Sales vs Testimonials
Sales is the lifeblood of business. Ask any entrepreneur. We all depend on sales to grow our business, pay suppliers and employees as well as make profits. Daily sales is great. But there’s something greater than sales.
Most businesses focus and stop at sales, and forget about testimonials. Top brands focus on customer testimonials and here’s why:
– When a business focuses on testimonials, it’s bound to achieve brand recognition and customers loyalty
– Sales saves the day but testimonials save a business
– A testimonial introduces your business to people who you may never meet and takes you to places you can never go by yourself (Jim Rohn)
I’m a living testimony to this. Most of my business comes from customers who are satisfied with the products and services that I offer. No poorly satisfied customer ever comes back or shows brand loyalty. Testimonials are very important to a business survival.
Making a sale is easy but the work after the sale is the hardest and most rewarding. A customer can buy a product. But does he use the product? Does it satisfies her needs? Does she buy the product over and over again?
Most businesses stop at the sale. We, as the new generation of successful entrepreneurs, must change our business approach to focus on getting great testimonials from customers. This will help us get more sales and more customers. Isn’t that what we truly want?
Here’s how you can setup your business for success and great customer testimonials:
1. The habit of doing more
2. Sympathy and understanding
3. After sale/customer appreciation strategy
The habit of doing more than you’re paid for
A lot people think when you do more than you’re paid for then the customer is reaping you off. That’s very poor thinking. According to Emerson’s law of compensation, the true reward for work, is the ability to do more.
The more you work, the better you get. The rewards for work isn’t just money. Money you can always lose and gain. But the skills you develop, the discipline you build and the knowledge you gain by doing more than you’re paid for, sets you up for greater success.
We also develop new skills and abilities when we truly serve our customers. This alone gives any business a competitive advantage over others in its market. When we do more, we learn more about the customer true needs.
This knowledge further helps us offer a better product/service and receive great testimonials leading to greater sales and growth. Remember it’s the company with the best customer understanding that performs in the market. What better way to do that than to focus on your customer testimonials?
Doing more than you’re paid for is an investment into your own future. Jim Rohn describes it as “seeds that you plant to reap a harvest.” The harvest will surely come because you’re working harder on developing a unique personality for your brand that naturally attracts people.
Sympathy and Understanding
Without these, customer testimonials may be difficult. You need to understand that people are different and bring yourself to understand them. Not many companies do this yet, so the advantages is yours if you put yourself in the customer’s shoes.
Sympathy is what makes brands people friendly eg accepting returned goods, flexible payment options, offering value added services, etc. Entrepreneurs need to understand their customer’s story and help them to success with patience and understanding. Guess what such customer testimonials would be?
Develop a customer after sale/customer appreciation strategy
Make it important to follow up with your customers after the sale to understand how they use the product, their experiences and challenges. This will prove wonders for your business.
Appreciate your customers on a regular basis, weekly monthly or yearly, especially at their birthdays and anniversaries. In Nigeria, for example, banks send birthday text messages. For high value customers, they do much more than that. You have to decide the best appreciation strategy that works best for you.
A friend of mine sends bottles of wine to his customers and they in return, buy more products from him. It’s that simple. “A gift opens all doors to you,” says the book of Proverbs in the Bible.
Summary
In a highly competitive market as we have today, a little extra can make a lot of difference. A business that focuses more on customer testimonials than sales is bound to be a market leader. Customers want to feel special and get more value for their money
Key points:
– Most businesses stop at sales and fail at testimonials
– Sales saves the day but testimonials saves the business.
– Business focus on testimonials leads to brand recognition and customers loyalty
– A customer testimonial-focused approach is the easiest way to grow and expand your business sales. It’s like reaching for the stars and landing on the moon.
Written by Paschal Agonsi, a social entrepreneur and business media expert based in Lagos Nigeria. Discover more at paschalagonsi.com
