I'm a data analyst and cartoonist who was comfortable with computers, but struggled with people and communication. My work now focuses on helping people develop communication skills for career development and personal living.
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Philip's Newsletter: Are personality tests of any use and how you can get better testimonials
Published 11 months ago • 3 min read
Philip’s Newsletter
In this newsletter:
Are personality tests of any use?
Favorite cartooning video of the week
How you can get better testimonials
What can this personality test reveal about you?
Are personality tests of any use?
My verdict: Most aren’t.
But I found one that has worked as a golden compass for my life: the VIA Character Strengths.
There was a time in my life when I seemed to take every personality test I found. I was unhappy in my career and on an epic journey to try to understand why and what to do about it.
I’ll save you time and money… I found very little helpful with most of them.
The reason?
Most were simply descriptive, not prescriptive. (They described traits, they didn’t prescribe what to do with them.)
For example, the Meyers-Briggs explained in general terms why I was drawn to certain types of people and careers, but no specifics for how to improve my life.
However, I found one notable exception that came out of Positive Psychology research called VIA Character Strengths. In case you don’t know, Positive Psychology focuses on helping people flourish through positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment.
And character strengths is one of the foundations of positive psychology coaching.
Taking the test is free and gives your top 5 character strengths. But there’s nothing special about that.
What’s special?
VIA Character Strengths gives you actionable steps on using your strengths daily to create a more fulfilling life. Plus, how you can contribute to the world in a way meaningful to you.
For example, my strengths were love of learning, humor, creativity, appreciation of beauty and excellence, and curiosity.
Whenever I feel bored or frustrated with life for no apparent reason, I can usually trace it back to not giving time to my signature strengths. And I can remedy my boredom with specific actions the VIA strengths report suggests:
Learning something new to engage love of learning and curiosity (YouTube always open).
Watching a comedian for 5 minutes to engage humor.
Drawing to engage creativity (I can draw a cartoon).
Taking a walk in nature to engage appreciation of beauty and excellence.
And it gives lists of other simple activities that align with my strengths.
5 minutes and I’m reengaged.
And if you have different strengths, your lists will be customized to those.
The bottom line
As with everything, VIA Character Strengths may or may not help you as much as it has me. But it’s free to try.
Most testimonials are weak and not very convincing. Yours don’t have to be.
💪 You can have powerful Reverse Testimonials by asking your customers 3 simple questions:
What was the obstacle that would have prevented you from buying this product/service?
What did you find as a result of buying this product/service?
Would you recommend this product/service? If so, why?
Why it matters
If you’ve ever sat down to write and froze as you stared at the blank page, you know the feeling customers go through when writing testimonials.
And that’s how you end up with testimonials like “it was a great product,” “worth the money”, and other sugary platitudes.
You can change that by asking satisfied customers those 3 specific questions.
By asking…
You take control of the sales process with testimonials that handle specific objections and talk about specific results… all in the customer’s language.
You help customers overcome the blank page and write the testimonial while they get to share results they’re proud of.
You get to see the change you’re creating while getting deeper insights into your product or service and the results customers achieve.
The backstory
Reverse Testimonial is a term created by Sean D’Souza of Psychotactics.
Reverse because they start out with why a customer WOULDN’T buy.
I read about them in his book The Secret Life of Testimonials. Honestly, I never thought much about testimonials beyond people saying we need them.
But Sean makes a strong case for Reverse Testimonials:
They help you find your ideal customers and reduce problem customers. The language people use will resonate with your ideal customers.
You get to outsource some of your writing for free.
Long, powerful testimonials help new businesses build authority and trust quickly.
After learning about Reverse Testimonials, I can’t stop noticing the weak, unconvincing testimonials on a lot of websites. Plus, how that space could be used to sell with better testimonials.
Go deeper
If you want…
3 more questions in addition to the 3 above to ask your customer…
Receive paragraph-to-page-long testimonials…
Lots of real-world examples on how to structure and use testimonials…
Tips and tricks on interacting with customers to ensure the best testimonials possible…
Get The Secret Life of Testimonials by Sean D’Souza at Psychotactics.
I'm a data analyst and cartoonist who was comfortable with computers, but struggled with people and communication. My work now focuses on helping people develop communication skills for career development and personal living.
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