🎃 Happy Halloween! Time for another week of events:

Hey! Andres here,

Welcome to the networking desk! It’s spooky season (yes still the season for me, I am writing this during Halloween so it counts lol) and speaking of counting… You need to start counting on better testimonials 😎 that’s what I will go over today, and I really like how this one came out. Enjoy.

Here’s what we got this week:

• Making better testimonials for better uses

• Our great list of events

• My favorite matcha place

Alright, let’s do this.

“Lean forward moment” of the week - Make testimonials convert

People suck at making testimonials.

And it is not a surprise that testimonials are super valuable for a business, in fact some of the best converting ads have testimonials in them. So, how do we make better testimonials? We can’t just force people to say something, right?

Well… no, but here are some things that you can do. I have actually collected some of this information from a few non-profit education events, a few videos here and there and from personal experience.

First, a few of the most converting testimonials have the hook that touches on people’s pain example:

1. We were a month away from closing our doors…

2. I lost my wife and this was the first time I felt heard…

When testimonials are emotionally charged and focus on their pain it really speaks to future customers, we all love a story with a good ending.

How do we get people to give us these kinds of testimonials? Simple in theory. Harder to implement. We need to ask for an honest story of what was happening, what we did, and the result (P.A.R Problem, action, result)

It is also really important to ask for them right after they are done with our service or consuming our product, and being specific with the questions you want them to answer.

Focus on the phases or parts of the testimonial to build a great video, or written testimonial:

1. BEFORE PURCHASE

   1. What was life like before internally - before you saw this, did this?

   2. What were the external cues other people would observe about you before you decided to do this thing?

2. DURING PURCHASE

   1. What made you actually take the next step, externally? (something they saw or learned)

   2. And internally, what were the things you were most concerned about?

3. AFTER PURCHASE

   1. What’s life like now, externally and internally?

Remember: don't ask them how life was before they started working with you. Ask them for their worst moment. Moments are what make the hooks. Details are what make them powerful.

Yes, implementing this is very out of the ordinary, but if you have a good relationship with your costumers you can really create some great, money generating testimonials.

🖥️ Convert more website users into clients

🗓️ Now, the events…

⭐ = My top picks of this week

Local shop of the week - Café Maiko Duluth

Not an ad – just a cool spot you can visit

Matcha cookies, matcha ice cream, matcha everything!! 🍵

I LOVE this place, if you have seen some of my previous emails, you know that I prefer tea to coffee, so this place is my paradise, is quiet most of the time and the matcha is wonderful.

My fiancé does not like matcha as much and still loves the matcha ice cream here, so I’d invite you to give it a shot!

Thank you for reading! Quick thing before I go:

1. If you are new or would like to read older posts, check out this page. There is a backlog of previous weeks of “The Networking Desk”

2. Know someone who would benefit from this newsletter? Be sure to share it with them! 📩 (just copy the link or forward this email) I will keep putting out great newsletters for them and for you. That’s a promise.

See you next week.

- Andres Inciarte