This is the fourth installment of Christine and my monthly Peer-to-Peer Mentoring series. On her blog, I answered her question:

"Social optimization is at the heart of all my business endeavors. For this reason, any pitch I offer to a potential client is always authentic - I aim to reveal how working together will mutually accentuate their product, service and relationships with their potential customers and clients. Unlike many businesses that wait for clients to come to them, I approach clients to help them see the need for my specialized services.

What creative design ideas or tips can you suggest that will help make my pitch strategy more fun and multi-dimensional?"

My Question to My Mentor:

"I've never collected testimonials and I'm examining why? that is. Can you tell me how you received the testimonials you have collected, and how it felt to get them?"

Christine's Answer:

Beginning to collect testimonials was a purely organic experience. A business development client of mine bestowed a very complimentary, but objective email upon me after we achieved a few really cool milestones within his business. At the end of the email he said, “hint, hint, hint... hope this will serve as the start to your new testimonial section on your website.” Of course, this felt amazing because I had not yet asked for my clients or patients to acknowledge their experiences of working with me. I was flattered and inspired to ask clients and patients to reflect after receiving this first one though! I have always thought the word testimonial sounds cheesy. Most of the ones I would read on websites seemed quite contrived and lacking in objective feedback. I can clearly see the purpose they are meant to serve, but was never thrilled with the ones I came across. This definitely deterred me from including a testimonial section on my site. I decided to take some of my own advice-if you don’t like it, fix it, re-frame it, make it more fun, create something more fitting or tangible for your own personal niche or personality. At the same time I decided I would create a space for feedback, I began jotting down different ideas of a fun title that would catch people’s eyes and get them to click away on the website. I came up with “Patient Raves” and “Client Raves” to avoid using that cheesy sounding word, testimonial.

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