Word of mouth recommendation has always been an important part of sales. Testimonials are vital. So of course, if you can find a way to leverage customer testimonials in your sales process, you can sell more effectively and close faster. Sam Shepler’s company helps you do just that. Sam is the founder and CEO of Testimonial Hero, and in today’s episode, you’ll learn more about that company and what they do. Listen in to learn why Sam decided to start Testimonial Hero, why video testimonials are so important, and what the Testimonial Hero process is like.
Episode Highlights:
- Why Sam decided to start a company dedicated to testimonials
- What Sam was doing before Testimonial Hero
- Why Sam specializes in video testimonials
- How COVID changed things for Sam’s company
- What the process is like after testimonials are sent in
- What kicks a service like Sam’s into high gear
- Who can benefit from Sam’s service
- The specific benefits of video
- The process and timeline for Sam’s team
- How listeners can learn more about Testimonial Hero
Resources:
Transcript
Marylou: Hi everybody, it’s Marylou Tyler. This week’s guest is Sam Shepler. He is the founder and CEO of a company called Testimonial Hero. Now, some of you in the audience are probably thinking, testimonials, that’s the thing that we’re supposed to be doing a lot of for social proof, for all this advancement into the pipeline. Well, Sam has a company that specializes in leveraging customer stories so that you can close deals faster, so that you can add more qualified opportunities to the pipeline if you’re doing business development, or so you can expand your base of accounts so they stay longer with you, higher lifetime value, higher revenue potential. That will make everyone in the company or in your business very happy.
Sam, welcome to the podcast today.
Sam: Thanks so much, Marylou. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Marylou: Very good. You’re the founder and CEO, what was that a-ha moment that you said, I need to stop what I was doing and start up a company that is dedicated to this particular part of the sales process?
Sam: Yeah, that’s a great question. It was a couple of things. One was I had an experience at a private company and I realized as it pertains to video content, the projects that our buyers, our customers always were the happiest with and saw some of the most results from were customer stories. Video testimonials specifically, and also just personally for me was something that really resonated with me because it’s fulfilling to tell those real stories.
You can write scripts for ads and that’s fun. That’s a different type of creativity but I love just the authenticity of the fact that we’re building a story from a real customer experience and it has huge value for the buyer.
Marylou: What were you doing before? Were you always in sales and then realized that there is this missing component to what you were seeing out there in the tools that you had? I’m curious as to how this one piece, although hugely important, was what you gravitated to? What was it about testimonials and video testimonials, in particular, because that’s what you specialize in? What was it that got you to the point where you’re saying, this would be something that I would get up in the morning and absolutely love to be able to help others master?
Sam: Yeah. It’s a great question. It was a mix of just an observation and seeing the opportunity. We now live in a world where marketing content alone just isn’t enough to sufficiently accelerate deals. You really do need customer stories and I’ve felt that as a seller, as a founder. I could feel things were shifting and I could feel the opportunity. It was a problem that I wanted to solve for myself as well. I didn’t really feel like anyone was solving it.
I had been running a previous company. To make a long story short, that company got acquired and I was looking for a new problem to solve and this was the problem that I was the most excited by. I’ve been doing it for three years now on. Every day especially with COVID now we do fully remote customer testimonials. It’s proved to be very rewarding and very exciting.
Marylou: Let’s hone in on that. I know for me, it’s like, where were you when you got the message that said you better get home. I was in Denmark and got the call from one of my associates in the United States saying, book a flight now because they’re going to close the airport. You’ll be stuck in Denmark forever. That’s where we are today, one year into the pandemic. How have things changed for you?
What really gravitated me to want to talk to you was when I think of video, anything, I think of you got to go to a studio, you got to get everything set up. It’s a face-to-face kind of thing. Sometimes COVID could be a decent thing for people because it makes us think outside the box. Tell us how things have been going since this happened? What specifically has changed for you, as a company, in rolling out your service to potential clients?
Sam: Absolutely. I would definitely say at first it was a big challenge and then it really forced us to innovate and turned out to be a silver lining. At first, we were really focused on this in-person model and then we actually have a network of videographers all over the world. Basically, how our company-operated pre-COVID was, we have one of our clients who needs a testimonial filmed in Berlin, Germany. They need one in San Francisco and they need one in Toronto.
We have the crews to do that and keep it a cohesive style. Of course, COVID hit so that was all on pause. The next thing that we thought about was, will people still need video testimonials? Honestly, more than ever. We’ve since seen quite a good amount of recovery, but more than ever social proof is essential to just reduce friction in all of our sales processes. We work from first principles around like what is the best camera that everyone has on them. The answer for sure was everyone’s cellphone.
