How to Get a Testimonial Letter

Comment from Tom West:

This article is right on! Too many business brokers forget to stay in contact with buyers and sellers. Roger’s excellent article points out just one example of the value of contacting people for recommendations – and referrals. Stay in touch with potential buyers, for example, even if you haven’t been in touch for some time. You should always get email addresses of prospective buyers and potential sellers – and email them at least once a month. Email them new listings, information on new potential buyers, article of interest, etc. Communication will create more deals and more listings.

Recently, I received a call from Katrina Mitchell, President of SPEAK!, who gave me an idea that I should share with you. Katrina was instrumental in helping us engage Troy Hazard as our Keynote speaker for our Annual Murphy Conference in May. Her company works with many different speakers, but after talking with me several times, she was convinced that Troy was the perfect match for our needs. For those of you that attended the conference, I am sure that you will agree with me that she was right.

Katrina called me to follow-up on the conference and make sure that everything went as planned. It was important to her that we were happy. She asked me a lot of questions about what people thought of Troy, and why he turned out to be such a good fit for us. She also wanted to make sure that she had done everything that she had promised us to make the process easy and asked if we would be willing to use her services again for our next conference. Since we were extremely happy with everything, I heaped on the praise and promised that I would never think of hiring another speaker without using the services of SPEAK!  After all, her marketing tag line is “Working with Franchisors to Find the Right Speakers-Every Time.”

After we were finished discussing the results of the conference, Katrina politely asked me if I would mind providing a recommendation letter for both Troy Hazard and the services of SPEAK! I assured her that I would be more than happy to do that as I wondered to myself when I would have time to write that stuff. To my surprise, Katrina volunteered that she had been taking notes as we talked and would take the liberty to draft the letters of recommendation and send them for me to edit or change as I saw fit.

A day later, an email arrived with the two testimonial letters. I reviewed them, made one or two additions and sent them back to her within an hour. I can honestly say that while I wanted to help her out, it would have taken me a week or two to get to it as it was not a top priority on my “To Do List”. This made it easy for me and I felt good for doing her a favor.

I just thought that you might want to give this a try the next time that you complete a transaction and would benefit from having a buyer or a seller provide you with a testimonial about your work. Make it easy for them and it may pay off for you.

Roger Murphy

President/CEO, Murphy Business & Financial Corporation