The Power of a Testimonial with Jayne Havens
Not too long ago I had an experience in my personal life that made me reflect on my consulting business, and how I work to grow that business. After working with a home organizer, I was asked to share a testimonial on Facebook about her services. It was my pleasure to do this for her because the service she provided was truly transformative.
The testimonial I shared on Facebook generated a ton of interest and led to several new inquiries for my home organizer. This is EXACTLY the type of attention we would all love to have for our sleep consulting businesses!
I hope this short and sweet episode lights a spark in you to feel comfortable asking for those referrals, because they are gold!
Links:
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Transcript:
Intro: Welcome to Becoming a Sleep Consultant! I’m your host Jayne Havens, a certified sleep consultant and founder of both Snooze Fest by Jayne Havens and Center for Pediatric Sleep Management.
On this podcast, I’ll be discussing the business side of sleep consulting. You’ll have an insider’s view on launching, growing, and even scaling a sleep consulting business. This is not a podcast about sleep training. This is a podcast about business building and entrepreneurship.
Jayne Havens: I haven’t done a solo episode in a while. The other day, something happened. And I thought it would be a great story to tell here on the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast.
Let me give you a little bit of backstory. For the past, I don’t know, couple of months, I have been working with a home organizer inside of my home. Her name is Wendy. She’s amazing. She’s my new BFF. She came over to help me because my dining room was acting sort of as an art room or a playroom for my two kids who are 11 and 7 years old.
I was starting to feel like my kids are old enough that they don’t need to occupy my dining room anymore. They can have all of their stuff in the basement. And if they want to play or do art projects, they can just go down to the basement and play or do art. I can take that room, which is intended to be a dining room, and furnish it and take the next step in finishing off my home so that it looks the way that I want it to look. My kids are not babies anymore.
Wendy was coming over once a week, spending three or four hours at a time in my home. First, getting everything out of the dining room, which we call the art room, everything out of the art room and into the basement. Then once we got everything into the basement, she was looking at my basement and saying, “Well, what is all this stuff? Do you have the pieces to this game? Where are the markers for this art set? Where are the beads that go with this?”
Everything was sort of hot mess express, for a lack of a better way of explaining it. I just had shelves of junk and toys and games and stuff that my kids were not even playing with. Because it was so disorganized, they didn’t even know what they had. And really, in order for Wendy to take all of the stuff that was in the dining room and put it into the basement, she needed to organize all of my stuff in the basement. So one project turned into two projects. Then you know how that goes, right?
Within a month or so, with Wendy coming every single week, she literally organized my entire house — my linen closets, my daughter’s clothing closet, the basement storage room. Literally, everything is organized. My kitchen, it’s been magical and life changing. We’re actually pretty much in the homestretch. I feel like maybe I could use her one more time, maybe two more times. We haven’t done my closet yet, which feels really overwhelming. But the plan is for her to come back to my house after the holiday season, maybe in January, and we’re going to work together to do my bedroom closet, which I’m excited about.
But really, the way that I feel after Wendy helped me for just a month or so has been such an amazing feeling. I don’t even have the words to articulate the magic, and just how much happier I feel in my own home. I feel like now everything has its place. Everything has its space. If I need something, I know exactly where it is. My children, they know where their stuff is. So if Ivy wants to do an art project, she knows exactly where the beads are, or she knows exactly where the scissors are. Everything is just in the right spot. And it’s amazing.
Anyway, we wrapped up. Then she asked me if I would be willing to share about her services in a Facebook group or two. And I said to her of course. Of course, I want to tell the world about you. Because what you did for me was so life changing. So I said to her, “Wendy, can we snap a picture?” We just stood in my kitchen, and we snapped a selfie. I shared that picture along with a testimonial inside of three or four Facebook groups. She and I both live in Baltimore, so like Baltimore Moms Facebook groups.
Then I also decided to share the testimonial on my own personal Facebook page. What happened after that, for Wendy, was pretty huge. Immediately, five or six friends texted me and asked me for her phone number, asked me what it looked like for us to work together. They wanted to see pictures before and after. They were like, “I need this. I need this. How did you find her? When can she come work for me?” And so really, with that simple testimonial that I shared on Facebook, I’m pretty confident that Wendy is going to be kept busy for a while.
The reason that I shared this on the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Facebook, not the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Facebook. But the reason I shared this on the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast is because this is no different than what it looks like for a sleep consultant to gain momentum, to gain traction, to get referrals. I’m always telling those who are enrolled in CPSM and just in my larger community, that really the way that your business grows rapidly is when you can get to the point where other people are talking about your business.
It’s one thing for you to go into a Facebook group and talk about your services. It’s one thing for you to meet with somebody on the phone or Zoom and explain to them what it looks like for you to help them out. But when these people, when these prospective clients are hearing about you from somebody else who had a life-changing experience working with you, that’s really when the momentum clicks. That’s really where the magic happens.
Because then, you’re not going out and hunting for clients. You’re not fishing for business. But business is coming to you. People are coming to you and saying, “I heard about you from so and so. I heard you changed her life. I need this, too. I need this help, too.” That’s when it becomes easy.
For those of you who are listening, maybe some of you are already sleep consultants, and you’re trying to figure out how to get that traction, I think a lot of you who listen to this podcast are not yet sleep consultants, and you’re interested in becoming one. But perhaps, you’re caught up in this idea of, how do I grow my business? How do I find clients? How do I turn this into something where people actually want to work with me? I think really the key to success, in any consulting business — whether it’s home organization, sleep consulting, or anything else — is when you do a really good job, people will start talking about you.
And just like Wendy asked me, she asked me to make a post. She said, “Would you mind sharing about my services in a Facebook group?” She had no shame about that. I think that that’s brilliant. I do that with my clients from time to time.
If we have a really great experience working together, we jive, we get along, the kids start sleeping through the night, and everything goes super well, I have no problem asking them. Would you mind sharing my name with your friends? Would you mind making a post in your favorite Facebook group about it? I think that there’s nothing wrong with that. Asking for the referral is a crucial piece of the puzzle. When other people start talking about you, again, that’s really when the magic happens. I hope that this lights a spark in your brain, gives you ideas for how you might grow your existing business.
Or, for those of you who are listening and don’t yet have one, it gives you hope that you can make this happen for yourself. And you know what? I’m going to take what I learned from this experience with Wendy and make sure that I am regularly implementing this practice in my own business. Because I know that it works. I’ve done it in the past, and I saw the impact that it had for Wendy, my organizer. I’m going to make sure that I’m doing that in my own business, and I hope you guys will, too.
Outro: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast. If you enjoyed today’s episode, it would mean so much to me if you would rate, review, and subscribe. When you rate, review, and subscribe, this helps the podcast reach a greater audience. I am so grateful for your support.
If you would like to learn more about how you can become a certified sleep consultant, head over to my Facebook Group, Becoming a Sleep Consultant or to my website thecpsm.com. Thanks so much, and I hope you will tune in for the next episode.