How to Use Social Proof to Boost Your Speaking Career (Without Faking It)

If you've ever felt invisible as a speaker, like you're great on stage but not getting the referrals, rebookings, or conversions you deserve, this episode is for you.

We're diving into Cialdini’s principle of social proof and how it applies specifically to public and professional speakers. You’ll learn how to use testimonials, case studies, audience reactions, and endorsements to build real trust and credibility—without hype or manipulation.

I also share a strange little story about the time I almost got off the wrong bus… even though I knew it wasn’t my stop. Why? Because everyone else did. It’s a perfect real-world example of how powerful social proof is, and how it influences our behaviour, even when we know better.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• What social proof is and why it matters for speakers
• How to use testimonials and case studies inside your talks to seed future sales
• Why social proof is one of the most effective tools when selling from the stage
• The right (and ethical) way to ask for testimonials and case study permissions
• How to turn LinkedIn referrals and recommendations into your speaking growth engine
• What fake social proof looks like—and how it damages your credibility

Whether you're selling books, coaching, consulting, or just building your speaking brand, social proof can make or break your next opportunity. Let’s make sure it works for you—not against you.

🔔 Subscribe to the show and never miss an episode in this series on Cialdini’s principles of influence, tailored for ethical, high-impact speakers.

📩 Want tools, scripts, and persuasion resources in your inbox? Join the list at www.presentinfluence.com

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Social Proof

00:32 Understanding Social Proof

00:49 A Personal Anecdote on Social Proof

02:00 Leveraging Testimonials and Case Studies

04:20 The Power of LinkedIn for Social Proof

05:11 Best Practices for Gathering Testimonials

06:03 The Importance of Third-Party Introductions

07:29 Incorporating Social Proof in Presentations

09:44 Conclusion and Upcoming Topics

Go to presentinfluence.com to take the Speaker StrengthsFinder Quiz and discover your greatest strengths as a speaker as well as where to focus for growth. For speaking enquiries or to connect with me, you can email [email protected] or find me on LinkedIn

You can find all our clips, episodes and more on the Present Influence YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@PresentInfluence

Thanks for listening, and please give the show a 5* review if you enjoyed it.

Mentioned in this episode:

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New PI mid-roll

Do you want more stage bookings and speaker referrals without being pushy?

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Well, it is time to let other

people start speaking for you.

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Today we are diving into social

proof, and that's gonna be things

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like how to use testimonials and case

studies and referrals to grow your

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influence and to fill your calendar.

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Welcome to Present Influence the show for

professional speakers and communicators

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who want to impact, influence, and inspire

with their talks and presentations.

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My name's John Ball, keynote and

communication coach, and your

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guide on this journey to mastery

level communication skills.

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social proof is when we look

to what others are doing or

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saying to decide how to act.

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It's pretty hardwired.

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Cialdini says this, we view a

behavior as more correct in a

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given situation to the degree that

we see others performing it Now,

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let's keep that as a foundation for

everything else we're gonna talk about.

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But let me tell you how social

proof nearly ruined my day.

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I was on a bus one time going to a place

that I'd been many, many times before.

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In fact, I was going home.

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I knew the route, I knew the stop, and

I was certain I was on the right bus.

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But then at a random stop, everyone

else got off the bus all at once.

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Every single passenger except me.

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The driver and I suddenly thought,

wait, did something change?

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Am I wrong here?

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I actually stood up.

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I was halfway to the door,

and I paused and took a breath

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and thought, no, I know this.

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I'm not wrong here.

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So I sat myself back down and the bus

carried on to my stop, took me home just

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like I expected, but the pull of the

crowd had me doubting myself and nearly

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made me override what I knew to be true.

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So social proof interferes

with our trust mechanisms,

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whether that's good or for bad.

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There is just a certain reality

that we tend to trust more

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credibility from a third party

than from an individual themselves.

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I guess it's the natural bias we have

that people are generally not gonna

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talk themselves down if it's other

people talking about someone else.

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we tend to have a little

more trust in that.

