Testimonial Structure

Consulting behemoth BCG offer up testimonials on their website. They are unfortunately shorn of any real punch or memorability. Nevertheless, the structure they employ piqued my interest.

When I regale glowing references, I like to lather the full story on nice and thick. The crises, the conflict and the championship champagne.

They cut their success pies by four slices;

1. starting point
2. value levers
3. insight & advice
4. impact

The first is self explanatory. I always encourage wallowing in the depths of despair here. A gripping description of the ‘before’ picture does well to have a suitably imminent doomsday scenario rapidly approaching.

In typically impenetrable consultaspeak, they then mention value levers. Rather than struggle with the intricacies such babble shrouds, think of this part as what was changed.

Then there’s the tweaks, iterations and overall lessons learned.

Before we finally make the strike right between the eyes. With an unavoidably significant amount of money unleashed for good measure as your parting shot.

As an extra aside, if you are presenting these and there is some physical impact of your product, can you produce an image? One that allows a pictorial depiction of a before and after state? If not, next time you sell, take a few photos of your client’s environment. Then remember to go along and take some more when your wares have changed things.