I want to talk about demonstrating social proof via testimonials.
So, when you’re looking at asking someone for a testimonial, I want you to consider the following facts about testimonials. What someone else says about your products or service is at least a thousand times more powerful than what you say about it.
The ironic thing is that most chiropractors are terrible at asking for testimonials. We feel weird about it.
If someone fills out a testimonial form for your business, their lifetime value goes up.
I want to tell you this one statistic that might change your mind. It doesn’t matter what business you’re in, this simple statistic shows that if someone fills out a testimonial form, their lifetime value goes up. Just the act of writing the testimonial has a correlation with them staying longer.
We don’t know exactly why, but my guess is that if someone writes a positive testimonial… which 99% of people will if they agree to write a testimonial in the first place… then it’s a lot harder for them to justify the decision of not coming to you anymore.
If they agree to go along the lines and say things like, “They changed my life. I had life-changing results. I can sleep better, I can have a better relationship with my family. 20 years of this and nobody was able to help me”, now they have subconsciously committed way, way, way more to staying under your care or with your service.
I know this sounds obvious but here are some of the subtle but very important things that people frequently miss when considering a testimonial.
So, this is just Business 101. I didn’t learn this from chiropractic. But the fact of the matter is that just getting someone to fill out a testimonial form increases your retention with them.
Now, the next thing I want you to consider. This is the basic formula for a testimonial. It’s Before, After, After (now), “Before I can see Dr Neil, I was like this. After I saw Dr Neil, that was gone. now, I play with my kids all the time and it’s amazing.”
The reality of it is, most of the time when you’re asking for testimonials, you’re simply just saying to someone, “Please tell us about your positive experience at the clinic.”
So, if you had the opportunity to ask questions in a video testimonial, this is what you want to be thinking: Before, After, After,
Testimonial Secrets
- Before, After After (now)
- Bringing up ‘scepticism’ within the testimonial
- Many people are afraid that
- Demonstrating length of time in practice
- Talking about a friend referring them
- Unexpected benefits
- Talking about the benefits of coming long term
“Before I came to Ryan, my business was in a lot of trouble. After I did the New Patient Avalanche program, I generated, just one lifetime value, more than $30,000 of business in six weeks. Now, I’m a lot stronger business person and I know how to market.”
The next thing about it is if you’ve got the opportunity to ask someone questions, it’s actually really cool if they bring up some type of scepticism in the testimonial. Although a lot of people are scared to have that in the testimonial.
It doesn’t always happen, but I love it when they say, “I was very sceptical about coming to see a chiropractor because I was really nervous that it was going to hurt. But when I came…”
Because here’s the thing, whatever they say in that sceptical part, most of your clients are thinking anyway. So, don’t be afraid to bring that up. It’s a way to handle that objection through a cleverly placed testimonial.
Say, “Tell us a little more about why you didn’t see a chiropractor for so long?” And they’ll say. “I was scared, I was nervous, I thought I was going to have to come forever, blah blah blah.”
Also, take every opportunity you can to demonstrate the length of time in testimonials. I will always try and bring this up if I can.
One of the things you want to be bringing up is you want them to be saying, “I’ve been seeing Dr. Max for four years and before I came…”
You want them saying those things because subconsciously what someone’s thinking is, “Gee wiz, they’ve been coming for four years. This must be good.”
However, I don’t normally like having a number of appointments in there. I’ve worked in clinics before when we used to have the 20 clubs, the 30 clubs,the 40 clubs, and the 100 clubs, based on the number of adjustments. It just doesn’t really feel that great for me, only because it’s too much for a client to handle before they understand the context of what we do. It’s too soon.
You need something called “gradience”. How do you cook a frog? You can cook on a fire slowly. If you throw a frog in hot water, it jumps out. If you put a frog in cold water and you boil after slowly, it stays.
Not that I’ve tried that of course but the theory is that to cook a frog, you put them in cold water and then you boil the water slowly.
That’s what you want to be thinking about with your marketing. So, when someone comes into your clinic, you might not want to say, “I’m going to see you 100 times over your lifetime.” You may well see them that many times, but if you told them that from day one, it’s just too much for them to handle.
So, demonstrating a length of time in a testimonial is fantastically powerful.
Let’s demonstrate a referral. “Who were you referred by?” “I was referred by so and so.” “What did so and so say to make you want to come in?”
These are all things that you can steer the conversation that way.
Im just giving you this background information because, if you do get the opportunity, it will come up to you subconsciously. Also, if you see this stuff in testimonials, you’ll be able to able to choose the really good ones.
Someonetims, you’ve got a lot of testimonials and you’ve got to choose a few but now that you know this information, you’ll be like, “Oh my word, that one, she actually brought scepticism up there. She told us how long she’s been coming. She told us she was referred by a friend.”
Another point is unexpected benefits that they had, they never expected to have.
Another tone is the benefits of coming long term. The key is that it needs to be conversational and real and subtle. I hope that helps with testimonials.
Probably the number one point that you really need to understand is just the concept that by simply filling out a testimonial form, people will stay with your business longer.
The best time to ask for a testimonial is the point of highest pleasure. When they walk out of the room and they say to the front desk, “Oh my word, Dr. Lee is a miracle worker. I feel so good,” that is when your front desk needs to go, “Would you mind just sharing that with us on this form?” So, you’ve got to train your front desk.
