When it comes to testimonials for our product or service, we assume clients have to get to the end. Or do they? The reality is that it's a mistake to wait until the end because anyway clients aren't giving you a review of the entire product or service, but only a small section. But what structure and system do you follow to get a testimonial—or even to get the client to respond to your request? Let's find out in this episode on pit stop testimonials. Read on the website here: Pit Stop Testimonials -------------------- How do you know if the fruit is ready to be picked? According to monk and philosopher, Matthieu Ricard, here's how you do it. “You reach up to the fruit and touch it. You don’t have to pull and break the branch to get the fruit. You just touch it, and it falls in your hands.” Which is fine when you're dealing with fruit, but what do you do when your course, product, workshop or consulting is still unfinished? One of the most frequent questions I get is one about testimonials And clients ask: How do I get testimonials if my product is new? Or they may make a comment which goes like this: The course I created is so new that no one has completed it yet, so it will be a while before I can get these testimonials done. I have one student who is in part 3 (of 3), so hopefully, she will be ready soon. It's easy to see how you can wait forever to get a testimonial—or do you? Let's take both the situations and deal with them separately. Situation 1: You have a brand new product, course or service Situation 2: The product, service or course is not brand new, but no-one has finished it yet. Situation 1: A brand new product or service When I was young, I'd occasionally get to see a movie before everyone else. Movies were only ever screened in the cinema, and to get to see a movie, days, often a few weeks in advance was a rare treat. However, my father seemed to know people who did these early screenings which got us into the movie theatre in advance. However, there were other people in the same cinema hall. Who were these people, I wondered. My father told me they were movie reviewers. They'd get to see the movie in advance; then they'd critique the movie in their newspaper or magazine columns. Not a lot has changed in terms of advance reviews Movies still run private screenings so that they get reviews as do books, software and pretty much most products you can think of. In most cases, if you have something physical or even digital, someone can go through it and give you a review. You may or may not have a list of clients or subscribers. If you do, you can ask them to review your material. If you don't have the list, you may well be able to ask on social media, in forums, or in your networking group. Some of this review process can start earlier than you'd expect Most of us tend to finish our books, tie up the courses, go through from start to end in a training program. And you don't necessarily have to go to the end. You can get someone—even a friend—to help you while you're still putting that course or book together. They can not only be a source of feedback and information, but they can then give you that testimonial. To give you an example, let's say I was putting a course together on cooking Indian food At this point, if you go to the Psychotactics website, you'll see a recipes page with yummy food photos and recipes, but there's no mention of any recipe book or course. Let's say I wanted to create a course or book. I could invite a friend, or people from my networking group, members from 5000bc, or anyone who was interested. Take my friend, Els Jacobs, for instance. We communicate almost daily through Facebook messenger. And I send her some recipes, and she tries them out and gives me her feedback. Now let's say I wanted to get that book or course going, I could get Els and others like her to be on a sort of beta program where they tested the product and gave their feedback. And here's a question for you: Do you think