Composed in Nashville, Tennessee-

You are aware that compliments about you and your business make you feel good.  But these types of compliments also make your customers and prospects feel good.

Endorsements and third-party testimonials are vital to business growth.  In the old days, a person asked a satisfied customer to send a letter of recommendation.  Then, the letter had to be properly typeset, keylined and reproduced so other folks could see it. 

Today there are three easy ways to use testimonials.  You should be using them all.

First, you can have someone post a recommendation to the Internet on a site such as Linkedin.  You can ask the person to revise what they write, but I recommend not trying to micromanage the process.  Instead, work on collecting dozens of testimonials. 

Here's a recommendation that someone posted for me a while back.

"Michael Angelo was one of the speakers at the Motor City Connect conference. His practical advice about business development really resonated with me. I look forward to utilizing many of his suggested techniques."   Val Main, Client Service Director, Resources Global Professionals, Detroit, Michigan via Linkedin

The second thing you can do with recommendations is copy-and-paste them to other Web sites.  My Linkedin network consists of several hundred connections, but my Facebook page has several thousand connections.  So, I often re-post the testimonial where more people will see it.

Finally, you can paste a recommendation into your e-mail signature file.  I usually add it as post script or P.S. and introduce the testimonial as my favorite compliment of the week. 

Don't be shy about promoting your business, especially now that it's easier than ever to do so.