Don't Have Any Clients But Need Customer Testimonials? Follow These 3 Tricks To Boost Your Rep. This classic entrepreneurial paradox can be easily solved by following these three proven strategies.
By Terry Rice Edited by Mark Klekas
If you're looking to land clients or business opportunities, client testimonials are critical to your success. They're the key to building trust, removing doubt and increasing your chances of getting a "yes" from a prospect.
Unfortunately, when you first pursue a new career direction, you won't have any clients to provide these testimonials.
Related: 5 Strategies for How to Make Customers Trust Your Brand
And you know how it goes: You can't get clients because you don't have testimonials, and you can't get testimonials because you don't have clients.
How do you break the cycle? Here are three ways to land solid testimonials, even if you don't have any clients yet. And more importantly, I'll show you how to do it ethically.
Ask previous coworkers
You don't have clients yet, but you have years of experience and deserve recognition for it. Fortunately, your previous coworkers can attest to the quality of your work. Ask them for a testimonial about what it was like working with you.
But don't stop there; ask them to mention a specific project or client you worked on. The more details about tangible outcomes you delivered, the better. This way, instead of them just saying you were a "great coworker," they can state what you specifically did that makes you so great. Additionally, the more specific they get into the testimonial, the more real it will sound to prospective clients. We've all read super generic reviews that don't add much value to a site or brand. Get them to say something unique about you that no one else has.
Related: How to Give Feedback Without Hurting Anyone's Feelings
The best way to get started is by sending over a few ideas about which specific talking points you would like them to mention. This can be extremely valuable if you'd like them to mention data points or any other details that may not immediately come to mind.
Here's an example that can be used as a sort of template:
"Hey Mike,
As you may know, I've recently started a marketing consulting business. I'm wondering if you'd feel comfortable sharing feedback on your experience working with me in the past. One specific project that comes to mind is the Gotham account. If you'll recall, I was responsible for the following:
- Exceeded client revenue expectations by 48%
- Personally vetted and hired graphic designers who provided materials five days faster than the previous provider
- Discovered and implemented a campaign management tool that saved us eight hours per week
Would you be ok with summarizing the work I performed, the associated impact and what it was like partnering with me?"
Of course, you should tweak this based on your unique experiences, but this will get you off to a good start.
Lead a free event
Webinars and other speaking events are the perfect venues for you to provide value to your target audience. But they are also a great opportunity for you to get testimonials to help boost your brand and credibility.
Related: 6 Ways To Increase Your Brand's Online Credibility
At the end of your event, ask each attendee to fill out your feedback form. I usually put a link, or QR code up on the screen to make it easy. Also, I'll offer a freebie — sometimes, it's just a copy of my presentation — to increase the number of responses.
Here are a few questions for you to consider in your feedback form. I use a tool called Opinion Stage to collect this feedback. It's easy to customize, and you can automatically add those hot leads to your customer relationship management platform and have them schedule a sales call.
Would you be interested in attending another session led by me? — This question is extremely important if you deliver content on another organization's behalf. If a sufficient number of people say "yes," you now have data that shows why they should bring you back for another event.
Did you learn something that you'll consider implementing for your business? — Outside of helping you improve your content, these responses will prime people to consider working with you.
Are you interested in discovering how we can partner together? — As you can imagine, this question is extremely important! Anyone who says "yes" should be considered a hot lead for you to follow up with immediately.
Once you get this feedback, and follow up on your leads, reach out to other attendees who provided glowing feedback and ask them to share their response as a testimonial.
To get started, develop a speaking topic that solves a critical problem for your audience. Then, lead a webinar based on that topic. Want to grow even quicker? Partner with organizations that would be interested in you delivering your message to their audience. For example, chambers of commerce or relevant industry associations.
Do a quick volunteer project
I get it, nobody wants to work for free. But you may not be able to work at all if you don't build up your credibility. You can quickly gain credibility and experience by volunteering to do a quick project related to your area of expertise.
To make the most of your experience, focus on volunteering for companies or individuals that are aligned with your target audience. This way you'll gain more practical experience and have an extremely relevant example of how you can help future clients.
Related: How to Showcase Your Expertise and Become a Thought Leader
Once you're done with the project, ask for a testimonial. My favorite tool for collecting testimonials is testimonials.to. They make it extremely easy by allowing you to share one link that provides the prompts and platform needed for you to collect and share these testimonials. You can see it in action by visiting the testimonials page for one of my courses.
Again, make it as easy as possible for the other person by providing a few talking points for them to consider including in their testimonial.
Next steps
Determine which path to getting testimonials is best based on your experience and interest.
And look, I know it may feel uncomfortable asking for a testimonial, but not having them can block your revenue growth. So here's something to remember: If you ask, the answer will be yes or no. If you don't ask, the answer will always be no.
So if you're ready to eliminate this revenue roadblock, get started today.
And let me know how it's going for you! Follow me on LinkedIn and Instagram to share your results.
Heads up: This post may contain affiliate links that, at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission. Fortunately, as you can see, I only recommend products I actively use.
