Can you please tell me how great I am, how much you love the work I do, and how wonderful it is to hire me? That’s awkward, to say the least. But when you try to get testimonials for marketing, it can feel very awkward indeed. Done right, though, testimonials flow naturally. Take, for example, an email survey I just received from a zip-line company. The kids and I took my husband on a zip-line canopy tour to celebrate Father’s Day. We had a grand time, and loved to rave about it. We even posted pictures on our Facebook page as soon as we arrived home. A day after the trip, I received an email from the company requesting feedback. Normally, I just trash those surveys. This time I clicked the link and filled the survey out right away. I wanted to let them know I had an excellent experience (note that the same also holds true–if people have a bad experience, they also like to rant!) Each question on the survey had a spot for an open-ended comment where I could further elaborate on the experience. A quick checkbox asking for permission to use the quote and an option to give my name is the only thing they needed to turn a survey comment into a testimonial. Two minutes after completing the survey, I received another email thanking me for my feedback along with a direct link to Tripadvisor–just in case I wanted to spread the love on the web. That’s a powerful way to get social credibility. I bet you are already receiving unsolicited positive feedback. You can increase the amount of feedback you get by giving your clients an easy way to report back to you after they have experienced your work. Then remember to use that feedback for improving your service and for marketing. Want more ideas on painlessly capturing testimonials? Check out Leslie Nolen’s master class on getting great testimonials. That way you can avoid the awkwardness of saying, “tell me I’m great!”