” Which is the same as every testimonial for every live event ever. It’s boring.
The key part of that question is when you ask WHY they would recommend it. That’s when you start to uncover what is unique and valuable about your event.
Question 6 helps people see how their life can change. The problem with live event testimonials is you don’t have real results yet. But people sharing how they view their future differently or how their feelings have changed can be powerful.
Finally, question 7 lets you lap up any extra excitement your customer has that you weren’t able to get with the other questions.
Step 3: Follow up and bonus questions
As I go through that sequence, I’ll sometimes ask follow up questions. I’ll ask for specific examples or just say “can you tell me more about that?” if something sounds interesting or if I want to put some meat on the bone. For example, people at this last event talked about how they now had a plan for getting clients. So for some, I asked what that plan looked like. Then I got answers praising Abbey’s techniques for getting clients at live events, or Chris’ suggestion on sticking to markets you care about. This helps turn vague concepts into clear, concrete ideas. Plus it gives you testimonials to back up specific promises and parts of the program.
I’ll also imagine I’m the customer avatar and then ask follow-up questions I think they would ask. Basically, things that make you perk up, get exciting, or get curious are good guides that you should ask for more.
Now, you may start to hear the same answers over and over. So you may want to switch the questions up. Something like “What was your biggest fear/reservation about coming?” or “What surprised you most about the event?” can be nice to give you fresh answers.
Finally, think if there are any other specific things you want customers to talk about. If you have a specific selling point or Unique Selling Proposition you want to highlight, ask questions that will lead to answers around that. You may also want to target specific objections you know a large part of your audience has.
That’s the advanced strategies. I don’t want to overwhelm ya. Those 7 questions above and a couple of follow-ups here and there will make it pretty easy to end up with solid quotes.