
One of the main reasons why event organizer won’t hire a speaker is because they are not confident the speaker will be able to deliver on their promises. They are afraid of making the wrong decision.
Testimonials build credibility.
When organizers see a speaker, trainer, moderator or webinar host is endorsed by another event organizer, it reduces the risk in their decision-making and that fear is minimized. Event organizers want to know that organizers who have hired you to speak felt they made a great decision by choosing you. Testimonials remove doubts, concerns and objections.
Reducing the risk in the eyes of the event organizer means you’ll get more bookings. Good testimonials can increase conversions by up to 34% on your profile and website.
Simply put: testimonials can give organizer confidence that the people who worked with you previously were happy with the results, and you are reputable speaker.
Hint: it’s not an insincere, fluffy, exaggerated: “John Doe is super amazing. Best speaker in the world,” over-the-top statement.
It needs to be much more direct and helpful.
Great testimonials:
Badly written testimonials are common because as speakers, we don’t always know how to ask for them, and organizers don’t always know exactly what we are looking for.
The practical tips below will outline how to master the art of asking, getting and sharing professional testimonials that will help build your speaker business.
Let’s start by looking at who you should be getting a testimonial from.
As an event organizer, you’re more likely to relate to another event organizer, (e.g. ““John Doe, Event Planner for BigIdeas NYC”) than someone who seems anonymous (e.g. “John Doe, New York City, NY”).
It’s not as simple as asking “could you please provide a testimonial?” (although that might be a good place to start.)
If you don’t ask for specific details, don’t be surprised if you get back a generic answer; ones that will neither build your business nor get more organisers to click the “contact” button.
Here are five questions to ask the organizer to answer in their testimonial:
Let’s take a look at the options:
If this seems too makeshift or you doubt the event organiser will be very good at improvisation, then ask them to make the video with you at your next meeting and send them the questions in advance.
Want to take your testimonials to the next level? Transcribe the video and use certain excerpts as written testimonials.
Hi, Thank you again for the opportunity to present at your event. I know it helps potential event organizers feel comfortable hiring me when they see that others have had positive experiences working with me. Would you be able to answer a few questions about what it was like working with me?
If the organiser sends you a testimonial that is too big (which is a great problem to have, however, you need the testimonial to be concise and too the point) and you need to edit it, alway make sure you send them the edited version and make sure the content and meaning doesn’t stray from what they provided.
Sharing Testimonials on SpeakerHub:
After you’ve got a collection of great testimonials, it is time to put them to work.
Here are some of the places to use testimonials to promote your talks:
Share it on your SpeakerHub profile page
Add in the testimonials by going to “Profile”>”Edit”>”Testimonials”, and include the email address of the person who originally gave you the testimonial.
Testimonial gallery:
Adding testimonials to your official speaker website:
There are a dozen creative ways you can add testimonials to your speaker website. Below are three great articles to help you figure out the best ways to use testimonials on your site:
There’s nothing smarmy or obtuse about asking people what they thought of your talk and using positive, result-based testimonials on your website and speaker profile will build trust and credibility with potential event organizers.
Have you just started trying to build your testimonial collection? What difficulties do you have? We’d love to address them in a future article. Contact us here.
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