This post was inspired by an action taken by a colleague of mine.  We have been working together for 6 months now and out of the blue the other day she sent me an email with a little testimonial for me!  It was a nice surprise and very flattering that she took the time to write it down and send it off.

Testimonials are something many businesses use, especially ones on the internet, and they can be very helpful additions to your website content.  Potential clients can see what others have to say about you and how you work with, and for, others.  It also allows to link back and forth to each other, which is great when you have a website! It’s like a direct referral system.

Linked In uses recommendations, and even prompts you to  “return the favour” by sending one back to the other person.  This is great, except the process never gets started unless one party takes the time to send a testimonial or one party “asks” for a testimonial.

That’s the part about testimonials that gets awkward, the need to ask.  It is for that reason that people should take time to send testimonials without having been asked.  Really, it follows the same principals outlined in a post here about Comment Cards, which in a nutshell is:  Take the time to say “Good Job” to someone.  The hard part isn’t writing it down, it is remembering to do so and send it off!

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