Insights Blog for Inspired Entrepreneurs

These steps are for do-gooders. When you do good work, you get good testimonials.
If you are new at what you do, you can still get good testimonials while you are getting practice. The trick is to work with clients who are eager to work with you at your current skill level.

Step 1: ASK for the testimonials

This sample email message can be adapted for testimonials or permission for featuring someone in a case study.

From: [YOU]
To: [CUSTOMERS YOU LOVED WORKING WITH and WHO ENJOYED YOU - Be choosy. It's not only rude, but a really bad idea to contact people who did not FULLY enjoy your company for a testimonial. Contact them for feedback if you want, but not a testimonial.]
Subject: testimonial for website

Dear [CUSTOMER NAME],

[FRIENDLY GREETING OR INTRO TO MESSAGE]

As you now know, I am building a website for ["me" or "us" or NAME OF YOUR COMPANY], and am asking for a few minutes of your time to help me.
What we are going to do on the new site is tell some success stories and I would like to feature the project we did with you.
Thank you for responding to the following questions. I would like to quote you in the story.

1) Why did you choose to hire ["me" or "us" or NAME OF YOUR COMPANY]?

2) Name 3 aspects of working with ["me" or "us" or NAME OF YOUR COMPANY] that you appreciated the most.

3) How did ["me" or "us" or NAME OF YOUR COMPANY] help you achieve your goals?

4) For what reasons would you recommend ["me" or "us" or NAME OF YOUR COMPANY] to someone else?

THANK YOU and I would love to hear any other feedback you have for me/us about the work we did for you. We really enjoyed working with you!

Best regards,

[YOU]

Step 2: Tie up Loose Ends

• With the testimonials that come back right away (within a week):
  • Send an immediate, hand written, THANK YOU card in the mail.
• With the folks who do not respond right away, call each one and reconnect:
  • Ask how they are doing
  • Ask if it would be easier to just give you a testimonial or feedback on the phone
  • Promise to show them what you type up for their approval before you publish it as a testimonial
  • Get it typed up and approved quickly. Call them again if necessary to for phone approval to keep your process moving.
    
  • Send an immediate, hand written, THANK YOU card in the mail, as soon as you get approval.

Step 3: Follow-up

When you launch your site, be sure to share the joy with these folks FIRST.

When I am working with a client to get to the heart of their business and create a logo, it is rather common to have to first shed all the notions they have about their company that come from looking around them, instead of inside themselves. (more…)

Here are some observations from showing various logos to people.

(more…)

Here are the technical duties for a logo, symbol and wordmark.

Logo

• Must be scalable and reduce and enlarge well. Reducing a logo is usually more challenging than enlarging it.
• Must look good at 1 inch high in print and 100px high on screen.
• Must render well on various surfaces and in various mediums.
• Is most flexible and adaptable when the height and width are nearly equal.

Symbol

• Must fully express the essence of the owner.
• Must never conflict with the owner?s desired reputation.
• Must feel good in your gut.?

Word Mark

• Must be readable when 1 inch high in print and 100px high on screen.
• Style must never conflict with the owner?s desired reputation.
• Must feel good in your gut.?

This post is a short list of terms and definitions. (more…)