An ask worth saying yes to

The account team swears the customer loves the product and would be keen to tell their story. Sounds great.

How do you make that story 'ask' in a meaningful manner?

In the old days, customer reference programs were a series of asks, perhaps with some swag attached. Customer advocacy is a different animal; ongoing, mutual value exchange. There are programs still out there today calling themselves 'advocacy' when they are stuck in the land of 'reference'. Worse, they now have automation to 'see what they can get' out of their customers.

This guide is about understanding what your value proposition is for your advocates, built before the first ask is ever made.

You are asking a person to lend you their reputation. Not their company's; theirs. Their name, their judgement, their standing with colleagues who will read the story and remember it. And you are asking them to lend it to an organisation that has its own reputation.

Nobody lends something that valuable in exchange for a deadline or a branded cap. They lend it as part of a mutually beneficial relationship. The programs that recruit effortlessly are not the ones with the most charming emails; they are the ones that worked out, in advance, what they had to offer.

Ask enough people to lend you their reputation and the reasons they say yes stop looking random. I believe there are just four and I call this methodology SANE.

Status. Access. Networking. Education.

Status. Within their org, within the community, within your program. They have achieved something to be proud of, so talking about it brings kudos with their colleagues (also helps cross-sell), improves their community visibility, and perhaps they get appointed as an MVP in your program, which could mean a shout out from an exec, an award, VIP conference seating, invitation to a small group, a special title etc. Give them something they will show at review time, because they will.

Access. Advocates get closer than other customers do: time with your product people (valuable feedback), sight of the roadmap, an executive who might take their call. For somebody who publicly trusts part of their stack to your product, that proximity is worth more than any points you could award them. Offer it deliberately: a roadmap session, an advisory seat, a webinar, a named door that opens.

Networking. Peers. Introductions, a speaking slot, a room of people with the same job title and the same problems. This is where the magic happens; these relationships are super-valuable for all concerned. Make the introductions, propose the panel, connect them to the peer at another brand who solved the next problem on their list, or wants to solve that problem.

Education. They learn things they could not easily buy, they develop their career. Focused product training, technical certification, personal training (speaker training for example), access to benchmarks, early sight of what is coming. The more knowledgeable and articulate the advocate is, the more we all win.

What I've found is that, while all this sounds like a lot, it's not only good business practice; most companies already have everything they need. Just about all of this will be happening already, but in silos, and no-one has taken the time to deal with the politics, put everything in a value-prop box and give the box a name.

Create four columns in a spreadsheet: Status, Access, Networking and Education, then add everything your org already does: CABs, events, webinars, training, beta, speaking, peer-to-peer, tiered program levels etc. The gap is smaller than you think.

Some folks like to insist that SANE should be SANER; adding Rewards.

Gift cards, discounts and points cheapen the ask. Worse, undeclared they fall foul of disclosure rules in most markets (the FTC endorsement guides in the US, the CAP code in the UK), which is the last thing you want anywhere near a story that trades on recommendation, freely given. In twenty-five years I have not seen a payment turn a no into a yes worth having.

Lead with any of the first four letters and the R is rarely needed. Delighting an advocate with unanticipated, human, relationship-based things that happen organically? That's a different thing.

The program-level offer gets you in the door. The person-level offer gets you the yes, and it comes from one question:

"What would you like to get out of this?"

I'm always a little surprised by how rarely this question is asked. It works on a company level too. Every individual and company has aims; if theirs can align with yours then happy days, and everything becomes more powerful.

Whatever the value proposition, one sentence belongs at the front of every ask:

"Nothing goes out without you. You will see and approve every word."

No advocacy terms in any contract survive an unhappy customer asking for their content to be pulled. They have control, in perpetuity, end of.

Who asks. The person with the relationship. It might be you, it might be sales, it might be client success. Ensure whoever asks has everything they need, make it simple, and get it off their desk at the earliest opportunity.

When. The best stories happen when there is a story to tell, after the dip of implementation. Interesting stories, with results, take time. YET, getting buy-in can happen earlier, at a moment of pride. A go-live, a result landing, a win mentioned in a QBR. The ask that arrives while the achievement is still warm is answering a need they already have; the ask that arrives at your campaign or event deadline is asking them to solve your problem.

What it sounds like. It's about the opportunity and value for them. Even better, it's specific and relevant rather than generic. The value, the control promise, the process commitment, the 'let's do it' CTA.

If you get a 'no' (you might not get any response) sometimes the stated reason is real, often it's the polite front for something else: perceived hassle, company policies, fear of exposure, numbers they are not happy putting their name to, a reorganisation.

Offer to soften what frightens them; the story without the number is still a story. Offer other activities (a sales call, for example) then leave the door open. A no in March could easily be a yes in September.

Deliver what you promised, visibly. Send the published page, make the introduction, book the roadmap session. Stay in touch, and remember that the advocate is working on your company's behalf whether you see it or not, potentially impacting $Ms of revenue. Not to mention that the second story from a happy advocate is the cheapest asset your program will ever produce; and it is the decent thing to do anyway, which turns out, as usual, to be the same answer.

And when the yes lands, the next place stories die is the review. That part has its own guide: Approved in days, not months.

Should we compensate customers that take part in case studies? No. Payments cheapen the ask and make the story semi-worthless. Offer Status, Access, Networking or Education instead; if you want to say thank you, do it after the yes and never as the reason for it.

Who should ask a customer to be an advocate? The person with the strongest relationship, usually the account manager or customer success lead, ideally relaying a specific, prepared ask. Then take the ongoing tasks off their plate.

When is the best time to ask a customer for a story? At a moment of pride: a successful go-live, a strong result, a win they mentioned in a business review. The advocate is already looking for somewhere to tell that story; a vendor deadline, by contrast, is your problem arriving in their inbox.

When is the best time to create a customer story? When there is a story to tell! Not at the signing of the deal, perhaps over a year later in some cases. Real stories have a journey.