Have you ever wanted to hear the behind-the-scenes, the real results, nothing that is hyped up, glitzy, and glamorous? In this episode of The Bold Money Revolution, I’m taking you inside our testimonial process because as we closed out 2022 we recorded more than a dozen case stories of women from The Bold Profit Academy after I noticed exactly this trend.
You wanted to know what it looks like to get results as a mom with kids, as a single person with no partner involved with maybe working a full-time job and doing it on the side. You wanted to start hearing from some of these typical results instead of the atypical results.
This year, once a month, we’re going to share these case stories. I’m going to continue to record them this year. I’m very excited to introduce these women to you. They are very real, they are getting some of the most amazing wins on a weekly basis.
I’m excited for you to get to know my work and how I am in relationship with the women in The Bold Profit Academy. I’m hopeful and hoping that hearing some of these women’s stories are inspiring to you. I also hope that they get you off the fence to join us in The Bold Profit Academy. I hope that they make a difference in your decision-making journey.
Today I’m taking you behind the scenes of the testimonial process, I’m calling this my testimonial transparency policy.
If you like many of the women in The Bold Profit Academy really struggle with social proof and testimonials, and I have struggled with that myself, this might resonate. I think it’s us feeling like who are we to demonstrate these results.
I know I always want to be clear that these are my clients’ results. I don’t want to put my hands on their results, but I did have a role in their having this outcome, and I always want to be clear about what that role is. Then there’s a part where so many women that I work with, pretty much all the women that I work with really struggle to even acknowledge that they have wins.
We have an amazing epic wins thread every Friday in The Bold Profit Academy. That just makes me smile ear to ear. It’s why I do the work that I do, to see the growth, to facilitate the growth that is happening in this container. Sometimes the win is just posting on the thread and not ghosting on acknowledging, claiming, and celebrating a win or being proud of yourself.
Even when we struggle with testimonials in our work for those reasons, demonstrating that your product or service works is a critical step in your sales process. Adding testimonials to a sales page can increase conversion by 34% according to OptinMonster and honestly, I’ve seen it to be even higher.
Done directly, these testimonials, these case studies, the social proof build trust with your customers and need to be a part of your sales strategy. The problem is that many buyers today feel business owners only show clickbait-y atypical results. The other problem is honestly, you do click on them. It’s something that as ethical marketers, we need to really be considering.
My clients and audience feel uncomfortable talking about their wins and their own accomplishments, and therefore, the accomplishments their clients get because it’s a byproduct of how amazing you all are. It’s a byproduct of your skill set. It’s a byproduct of your strengths.
This energy around your own progress, and around your clients’ progress makes it challenging to collect the required social proof and creates inner tension when you see other people using atypical testimonials. You immediately go into that mindset of, “Oh, I don’t want to be like them,” which is really pervasive and can hold you back. It’s held me back in the past for so long, “Oh, I don’t want to be like them.” It’s taken me a lot to move past that one.
Inside our testimonial process: How We Collect And Decide On What Testimonials To Use And Distribute Testimonials And Case Studies
One: Start with the end in mind.
We are committed to creating a program that is designed to achieve clear outcomes.
We’re not even at the testimonial phase. It’s how we’ve designed the program from the beginning. This is not guesswork. When you come through The Bold Profit Academy, I know what results you’re going to get.
Two: We document the progress that Bold Profit Academy members get on a weekly basis.
We have pages and pages of documentation of results and wins big and small. We document the progress for ourselves and for our clients. We want to be able to share with them and remind them of the journey they’ve taken with us, of the journey that they’ve been on for themself.
Three: We use that data to make things better.
Do you notice we haven’t even gotten to a testimonial or the case study yet? This is all happening internally. We use it to make things better, these are examples of our work as proof for us. It allows us to ask questions and get answers.
Four: We use it internally in the program first.
We share these case studies within the program to demonstrate what good looks like. We pick a variety of wins that most of them would never consider wins. We make sure that we encompass different stages of business that people might be in.
We show them what good looks like so they know, they have a metric, they have a barometer to see their own results.
Five: We have a clear process and procedure.
We have an SOP, a standard operating procedure in the business where we track and ask permission to share their outcome publicly. We give them options to have the identifiers removed. If they say no, we respect the fact that they say no. We have a clear process and procedure in which we’re engaging and getting permission to share these outcomes publicly.
Six: Be honest and willing to show all.
We have an SOP where my team puts out a request for a case study interview, and we do not cherry-pick these. We don’t only show atypical results. We interview everyone. If they’ve raised their hand, we interview them. It’s part of being transparent. I actually have great case studies of people who got a result, but it’s definitely not the result that they came in to get. It’s likely not a result that they even thought they would experience.
For example, I have a really great testimonial around somebody who went through the program and was like, “Hey, Tara, listen, thanks for this. It was really helpful and I’ve decided to go get a job.” That’s a win. That’s huge. That saves them so much time, effort, energy, and money.
Seven: Keep it real.
These women are not coached on how to show up for these interviews. We give them some questions ahead of time because they panic about being on the podcast and they get a little nervous, and we want them to feel comfortable. But I ask them to have a normal conversation with me.
They are showing up as themselves. They are being vulnerable, they are being authentic, and they are being real, and that is more important than anything else to me. Every time I do one of these podcast interviews, I really love reflecting just on how “them” they are on the interview.
Number eight: we prioritize long-form case studies.
Doing this allows our prospects can have a complete and often nuanced picture of reality. Listening to someone talk with me for 30 minutes gives you a good indication of who I really am and who I am in relationship to the women in The Bold Profit Academy or with people who work with me independently. I think you really need to hear that and understand that in order to know if I’m going to be a good fit to work with you.
Nine: Make the truth marketable.
This is where we give it a snazzy title. We give it a title that is going to be exciting and interesting for you to click on and that has an aspirational outcome. But all titles are true. That’s really how I want you to think about it. I want you to make the truth marketable.
Hear some of these case stories
- From Post Pandemic Burnout to Thriving with a Business That 10x’d in Less Than 60 days with Sarah Bronstein
- From a Three Figure Offer to a Six Figure Offer in Less Than a Year with Marie Parks
- How a Family Breadwinner Created Her Savings and Found Her Professional Development Home
- How Implementing Profit First Impacts Your Small Business
- How Cassie Christopher Re-Built her Self-Trust and Sales Strategy To Make Her Biggest Sale Yet
