Testimonials are great for anyone in business looking to build trust and confidence with new customers!

It is also a way to demonstrate your success at helping existing customers solve their problems. If your in business, you know that every day you have to self-promote your product or business to keep it growing. Testimonials are a great way to have previously satisfied customers promote your business or service for you! No one wants to hear you say how great you are, but people love to see and read testimonials about what you have done for other people! Having a another party say how good your product or service has been is a great third party endorsement and much more believable than all your paid advertising combined.

When you get testimonials use then in your marketing materials, use them on your web site, use them in advertisements, use them in your media kits, put them on business cards and make sure to use them in your sales presentations.

Great testimonials are made up of four parts!

• First, ask permission! The key word here is "ask". You have to start somewhere and asking permission from past customers to use their words in your marketing materials is the first step in finding great testimonials.

• Make it easy for your busy customers to write your feedback. By providing some kind of template for customers to create feedback for you, you can direct what you want them to say. This template can be in the form of a survey or evaluation form. You can even offer to write it for them or hire a professional copywriter to do it for you!

• Get it Approved! Whatever endorsement or testimonials you choose to publish make sure your customer, who is providing the testimonial, is given the opportunity to approve it. Also besure to include the customers name and the name of their business to help increase the impact of the testimonial.

• Follow up! Last, follow up with the customer in three to four months to see what impact your product or service had on that specific customer and publish the positive results along with their testimonial.

Glowing testimonials from satisfied customers are a strong endorsement of you business, products or service and make it that much easier for new customer to have the confidence to do business with you. Plus it is also a great moral booster for you personally when your business is wearing you down!