Success stories are a great way to sell your services, without really selling. This is actually the second part to a post I wrote previously. Your success stories, no matter how small are a selling tool. If nobody ever hears about your success stories, did they really happen? Sure, you know you achieved success with a client, but you aren’t trying to sell you. The happy client knows your success story with them, but do they know others? Your client can only share your success stories with ‘so many’ people.
I got a lot of great feedback on the previous post sharing how to write your success stories.
When I was doing some research though, it seems 1. People don’t know how to write success stories, and 2. They don’t know what to do with them! Being able to craft your success stories in a manner that sells is an awesome skill to have. When you’re sharing your success stories, we are really looking for referrals. I didn’t really state this in the previous post, but your attitude is key in all this.
Here’s a quick recap of the previous post, which covered how to write a success story. These key elements are courtesy of Michael J. Maher, author of 7L: The Seven Levels Of Communication.
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Name the client and their situation.
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State the worst-case scenario that could have happened.
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How did you help solve the problem? [The focus is on the client, not you]
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What was the result? Be Specific
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What did the client say or do to let you know you did well?
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Ask for specific and relevant referrals.
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Call to Action
CAUTION: If you have not read my post on writing writing success stories, please do. It adds a little depth to just listing the steps.
Now that we’ve gotten our great story, what do we do with it? We send it out!
Share your success stories to your client list
If you’ve built an email list of clients, send it to them! [If you haven’t built an email list of your client base, you need to start.]
First of all, everybody likes a feel-good story. There is so much clutter in the news and in daily life that people crave something good to happen! Your client’s success story might be the best thing! Share about how a client’s makeover helped her find her husband. Talk about how you helped a first-time home-buyer get in a great home. These stories ignite that ‘mushy’ feeling inside, and make other want to help someone experience the same thing.
Secondly, you need to let your client base know that you want their referrals. You can’t just assume they know. Truth be told, they really aren’t thinking about you. Your job is to stay connected enough so that when someone mentions a need for the service you offer, your name is the first they think of. Sharing your success stories in your newsletter or email helps you maintain a piece of mental real estate. You are reminding your clients that you want their referrals without ‘hassling’ them. Your success stories are more of ‘gentle’ sales than the pushy ‘buy now’ sales.
Send your Success stories to your business Associates
What? If you’re thinking your business associates know your business well enough to refer you, think again. Unless you’ve built a rock solid relationship with them, they wouldn’t know your business if you bopped them in the head with it.
Sure, they know you run ‘Joe’s Business Solutions’, but so what? Your success stories help better explain to your business associates what you do.
Your business associates have a client base. What better place to get referrals than from your other business associates? Wouldn’t it be nice for them to refer their clients to you? You can build referral partners using your success stories as a foundation.
Send to your success stories to your family
These are the people that didn’t believe in you anyway. Let’s be frank. These are the people that really KNOW you. They know your flaws. They remember the kid who ditched school and put a cherry bomb in the neighbor’s trashcan. Family is sometimes THE hardest to convince that you are a sound professional in your field, until you share your success stories.
Jesus didn’t have any credibility in his hometown, so what makes you so special?
When you start creating success stories elsewhere, your family can become a source of great referrals. They have to know that you know what you’re doing so you don’t embarrass them!
The first and most crucial step is crafting your success stories to generate referrals. After that, start getting your success stories out to your community. Sharing one success story per month should be often enough. Get your success stories going today!
Keep Marching Forward,
LuSundra
PS. Have you heard about the $1k Challenge coming up? Get in here so you can your own success story!