Marylou: Cellphones, definitely.
Sam: At a high level, what we have created is this process where one of our producers interviews the customer and actually coaches them on how to self-film themselves with their own smartphone. Then they get the footage. We just work off that cellphone footage with so much higher quality than, for example, a webcam which you may be subject to internet or bandwidth issues.
Marylou: Right, not to mention lighting in some places like my house. The sun is blinding in some cases where my computer is, then at night, it looks like I’m in a dungeon. It’s not necessarily conducive to a pleasurable viewing environment.
Sam: Absolutely. That’s exactly one of the big challenges that we ran into—how do we turn just average Joe’s or Jane’s into video pros. We have that basically 30-minute slot with our customers’ customers. For the first 5-10 minutes, we figure out all of those lighting details, sound, where’s the best place. The last 20 minutes were actually running the interview and diving into their customer story. But at the same time, we have to be really respectful of the customers ultimately doing our client a favor. There’s always a relationship there that maybe we could ask them to completely move, but maybe that’s just too much. You have to leave the room. It’s all about figuring out what’s the best, most reasonable situation, given the social, political, and practical dynamics.
Marylou: Right, but it sounds like that you have figured out a formula that is global now because of what you just said. When you’re working with them, they’re using their cellphones. Cellphones now do have a very high-quality video output. If you filter them with—we’ll get into the process in a bit—but you actually send them questions that they can ponder. If they can answer and record themselves answering those questions, and then what happens? Do you get it and then you put it together into the finished masterpiece? Is that post-processing, I think, or post-editing, or something?
Sam: Yeah, post-production. Yes, that sounds exactly right. About 90% of our customers are B2B software companies. What we actually can do is insert some product user interface shots and apply some nice branded graphics. In that way, we can cut away from the speaker. One of the biggest challenges is when we used to go to people’s offices, we could film all this great B-roll when you’re filming someone walking down the hallway.
Now, we’ve really had to also innovate on those other aspects. Honestly, the best way to describe it would just beؙ, if they’re curious, the last one of the videos. But we’ve figured out some really good ways to leverage the product user interface to allow for the natural cuts that need to be made to tell the best story.
Marylou: Right. Let’s talk about the ideal client for you. We’re in the right world now because a lot of the folks that listen to this podcast are selling mostly B2B, there are some B2C as well but mostly B2B products. Is there a size of companies that works better for you, or do you have the mindset that it doesn’t matter how big you are? It’s important for social proof. It’s important for authenticity that you have. You have these videos available because we are watching more videos now because we’re home.
As you mentioned before, content is out there but weeding through the content assets and reading, it’s more entertaining to actually watch a video and you tend to watch it for a longer duration. I’m curious, is there a point where you think of a service like yours that really kicks it into high gear? Or is it a mindset of as soon as you get good clients that you think would be great to record could make that road map happen? What do you suggest there?
Sam: There’s a couple of ways that I would look at it. For one any questions, fears, or doubts QFDs, that your prospects may have can be addressed through the voice of the customer. Even more credibly than from your own reps or from your own marketers because as buyers we want to hear from our peers. There’s just that credibility. That’s really the biggest benefit. Because of that credibility and that social proof, the result is just decreased friction, you’re able to move things along faster, and close deals faster.
As it pertains to who can benefit from it, as you said, there’s really no one who can’t benefit from social proof. It’s more about making sure you use it at the right time. Specifically, that you don’t use it too early in the buyer journey. What I mean by that is in my experience, most buyers that are early in their buyer journey might even be in denial that they have a problem.
Marylou: They are in denial.
Sam: Yeah, they are in denial. You can hit them with the best testimonial, but there isn’t that fertile ground for that seed to take hold in their mind yet because they don’t admit they have a problem. The main thing is their testimonials, especially video testimonials, are amazing and I can get more into why specifically in a video, not in the text. If you use them too early when the prospect is still in denial, it’s not really going to catch on yet.
Marylou: Well, it’s funny you say that because a lot of times—now I’m speaking more text-based so it would be interesting to hear what you have to say of text versus video, a text meaning digital conversation, not a text as in text from the phone—but what I’m finding is that if we pull together should-ask-questions series and embed, where it makes sense, customers talking about overcoming these objections, what they originally thought, even though testimonies talk about, primarily, results and the biggest benefit. But there’s also this other side, just as you pointed out, they don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t know they have a problem.