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So there are ways you can

highlight credibility boosters

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that will work on and off stage.

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Things like testimonials, maybe in

your slides, maybe even videos, crowd

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reactions in your speaker reel, These

are all things that can highlight

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your credibility and your expertise.

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As a speaker, you want to have things

like logos of past clients and companies

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that you've worked with, video of you

on their stages if possible as well.

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You can have as seen at or as

heard on if you have books as well.

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More social proof, especially

if you have some reviews of your

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book here's a little pro tip.

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If you are doing sales from the stage,

whether it's a book or a course or

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coaching, try telling a quick success

story or client case study that shows

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transformation, that's social proof,

working in real time, Even if you're

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not selling directly, these stories

will plant the seeds for future

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bookings, follow ups and referrals.

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Social proof doesn't always

just fall into your lap.

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People don't always just offer

up giving you a testimonial.

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Some people will, people who are

in the industry, they know that

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testimonials are beneficial to

you and they may well offer it.

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And you can be one of those people

perhaps to offer it to other people.

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Now if you know Cialdini's

tools of influence, you'll know

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reciprocity is one of them.

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We'll come to that in a later video.

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But with that law of reciprocity, if

you are offering to do testimonials

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and support for someone else, you're

more likely to get that back as well.

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But nearly always, the best

time for action is in the moment

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when things are happening.

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So immediately after a successful

event, you can ask, would you be open

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to giving a short testimonial about

how the session landed for you, or

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what you took away from this talk?

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What you enjoyed and what was the most

valuable for you or for your team today?

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You ideally want to get that on

video, but if you can get that

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in a feedback form or some email

feedback, it's still just as valid.

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But do always make sure to get explicit

permission from those people and

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companies to be able to use that.

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So from an ethical side, if you

are using someone else's words,

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results, photos do make sure that

they've given you the green light.

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I've seen things go very wrong, but

people publishing testimonials from

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clients thinking that would be fine,

then finding out it wasn't fine and the

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client's being incredibly unhappy and

in all honesty, those are the kinds of

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things that can damage otherwise good

and healthy professional relationships.

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LinkedIn is a great

place for social proof.

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It's pretty much exactly

what it's there for.

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Most people, especially when they're

checking out a speaker or checking

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out a coach that they might want

to work with, they're gonna want

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to see your LinkedIn profile.

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That's one of the places that

they might check if people.

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For the people who do a little bit

of digging and homework, they will

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look not just at your website, but

at your LinkedIn profile as well.

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They want to see consistency

congruency, and they want to

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see results there as well.

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Asking your clients attendees to endorse

you in talks, in posts, repurposing

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some testimonials, maybe into carousel

posts or quote graphics or even polls.

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Now you can post up clips from your talks.

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You can tag some of the people who

you know are there Hopefully they'll

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come and comment and say good things.

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You can also add in a referral

CTA, know an event or a company

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that could use this message.

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I'd love a warm intro.

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Now, a bonus tip for using LinkedIn.

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LinkedIn has a built-in

recommendation request system,

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which is written social proof.

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So your referrals on LinkedIn

will be there for pretty much

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forever, as long as you post them

up and, and get them through.

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One thing I'll say with that is.

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Act fast, act quick.

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If you're gonna ask for referrals, because

if several days or weeks or months have

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passed since the event that you are

asking for a referral from, it's far less

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likely that you're going to get that.

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Is the danger to social proof?

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Well, sometimes people

like to inflate their egos.

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They'll use generic or totally

fake testimonials, and that

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will lose your trust much

faster than you'll ever gain it.

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So real testimonials, real specifics,

and that are about you and about specific

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events or talks or workshops, whatever

it is, are gonna be much more meaningful.

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And again, you don't want

these to be super long.

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There is one thing right at the start

of a talk or presentation that's gonna

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matter more than just about anything else.

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When you are coming on the stage,

you do not really want to be the

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person who is introducing you.

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You want somebody else to do that.

