When testimonials give you the ick Doing It For The Kids

“I had a situation recently where I responded to somebody who I know really well offering to help me with something. I said yes, appreciated the service they did for me and I paid them for that service.

Afterwards, they asked if I’d be happy to give a testimonial and I said, ‘sure — how about you draft something and I’ll tweak it?’

They sent me something. I tweaked their words so it was more like me and shortened it so it wasn’t so gushy because… you know how some services just go the extra mile and they’re brilliant and you were wax lyrical about them because you loved them so much? Well, this wasn’t one of those situations. But nor was it a shit service. It was just… bang for your buck type stuff.

Since then my endorsement has been used as a propeller for this particular service in online spaces and it’s just made me feel really uncomfortable.

It’s made me really think about how we ask people for testimonials, but also, how we use those testimonials and how that lands with the person we’ve asked.

Now I know it’s really important to get testimonials, and I know it’s really important to bang our own drums and promote ourselves — but is there a way to do that without making the people we’ve asked feel icky?

I mean, should have I said — ‘happy for you to use this, but could you not plaster it everywhere, everyday, for 50 weeks of the year?!’ (which is how it feels at the moment)

Because, if I’m honest, this experience is going to make me reluctant to give testimonials in the future and I would hate for any of my clients to feel like that.”