But if they hear something from a peer or colleague that they’ve been wondering and then they realize that they’re thinking the same thing. They weren’t sure about whether this will work or not for them or whether they should even worry about it being a problem. I’ll push back on you a little bit in that I think sometimes upfront, high up in the funnel, there may be a place where you can introduce a should-ask question in the form of an objection and then link them to XYZ company who bought this and link them to testimonial that they could view.
I think those also have the ability to enhance the relationship and build trust and rapport early on that you would normally not get because you’re telling them about the objection. You’re telling them that it was overcome by XYZ company versus hearing it from the other person. Sometimes, I think that would also be a place that’s further up in the funnel that would probably be very valuable.
Sam: Actually, you’re absolutely right. That’s a key distinction. We’re seeing the best companies start to do this more. The best B2B SaaS companies are really taking more of a full-funnel approach whereas it’s used to be, in the old days, customer case studies. A written PDF case study is what you’ve got where you find it really late in the funnel. Absolutely, we’re seeing it throughout. I totally agree with you. I think the distinction when customers’ stories are used earlier in the funnel, just like you said, they can’t be so much about ROI metrics necessarily because it’s forced about getting them to admit that they have the problem and getting them aware there. But you’re exactly right. I don’t usually get into the full-funnel approach but it’s such a good point.
Marylou: I have spent 30 years now getting people to hit their head saying, oh my gosh, I never thought of it that way. Part of that is to get to the emotional side. We’re not into the logical ROI side of things. Remember, at the top of the funnel all the time. We’ll get there for sure. Don’t get me wrong. But we’re starting with more of the emotion-based approach. It’s sort of like the hero’s journey. There’s a problem that has to be solved. I read somewhere on your website that you have seen 40% faster close, the shrinkage of time to revenue. It’s amazing how fast it can accelerate time to revenue. I read somewhere, I’m pretty sure it’s your website, about 40% faster closing.
Well, this is the same thing atop a funnel. It’s around 40%, 30% or so, where in order to get the initial conversation started, if we front-load that with some emotion, in this case, a video that explains I was there, too. I was a doubter about this thing but look what happened. Then you go into the results and the benefits and things but it’s done in a way that is like, I was there with you. I have been on that journey. Here’s my success path, but I started very skeptically.
We’re finding that that really works well. It’s worth building, especially the most common objections that you’re constantly getting is worth putting the time into creating these video scripts and maybe you just put him on your website. Maybe you send them out in a series of touches overtime continuum when the timing is right, or maybe it’s newsworthy. Maybe there’s a compliance reason why you want to do the compliance, like right now, the vaccinations. Everybody’s like freaking out about where do you go? How does this work?
I was there, too. Here’s what you’d do. You go do this, that, these, and those. Those just build trust and rapport, not at a human-like but you’re trying to do when you get further into the funnel, but at least it opens the willingness to listen and the willingness to have a conversation to take it perhaps to that next step. Video, I think, is the vehicle that can do that better than anything else.
Sam: I totally agree. Another thing to that point of why video, is that I do think especially in SaaS, sales, and marketing, we have reached a point where a lot of people see quotes written on a website or a testimony of a quote in a PDF. They know that they probably went back and forth on this legal, okay you can say this, you can’t say that. Then by the time the quote actually comes out, it’s lost a lot of the authenticity and become a little bit watered down. It’s like the true voice of the customer. It’s not like they wouldn’t approve if they didn’t agree with that but you lose a lot of that humanity. On the video, you can just literally see this is the person right there. This is exactly what they said and that is very powerful as well.
Marylou: I actually took a video scriptwriting class just a few months ago because I was just so enamored with the shorts, doing something in three minutes that takes us six weeks to do in terms of convincing somebody because again, I am working at the top of the funnel, where I’m trying to persuade people to love them and leave them, persuade them very quickly so they want to have a conversation with us and then pass them along to somebody else to close.
I was trying to figure out how can I compound challenges that I know these people are going through? This whole threat-payoff, threat-payoff, plus linking their desire could be done in a video with a client casually mentioning the threat and how they were able to overcome it. They found this threat and they were able to overcome it that way and direct, in this case, the client to go in that order. I found it was extremely profitable for us in terms of getting more conversations because there was a believability that, oh my gosh, they’ve gone through the same thought process that I’ve been thinking about and they figured it out. Maybe I should try it, too.
Video, more than any other medium right now is the way that we can explain that and then put it into the voice of someone who’s been there, is believable, and we naturally trust. The title underneath there when you put their title or their role, it’s like, they’re me. That’s me. I identify with that person. I just am so happy that you decided to do this because really the hardest thing is how do we figure this out? How do we put this all together?
