This week I want to share with you how to get testimonials for marketing your private investigator business.

Note: Here’s where you can see my video about getting testimonials.
You cannot have too many testimonials for your business. You cannot have too many people saying how great you are and how much you helped them.

In today’s world, that’s done with thumps-up, smiley faces, hearts, bells, or whatever the thing is now that’s going around on social media.

Lat’s face it, people look at reviews, “likes” and other “social proof”. And there’s something to be said for that, however… those things can be gamed.

People can buy likes, hearts, smiley faces, and all those other magic stickers that social media use to demonstrate validity. Those things can be (and are!) gamed. But, that only goes increases the value of actual, real testimonials!

Testimonials

Of course, testimonials can be fake. Testimonials can be lies. We know that. But if they are… That’s a crime!

If you’ve got extra hearts, stars, or thumps-up on your social media post, that may not be necessarily against the law, but faking testimonials, lying and having testimonials that aren’t real, is illegal. That will jam you up!

So, while criminals, scammers and rip-offs will fake testimonials, most legitimate businesses will shy away from those outright lies. That outright criminal act.

Here’s an interesting little thing you may not know…

There’s a lot of scam investment companies that will cold call or spam their marks for the initial contact. But, here’s a giveaway, an interesting thing. When they begin to send paper work out, they’ll send them out by FedEx or UPS overnight anything to you in order to get your money, but they will not mail it to you through the US Postal Service. Why is this?

They don’t want to commit US postal fraud!

They know, if they mail a hundred letters to people asking for money for something illegal, they’ve just committed a hundred counts of mail fraud – simply by mailing the letters! And it’s very easy to prove it!

And that’s where they’re going to get jammed up. They know they can send the exact same stuff through FedEx, and the postal service – this giant federal agency with armed officers with arrest authority – those guys, their investigators, will never look twice at them!

Sure, they may have other three letter agencies we’ve got to worry about, like the Federal Trade Commission, but the FTC is overwhelmed. However, if the U.S. Postal Service gets one of these scam letters submitted from just one citizen… well, that’s solid physical evidence of a federal offense!

So the rip-off “companies” will not send anything by US Postal Mail.

Likewise, I think a lot of people are more reluctant to fake testimonials because that will get you jammed up way more than fake smiley faces and thumps-up on social media.

So testimonials have greater value than social media “likes”. You can never have too many testimonials.

How to get testimonials.

Now, the tricky thing… How do you get testimonials for your website and marketing materials? Let me suggest two basic methods.

1. Ask for them.

Number one, you can ask. Right after you satisfy a client, once they’re happy, you can ask them to do you a favor. Ask them to text it to you or to post something on social media or whatever.

Of course, in our business, there’s a lot of cheating spouses victims and other types of victims who are embarrassed by that. They might not be willing to go on social media and expose their problem (even though the solution they found may help others). I totally understand and respect that! But, this makes our little world of getting testimonials much more difficult.

But, you can ask them to send you a text or write a letter and say something nice about you or your service. And you can ask them, “Hey, can I use that as a testimonial?” You don’t have to use there full name! You can just put ‘Adam B.’ and whatever quotation he gives you. Or maybe, “Sandra S.” and whatever testimonial she gives you. Use that.

Personally, I keep all of my testimonials anonymous unless I have specific permission to use their name or company name.

So, The first way to get testimonials is to just plain ask for them. That’s especially true when you’re first starting out.

2. Freewill Testimonials

What you’re going to find, over time, is these testimonials just sort of come to you naturally.

This is what I have discovered over the years and didn’t expect it but I’m really appreciative of them!

People contact me all the time. A week doesn’t go by that I don’t hear from somebody who’s over-the-top happy about the courses I sold them!

They contact me, they send me feedback or they send me email and they say very kind things.

The Downside, (kinda’)…

However, to me, it is super awkward.

Look, if you’re online at all, you know about trolls and haters. At first, that may aggravate you and bother you. You may say to yourself, “Oh, I’ve got to explain to this person why they’re so ignorant.” Forget about it. Just ignore trolls and haters.

They don’t bother me at all, and the funny thing is, I don’t know why they don’t. it’s just funny to me more than anything.

Personal Note: If I stop and reflect on it to long it’s actually very sad because… “Hurt people, hurt people.” There are a lot of trolls who are broken and hurting so they lash out. It’s sad really.

But, now that I’ve been online for over six years teaching and helping, I do get those very sincere emails and they say very deep things. I get people who I had no idea were following me for years and they’ll say, “When I was starting out, you helped with this this and this. I learned these things from you. Now, I’ve got my own detective agency. You’ve changed my life.” People say that to me! They send me emails like that! That’s heavy! That’s a responsibility. That scares me more than trolls who hate me. I don’t care about the trolls. But to be reminded that what I say and do changes lives… That’s a heavy responsibility.

So, I want to remind you as you do job as an investigator, we are changing lives. You are changing lives!

People will lose custody of their kids, not because of anything we do, but because of the evidence that we bring forward. They lose custody because they’re a crackhead and they leave their kid unattended a hot car while they go to buy dope.

If we’re not there doing our jobs, that evidence doesn’t get brought forward. People’s lives change because of what we do.

Businesses are able to get a fair shake when they get hustled in a contract. When we collect the evidence for them to get their money back, they can keep their doors open employing workers and spending money in the community to help other businesses as well! We are 100% changing lives. And that’s a very heavy thing.

And when I get emails and messages from people who tell me that, wow. It’s a real wake-up call for me, but it’s also powerful testimonial.

Again, with total privacy and anonymity, I can use these little quotes to help build trust with potential new clients who I can then help with their problems!

When they can see one, after another, after another of testimonials of people who’ve been satisfied with things that I sold them, that’s very powerful. You can use this same strategy.

So, keep your ears open when you get a kind note from someone or something pleasant is posted about you online. Take a little snippet of that. Save it in a document of some sort in a folder on your computer labeled “Testimonials”. Then you can go there anytime you want and pick out testimonials for when you’re releasing a new product, a new service or doing some promotional thing

Summary

1. You can ask for testimonials and get them.

2. People will voluntarily say nice things about you. You get those as testimonials.

3. Keep your testimonials in a place where you can find them when you need them.

If you like these helpful tips, then don’t miss out on my free special report If You Want To Be a Private Investigator Give Up… Unless You Do These Three Things. You can get it right here…

Committed to your success,
Larry Kaye, P.I.