A “do as I say, not as I do” topic for me is collecting client feedback. I always wait too long, and then it feels like doing me a favour.
When you’ve just completed a project and done a great job, when you can hear the gratitude in the voice of your client. Or you’ve basking in the glow of your shared success in a job well done, THAT IS THE TIME.
Or maybe a week after.
LinkedIn makes it easy these days to request a reference, although it’s also easy to ignore. Try to follow up on those requests or send your contact a few questions on your own via email to prompt what you would like feedback on.
One way to get a potential referee interested is to offer to reciprocate the reference.
Of course, only do this if you can think of nice things to say. As an independent, I often notice that colleagues in full-time roles don’t think they need a reference as much. But once they’re nudged, they will usually see the benefit.
Ask specific questions to help get more productive statements out of your referee.
For example, “how did my work make your business stronger” might be better than just “how did you like my work”. Or “which of my skills did you appreciate most incorporating into the project?”. Sometimes I reverse engineer past testimonials by looking at my favourites and thinking about what questions would lead to similar descriptions.
Once you have the testimonial or feedback, feel free to share it other places. I copy testimonials from LinkedIn onto my website, of course clearly linking to the original post with the link text “see it on LinkedIn”.
I also share these blog posts on LinkedIn – visit https://www.linkedin.com/in/sbowness/ to connect with me there. Or hire me to write blog posts for you!
