“It is a sign that your reputation is small and sinking, if your own tongue must praise you.” – Matthew Hale, Born Nov.1, 1609.
The guy I am quoting above is sort of right, but also sort of wrong. Right when it comes to the details, but open to misinterpretation when it comes to the actual process.
The thing is, there is nothing you can say about yourself that doesn’t sound better coming from a paying customer or client instead. Having people who will refer you and promote you all on their own are great, for sure. The thing is, they are unreliable.
You can’t force someone to toot your horn for you. You can’t depend on that to keep the leads and traffic coming. It’s a lovely bonus, but all by itself, it does nothing.
Only a FOOL of a marketer would just hope and pray that satisfying customers will magically create word of mouth that brings people to your door, wallets open.
What you have to do is be the archivist for every cool thing any customer or fan has ever said about anything you’ve done. You need to be the one who collects, collates, tags, organizes and RE-PUBLISHES your testimonials and endorsements.
See, THAT way, it’s not YOU being self-aggrandizing, or puffing yourself up. It doesn’t come across as vanity or hubris. It doesn’t seem like you have no one to back you up.
Instead, every prospect gets to see that the people you help are overflowing with praise for you! They gush and gab voluntarily and in numbers that are impressive in and of themselves!
But they ONLY see that, collected and organized and put in order of EXCITEMENT – when YOU put it out there.
Otherwise, at best, a prospect might hear from ONE happy customer, MAYBE.
Far from the long list of praises and hymns being sung of your work and results, right?
So that’s the trick. You never want to be seen to be the only person bragging about what you can do. It’s shallow, looks egotistical, and too easy to just fake and be lying about.
Testimony and endorsement cannot be so easily dismissed, but it doesn’t promote itself. And even if it does, not as good as YOU could promote it, right?
Do yourself a favor (if you aren’t already) and start asking your audience and clients and customers for feedback about what they liked.
Collect it. Organize it. LEVERAGE it.