When it comes to forking over money to you, many people act like proverbial Missourians: hands folded across their chests, they demand "Show me!" You can't always mount a demonstration of your product or service, particularly at a distance. The next best thing: earning their confidence with testimonials.

Also known as third-party endorsements, or blurbs, testimonials boost your credibility because they move you from saying, in effect, "I'm great and you'd better believe it!" to "I'm great and here are real people who say so." They also help you convey elusive qualities about yourself and your business that don't easily come across on paper otherwise.

For maximum clout, testimonials end with a person's full name, his or her title where that's applicable, and either a company name, preferably recognizable, or a city and state. To the extent that you water down or omit any of these ingredients, you weaken a testimonial's power. "J.F., Santa Monica, California" is pretty weak. "J.F., California" is barely worth the ink needed to print it. Please don't give in to the temptation to concoct fake testimonials, which could amount to deceptive advertising.

Many people are under the impression that a testimonial should take the form of a complete, signed letter on a company letterhead. But because you're asking a lot of someone when you request one of these, you'll get many more usable quotes if you simply go after two sentences from each testimonial giver. Here are a few ways to do that.

If you happen to receive a wonderful letter of thanks, find the strongest two sentences to excerpt for your promotional materials. Feel free to combine several phrases and condense the wording, so long as you don't change the essential meaning. Many times the context is missing, and you need to supply it so an outsider understands the praise. If you do much more than change the punctuation, and add or omit little connecting words, get the writer's permission for the changes.

Over the telephone or face to face, whenever someone spontaneously utters quotable praise, grab a pencil or tape recorder, ask, "May I quote you on that?" and scribble it down. One approach that I've seen work well is to say you're collecting success stories from clients and would they like to be included? Putting it that way flatters clients and presents the blurb to them as a compliment rather than a burdensome request.

Or, distribute questionnaires at the time that people receive your product or service. Or send out a customer/client satisfaction survey. Either way, design the questionnaire or survey on a postage-paid card or a fax-back form, keeping it easy for them. Customer/client surveys also serve as a marketing tool by conveying the message that you care about feedback, and reminding people who were especially pleased with your work that they should call on you again. Some may rehire you when they return the survey!

Boston-based marketing and publicity consultant Marcia Yudkin is a syndicated columnist through ParadigmTSA, a public radio commentator and the author of nine books, including Six Steps to Free Publicity and Persuading on Paper: The Complete Guide to Writing Copy that Pulls in Business. She also delivers eye-opening, content-rich seminars on publicity and marketing to business and professional groups nationwide.

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