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So you want to catch the attention of the leading experts in your industry, right? And you want people to visit your website without having to pay for the traffic.

One way to do that is by giving a great testimonial for the products, services, and mentoring most connected to your field.

During the IM Success Cruise, my own mentor, Paulie Sabol, held a special training on how to give a great testimonial. Of course, being the geek that I am, I had my laptop and Freemind software running so I could take good notes.

I’ll show you the map in just a moment, but first, let me explain why sharing your testimonial helps you just as much (or more) than the product owner.

A testimonial is a review (generally very positive – but genuinely so) of a product or service that is displayed on the sales pages, in emails, and even inside of the product being sold. These are a big help to the customer who wants to hear from real people how the product/service helped them out. It helps them make up their mind to buy or not.

Of course, some people swear that testimonials have no effect on their buying habits whatsoever. And it is true that a very small minority of people showcase completely fabricated testimonials.

But the social proof element of persuasion is powerful for 98% of the population, and authentic testimonials are the norm.

Big Benefit #1: Exposure

The first, and perhaps biggest benefit you have to providing a great testimonial is its inclusion in somebody else’s marketing materials online.  Imagine your name, website (usually unlinked), picture, and comments being displayed on the sales letter for a top product in your field.

As that sales letter gets thousands of visitors each week, you’re getting exposure that you do not have to pay for.

And as you increase the number of testimonials you provide, the target marketplace will continue to see you popping up. This is a critical element of branding, and it can have powerful results for you.

Big Benefit #2: Gain Attention

A second big benefit is you pop up on the radar of the product owner more quickly. For the leaders in your industry, it may be difficult to catch their attention with so many others clamoring for awareness. Provide a great testimonial, and you’ll get noticed by the product owner, even if they don’t include it right away on their website. This can be the start of a longer term relationship that can lead to affiliate teleseminars, reciprocal promotion, or becoming a more extensive case study for that product for even more exposure.

Big Benefit #3: Affiliate Revenue

An often overlooked idea of giving testimonials is the effect your on-page endorsement will have for your audience. If you recommend a product to your own list of subscribers and customers, and your testimonial is good, you’ll typically have better results.

This means more affiliate revenue for you, and an even stronger relationship with your audience who continue to trust you more and more for recommending quality, results-based products & services.

3 Ways To Give A Great Testimonial

Now not all testimonials are created equally, and product owners are actually quite selective usually when it comes to which to actually include in their marketing materials. Savvy business owners know that a poorly made testimonial can actually hurt sales, even if it’s a positive review.

So let me share with you the mindmap I made while listening to Paulie Sabol teach how to make a great testimonial.

Paulie said there are basically 3 types of testimonials that get noticed.

1. Before-After-After-That
2. Highly Dimensionalized
3. Objection Overcomer

The first is a “Before-After-After-That” testimonial. Basically, you briefly tell your background before using the product. Typically, you’ll identify a major pain, confusion, or doubt you had about succeeding or reaching a goal. Then you explain what happened immediately after you experienced the product in question. This is usually conjecture of what you’ll now be able to do with this information.

The After That portion is the kicker that most people don’t do. This is where you explain what you accomplished after applying the training over a period of time (usually a month or more).

The second type of great testimonial is a highly dimensionalized result – meaning there is clearly a major change that occurred. And the change happened quickly and measurably.

This could be a monetary, time, or body transformation that is easy to describe or demonstrate.

The third type of testimonial Paulie calls an “Objection Overcomer”. This is where you give a testimonial that directly answers an objection a person would typically have about buying a product.

Common objections are not having enough time, not having enough money, it won’t work for me, etc.

So for example, let’s say you wanted to do a testimonial for Discover Social Networking, and you know that a common objection about Twitter and Facebook is people think they are a big waste of time.

You might create your great testimonial about how before learning the lessons in DSN, you thought social networks were a big waste of time. But once you were taught the strategic methods inside the course, you now know how to spend just 10-15 minutes a day to build stronger relationships with your growing “tribe” of followers who are now your raving fans and ambassadors.

Great Testimonial Example

Here’s an example of an objection-overcoming testimonial from someone who answers the objection “I already know enough about this…”

“Thank you for another high quality class. I thought that I knew a lot about Twitter – but my clients and I were not getting the results that we wanted. By applying what I learned during the class, I already have 50 new, high quality followers on Twitter and I am having a lot more fun building relationships.”

Meredith Eisenberg
TameTheInternetMonster.com

So consider all the reasons you “almost” didn’t buy a product. And create a testimonial for that specific objection, and how you now know what the truth is about that objection.

As you can see, giving great testimonials is not just about saying how much you loved a product. It has to be written in such a way to persuade a reader to buy because they recognize something about you in them.

And is you do this, you’ll find those readers won’t just gravitate towards the products, they’ll gravitate towards you as well.

If you’d like to test out your new knowledge of giving a great testimonial, and perhaps get more exposure for your name, website, etc., review your favorite training course of mine – BobTheTeacher.com/review. You can do any of the three types above, or even submit multiple versions if you like and I’ll pick the one that I like best. I suggest that you use the audio and picture upload options as well, since I’m using Audio Generator for even more influential testimonials.

As you get results from other products of mine or anyone else, be sure to send in a testimonial each and every time for more exposure and influence.

Bob Jenkins

p.s. Thanks again to Paulie Sabol for this great lesson during the IM Success Cruise. I recommend you get mentoring from Paulie and Donna Fox like I do at IMMoneyCoach.com – it’s just $1 to check them out.