I was on an onboarding call with a new student in Build in Public Mastery. We were talking about what he tried in the past to figure out how he could get customers for his new course.
🥦 Kevon: "How did you know this idea was good at that time?"
👤 Student: "I went out to find customers and got one.
🥦 Kevon: "Nice! What happened? Was he happy?"
👤 Student: "Yeah! I taught him 1:1 and he was very happy!"
🥦 Kevon: "Sweet! Did you use this success story to get a 2nd customer?"
👤 Student: "Hmmm... no. I didn't do anything... I thought the idea wasn't worth it."
(Of course, many things could affect a decision. But let's just disregard the other factors for simplicity.)
I was shocked because it felt wasteful.
Because he did the 1st step so well, but he didn't leverage it to tackle the 2nd step.
Trust, credibility, and social proof are everything to an online education business. I actually think they are more important than the info products themselves.
(Oh hey, I'm not saying the content is not important!)
I've asked my customers and peers before and I found out that when someone trusts you, they don't even read your sales page thoroughly. They see the product name and subtitle and buy.
So, how do you get more and more trust, credibility, and social proof?
You hold onto every success story as if you've just fallen off the cliff and that success story is your lifeline.
Then you use these success stories to snowball your education business.
You don't need to be shy or anything. If you've helped someone level up, they are more than happy to help you back.
If you've failed to help someone, they will also give you constructive feedback. Worst case? You hear nothing back. Not bad!
So I always do 4 things with my customers:
- Get a testimonial
- Get feedback
- Ask for a suggestion
- Ask to help share
Let's dive into each one.
1. Get a Testimonial
This sounds pretty straight forward right?
The key though, is to find the right medium to do it.
Some people are great on videos, then you do videos. If not, get a text one.
Or you can even do this (to me, this is best way because it is authentic + doesn't take much time).
2. Get Feedback
I never see my educational products as finished. There is always room to improve.
I like to keep open-minded and let them know it is okay to share both positive + constructive feedback.
"You will not offend me, I am very open to feedback."
I like to build rapport from the start and ask them right after they experience my creation.
3. Ask for a Suggestion
I don't do it often and it depends on the situation.
I know podcast hosts love to ask the guests "Do you have a friend who would be a good fit to my show?"
You can ask your customer "I love that you got so much from this. Do you have a friend who will enjoy this too?" You can even give a coupon code for him to share with a friend.
4. Ask to Help Share
Word of mouth is the best growth engine. Oh yeah, we all know that. But do you know that you should ask people to help share? Everyone is so busy that most people don't even know they can help you share it.
When you asked, this can happen. When you don't ask, nothing happens.
Finally, when I get any great testimonial back, I make sure to:
- Take 1 second to throw it in a testimonial software to make my products shine like this (I use both Testimonial & Senja)
- Share it on social media (do it this way)
- Share in my emails (like this 👇)
This snowballing effort applies to every single business on this planet!
But ... it is especially important for online education business.
Why?
Our business type has zero advantage in many things that real-life businesses enjoy, e.g. foot traffic, best buddy connections, and basic human needs like hunger.
So you need to double down investing in trust, credibility, and social proof.
Next time, when you make a customer happy, instead of moving on to finding another customer, make sure to take time to talk to her first. You might find that it is not hard to turn a customer into a raving fan. Or it is not hard to increase your chance of finding five more.
