How to Generate Extraordinary Testimonials from Clients

If you’re thinking about becoming a life coach, or you’re already a certified coach and you’d like to show your potential clients how valuable your coaching is, it’s important to know how to generate phenomenal testimonials from clients. 

Attracting new clients is always going to be an important part of your life coaching business, and testimonials from people whose lives were changed by your coaching are some of the most powerful client attraction and enrollment tools you can have in your toolbox.By having your life coaching clients share their experiences and transformation, you demonstrate to your potential clients that you can help them achieve the results they’re looking for, and create lives they truly love living.

As the founder of Life Mastery Institute — the world’s premier training and certification center for heart-centered, transformational life coaching — I have 35 years experience in inspiring potential clients to enroll in programs, transform their lives, and share their experiences in a way that’s compelling to others.

Here are four tips that will help you generate extraordinary testimonials from your existing clients, that you can then share to encourage new people to want to work with you.

Four Proven Tips for Generating Amazing Testimonials from Your Life Coaching Clients:

TIP #1: Ask for the testimonial at the right time

The best time to ask for a testimonial from one of your life coaching clients is when your client is starting to see results from working with you.

If you ask them for a testimonial BEFORE they begin to experience any growth or expansion in their life, they won’t have anything compelling to share yet, so wait until they start to experience a transformation.

Then, ask them if they feel comfortable giving you a testimonial, which consists of them answering a few quick questions.

TIP #2: Ask the right questions to help them craft their testimonials

Here are some questions you can ask your life coaching clients that will help to draw out the details that will be most compelling to use in their testimonial:

• “What was going on in your life that made you decide you wanted the help of a life coach?
• “What were you hoping to achieve in your life?”
• “How has life changed for you since we began working together?”
• “What is one of the biggest takeaways that you’ve gotten?”
• “What results have you experienced that surprised you, or that you weren’t expecting to achieve through our work together?”
• “What would you say to someone who is considering working with me?”

Of course, you’re already going to know the answers to some of these questions, because you’ve worked with the client… but asking these questions helps them put their answers in their own words, and you may hear some new details that may delight and surprise you!

TIP #3: Format your testimonial properly

There are several ways in which you can acquire and share testimonials from your life coaching clients.

If you’d like a video testimonial, you can interview your clients with your smartphone camera or with Skype video. Or you can email them your questions and have them record a video at home, and then email it to you.

Your client can also record their testimonial as an audio, or write it out, and then email it to you.

Another method is that you can “interview” them by asking them each question, either in person or over the phone or over Skype. You can then compile their answers into a 1-2 paragraph testimonial, that you can then send back to them for approval before you begin sharing it with others.

TIP #4: Share your testimonial!

Once you have the testimonial, you can put it on your website, business card, brochures, on social media, or anywhere where you desire to inspire people to sign up for a program with you.

Always make sure you get the client’s permission to share their testimonial, make it clear to them WHERE you’ll be sharing it, and only include information they’re comfortable with sharing.

It’s important to keep their confidence, and never share their story or information without their consent.

Many clients may be comfortable with you sharing their first name, but not their full name, for example.

A success story from an overworked client:

If you’re wondering if you’re meant to be a life coach, here’s a story that illustrates the impact you can make on people’s lives by becoming a coach:

One of my clients, Katie, had heard me speak at a seminar I was leading, and she felt inspired to enroll in my high-end coaching program.

At the time, she was an attorney in the banking industry, and was highly successful in terms of money and prestige. But she was working between 70 and 80 hours a week in her executive position, and she felt suffocated by the amount of work she was doing.

This state of overwork was having a profound effect on her, especially in the areas of love and relationships. She was missing her family’s special events and the things that really mattered to her, and she had very little time to spend with the man she loved.

Katie longed for what I call a “full spectrum wealth” life, where she could be wealthy not only in prestige, career and money, but also in relationships, time and money freedom, and in her ability to translate her talent into work that really mattered to her.

First, she transformed her thinking, then she transformed her life

Katie wanted to cut her hours, but she really enjoyed the amount of money she was earning. At first, she didn’t think it was possible to reduce her hours in the banking industry, without sacrificing part of her paycheck.

But over time, through the transformational coaching that we did together, she created a life that’s exactly what she had dreamed of.

Today, she still works in the banking industry — but she works HALF the hours she used to, and she actually earns MORE income than she had before!

Now, she’s able to attend her nephews’ and nieces’ special events, and be at her great-grandmother’s birthday celebrations… things that have always mattered to Katie, but that she didn’t have the freedom to do before.

More importantly, she and her sweetheart moved to New York, so that he could pursue a career opportunity that was in alignment with his dreams. She’s able to travel, and to do the things that she wants to do when she wants to do them.

In short, Katie enjoys a “full spectrum wealth” life now!

Even if you only have few, you can still get started and generate testimonials from your clients

Whether you’ve worked with one person, two, three or more, if you’ve helped a life coaching client to achieve results, you can request a testimonial from them so that you can share their good news.

Whether the testimonial comes in the form of a video, audio or written word, I think you’ll find that most (if not all) of the clients you ask will jump at the chance to share the joy of their transformation…

And this will inspire others to want to sign up for a program with you, so that you can continue making a difference in other people’s lives!

For more proven, step-by-step strategies for starting or growing a successful life coaching business that makes a profound and lasting difference in the lives of others, and that allows you to earn an abundant income while working from anywhere in the world that you choose, click here to download my FREE ebook, “Are You Meant to Be a Life Coach?”

By Mary