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And I have talked about this in other

videos, but I will mention it here

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'cause I think it's incredibly relevant.

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You want to have an introduction written

out in advance and make sure whoever is

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introducing you, has that and keeps it

with them, reads through it, and that they

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use that when they're introducing you.

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And so you will get a proper introduction.

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You won't have to go through all

the hassle or bother of introducing

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yourself and giving yourself

your own credibility boost.

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It's much better out the mouth

of someone else and if they don't

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have any planned to introduce you,

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find out who the event organizer

is and get them to do it.

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So you always want to have

somebody else introducing you.

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If you have an assistant with your

invite and that's the only person

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you can do it, get them to do it.

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But have someone who is not you

introducing you on the stage

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with a pre-prepared introduction.

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You may want to use a similar thing

for podcasts that you might go on as

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a guest, or YouTube shows where you

want to ideally provide them the right

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kind of content or information to use

as an introduction for you so that

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you are not leaving things to chance.

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The important stuff will get said and

you will get your credibility built

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and focused on in the right way.

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So we must curate these things

Practically with social proof.

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You probably will want to include

them in some slides at some point

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if you're gonna using them on there.

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It could just be a short quote.

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It might just be a printout from a social

media comment or something short and

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punchy, , but not huge long testimonials.

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People generally won't read them.

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They'll scan them, and you do not want

all of that on a slide, especially if

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you are still up on the stage talking.

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So short one or two line

testimonials, no more than that.

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But you may actually want to use some

case study stories within your talk and

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presentation to make your points, if

you are working with a structure that

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is very much a sort of problem solution

structure, you are definitely gonna want

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to talk about people that you've worked

with, results that you've had, and not

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from our point of necessarily making

the sales there, but really it kind of

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allows people to have the experience

vicariously through someone else's words,

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and we tend to trust that, again, more

than we would just saying, well, you

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had that experience or you did this.

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It's like, um, what you do for

yourself or your own development.

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Is not really, maybe it should be, but

it isn't as important or influential

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as somebody else's opinion of you.

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So we do tend to override

trust where we assume there

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are gonna be automatic biases.

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And you may even tell a story and then

say, afterwards, that story came from one

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of the clients in my group or program.

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Now if you have book sales maybe pull

some of the blurbs, some of the comments

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and endorsements from your book into

your talk and presentation as well.

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Especially if you have the books and

the room that people, are potentially

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gonna buy, give them the opportunities

to see what other readers are saying.

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Much the same as you know, on Amazon.

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You would hopefully have reviews of your

book, good or bad on Amazon as well.

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I also think with these kind of things,

if you have a really stinky, horrible

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review, sometimes it's good to throw

those in as a bit of humour, as a bit

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of not taking yourself too seriously

and also even a bit of vulnerability.

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Like you're not there to be perfect.

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You may have even seen that thing from

a coffee bell, which is along the lines

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of, um, come and try our coffee, which

one Lady on TripAdvisor says is the

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worst coffee she ever tried in her life.

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It is the kind of thing.

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People will laugh at that and they

say you are not taking it seriously.

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You obviously don't think that your coffee

is the worst coffee ever, but it's jokey

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and it does tend to resonate with people.

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Now, if any of this is helpful, make

sure you hit like and subscribe.

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We are still only at number three

of seven on Cialdini's influence

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principles for speakers in this series.

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next up is gonna be number four, liking.

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And that's gonna be things like being

more likable as a speaker without losing

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authority, without pushing too hard.

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We don't like people who try

too hard to be liked, right?

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But then we still have reciprocity,

consistency and unity to come after that.

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So make sure you are subscribed for the

series and hit the notification bell.

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I'm doing a bit of standup tonight,

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so I will also be bringing you

hopefully some video of that, unless

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it goes really badly, even then

I might just share it with you.

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So if you want to see some of my

standup and also get more of this series

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in Cialdini's influence skills for

professional speakers and communicators,

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make sure you're subscribed hit

the notification bell so you get

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notified when the episodes come out.

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And I'll see you next time.