That term B-roll is very scary. What does that mean? Is it like an hour and you got to dwindle it down to three minutes? How does that all work? Tell us about the service. Let’s pretend we’ve got a project together and I’ve got a couple of clients that I would like you to interview. Walk us through what the normal process is for your team to get started, and then in the post-production phase, when can we expect our video from you on average?
Sam: Yeah, absolutely. The first thing that we start out with for every project is the strategy. We have a strategy document that asks about 10 questions such as who is the client, what is their relationship, what is the goal for this video, what does the perfect message sound like, what are the three things that we want the audience to absolutely take away after watching this, what is the actual action that we want the audience to perform.
Marylou: Very important, that call to action.
Sam: Yes, exactly. It’s all about beginning with the end in mind and understanding the outcome that we want to achieve. From there, we work backward. The first place we work backward to is the actual interview questions that we’re going to ask the testifying client because with good questions, you get good answers and with okay questions, you get okay answers.
It is so important especially when you have a limited amount of time with the client. You want to be respectful of their time. But you also want to capture as much content as possible that can be extended in multiple videos down the line, social media. Once we understand the strategy, our producers figure out—to achieve all these goals in a 20-30 minute interview—what are the 15 absolute best questions that we can ask?
It’s usually around 15-20. That is the next step there. It’s actually getting to those interview questions. There’s also just scheduling. Our customers just introduce us via email. If it was a client of yours, you would just introduce us via email. We’d schedule with your client and we conduct the interview. It’s about a 30-minute total as,k. We try to keep it pretty short just to make an easy ask for you or your clients. We don’t want to be too crazy to ask because it’s just harder.
We conduct the interview. We get the footage. Then usually about two weeks after the actual remote interview happens, the first draft of your video will be ready. We really pride ourselves on that first draft because it’s practically done. There’s been probably, I would say once or twice a month, we get a project that is just approved on the first draft and they’re like, alright, done.
Marylou: Nice.
Sam: Thank you. That’s what we strive for because no one has additional free time to babysit the vendor. No one wants to do that. We really just try to take the responsibility for that and say if we can really understand the strategy, we can get you something on the first draft that should be basically perfect. Obviously, we do offer multiple revisions, three rounds of revisions if needed. By default, we include a 90-second version which is a great general-purpose length. Great for a customer’s page, but we also include by default a 30-45 second version that is really great for social media. Also, great for a little bit earlier in the buyer journey as we’re talking about.
Marylou: Yes, definitely.
Sam: Then we have some customers who, to your point earlier, create entirely custom packages and they might get a 90-second video, the 30-45 second video, and then four different topicals, we call them objection crushers, based on specific themes or objections. From start to finish, a typical project is about 30 days, from when we actually conduct the interview. It usually takes about two weeks to get it on the calendar with the client and write the interview questions.
Marylou: Very good. That’s a pretty quick turnaround. It’s great. Usually, when we do stuff internally, campaigns and things, I like to have six weeks to just get the campaign figured out and copy-written and things like that. That fits right in a nice schedule for a campaign. Where do we go next, Sam? What do you suggest we do? Should we go to your website and look around? What’s the way you would like us to connect with you if this is something we want to know more about?
Sam: Yeah, absolutely. It’s just testimonialhero.com or you can Google Testimonial Hero and it will pop up. I would encourage anyone whom this sounds interesting to have a look. We have tons of examples on our site from a lot of SaaS companies that you would have heard of. Definitely go check it out. We have both on-site examples which are less common but we still are doing some of them especially in Europe. Then, of course, we have a whole page of these fully remote ones. I would definitely encourage anyone who is remotely interested to just check it out and see the examples in action.
Marylou: Okay. The other thing, audience members, there’s a blog on the website, and for those of us who listen to me and love process, and numbers, and metrics and all that good stuff, the blog is filled with some metrics so that you can work your numbers and justify putting a solution like this embedded into your touch sequences or series just like in prospecting.
I like the idea of objection handling, helping. Even if you’re starting out, you don’t have a lot of clients, there are ways to produce videos that will help get people over that initial objection of why should I care or why should I talk to you about it. If you really embrace this as another channel of communication in the multichannel environment that we work in, I think you’ll be very pleased that you came across Sam and his team at Testimonial Hero.
Well, thank you so much, Sam, for all of your time today. I very much appreciate you sharing with us how we can leverage video.
I’ll put all these links in the show notes. For those of you who want to get ahold of Sam, all the information will be there for you. Thanks again and I very much appreciate your time, Sam.
Sam: It’s been a pleasure, Marylou. Thank you and hope to chat again soon.