Often overlooked at networking events, testimonials can be powerful ways to build your own reputation and those of the others with whom you network. Keep in mind that when you give a testimonial, you are in essence bragging about someone else, or starting a positive rumor about someone. If you were to brag about yourself, you look like a self important jerk. If you spread negative rumors about others, you risk getting a bad reputation as someone who gossips. But when you build up a referral partner in a testimonial, you look good AND they look good. You grow a positive reputation as the person looking out for others, and those others get to hear good news about your referral partner. 

Before we can expect to benefit from such positive word-of-mouth, we need to master how to give a good testimonial. The process is pretty simple:

Focus on one person. A good testimonial is about one other referral partner. Go into detail about how good they are. If you try to spread praise to several individuals or a group, you risk diluting your message, confusing other attendees, or overwhelming the listeners.
Be specific. Talking in generalities does little or no good. “Specific is terrific” in any networking environment. When you brag about someone, talk about the pain that was alleviated, the level of confidence you felt working with them, and the experience you had overall.
Whenever possible, make it a first-person testimonial. If you can't, a third-party testimonial can also work. You can say “My client/friend/colleague told me…” If I can tell others that someone "made my wife happy..." it gets a chuckle, shows that I care about my wife's concerns, and expresses that they were able to help someone who has higher standards than I have.

There are some other ways we can use testimonials in our networking, both online and in person:

• When you are in the process of making a referral for someone, a testimonial is an easy way to warm up the contact. Bragging about what a good experience you had working with your referral partner will encourage people to want to do business with them.

• If you encounter a networking partner doing a 1-2-1 with someone else (or on a sales call in a public space), simply stopping by and saying nice things about them to the person they are meeting will accelerate the relationship building process.

• Lastly, putting your kind thoughts in writing as an email, a printed document, on social media, or a review site is a great way to leverage your testimonial. LinkedIn reviews, google reviews, and other sites are powerful opinion makers.

More about testimonials...
Speaking of putting those testimonials in writing... we have a common term for that, and if you've shopped on the Internet before you may have encountered it: they're called reviews. If someone does not yet know, like, and trust you, a large number of positive reviews can increase the likelihood of them choosing to do business with you. Zero reviews, or many bad reviews will encourage people to look to do business elsewhere. We can and should use our networking relationships to develop a growing group of positive reviews for ourselves, and we do this by first doing it for others.

Job Seekers will often encounter this on LinkedIn. Just like business owners have Google reviews on their websites of customer’s experiences of their businesses, many of you may already have that or similar systems for collecting recommendations from co-workers, bosses, customers or colleagues. When we do 1-2-1’s, it should be fairly easy to ask each other to write a short, positive comment about the experience we have had working together. 

But, we can take this a step further: If you know what you’d like a recommendation of you to say, share a suggestion about the wording. So long as it is truthful, it’s okay to guide each other so we can get the most value from our written testimonials. You can use this same principle in writing your own testimonials.

Once you have a collection of these, use them in your other correspondences. Make your profile more compelling by adding wording or a remark from someone else. Add a comments section to your portfolio online. Or even add a tagline to your email signature. It may be valuable to have a printout of testimonials to bring to interviews. (This about whether this will work for you. For some people it’s too heavy.) This can be especially effective if they somehow match the industry or person you are meeting. (Job seekers can add these in a small text box on your resume if you have room.)

Lastly, remember to occasionally clean up the content. Old testimonials may be about work you no longer enjoy doing or are taking up space that more recent accolades could fill. A glowing review from a high profile criminal currently doing time, or from a business like Enron may not send the best message.

We love to hear from you!

Please let us know if you tried these ideas and how things turned out for you. And, feel free to leave us a testimonial either here on on LinkedIn, Google, … or wherever!

Thanks for stopping by!