Hi, Mel here,
Today’s episode is all about testimonials. But just before we get into it… we’re incredibly excited about this 👇
We’re doing a Marketing Meetup webinar with Michelle L P Boland all about how to grow your marketing freelance / consultancy business in 2025. Doing a TMM webinar is major #Goals so please help us make it a success by coming along! 😄
We’ll talk all about how we’ve each built our businesses and give allll the indie business intel and tips. It’s not until 17th June but you can sign up here to get it in your calendar :)
Testimonials
Now. Onto the episode. It’s all about testimonials, which seem to be a sore point for lots of people.
Do you…
ask for them?
get them?
use them?
Full disclosure, we’re not exactly great at asking clients for them. This is one of our “do as we say, not as we do” situations..! It sometimes feels a bit icky. And then time just dribbles by and before you know it, two years have gone by. Bit late by then.
I asked people’s opinions on LinkedIn and got some great tips. Several people noted how it’s useful to be ultra specific about what you’re asking for. So if you want to highlight your organisation skills / communication / professionalism / slick onboarding process etc. (delete as appropriate) then tell your client that when you ask for a testimonial.
Others try and grab natural comments as they go along, like this gloryboard from Adrian Elton:
There’s a similar “Wall of Remembrance” on the Copy Or Die homepage (scroll down a bit to see it) thanks to a plug-in called testimonial.to (I think we might have said i o on the episode sorryyyyy).
Voicenoted
Luckily, we have the Peter Pan of graphic design Dave Officer as today’s voicenoter to give us a steer. He made us ponder why it feels gross to ask for testimonials and talks about how he approaches asking for them. It was an epic feature-length voicenote, so we’ve had our sound guy (and sound guy) Ant weave Dave in and out of the whole episode.
Your friends and mine
The YFAMs from this episode are everyone we mention in this episode!
Gemma Strang, Jodie Newman, Leigh James, Jo Shock, Stacey Eleczko (who has a great article on the topic, here), Eddie Shleyner, Dave Harland (again!), Adrian Elton, Amy Hawthorne, Jeremy Freeman, Gemma Champ, Lou Major, Erin Buck, Samantha Harman and Ruth Sedar.
We didn’t have time to cover everyone’s testimonials tips so we will revisit the topic in future. Email us on show@indiebusinessclub.com if you have any comments and we’ll try and include them in our testies part two.
One last wang
Okay, it probably won’t be the absolute last time I wang on about this but we’re so proud of our live episode. We’d love you to listen to it if you haven’t already. We had a jolly old time making it, as you can see. Please give it a listen 😉 Thanks again to Mark Masters and the team at FOUNDRY Poole.
And one last ask
While we’re on the topic of asking for testimonials, can you leave us one please? 🙏 You email us (show@indiebusinessclub.com) or leave one on our individual LinkedIn pages here for Mel and here for Ben. Or you can leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. Thank yooou!
Cheers,
Mel & Ben
Find our producer, theme composer and apprentice roofer Ant Henderson on LinkedIn and you can watch older episodes of the show on YouTube here.
If you enjoy the show, you can chip in on our production costs with a £3 contribution at ko-fi.com/indiebusinessclub please and thank you 💖
🎙️ Spotify / Apple podcasts / Amazon Music and Audible
The back catalogue
24 Let’s Go Surfing: Live Q&A episode at Creator Day 2025
23 Separated by Motorways: working with friends
22 Bloc Party: celebrating wins
21 Got Your Money: pricing your work
20 Joy Division: work/life balance
19 Daytripper: conferences part deux
18 The Day We Caught The Train: conferences ft Nick Crawford and Lorna Smart
17 Hanging On The Telephone: ghosting ft Will Slater and Heather Pownall
16 Heart Shaped Box: niching ft Ayo Abbas and Raymond Manzor
15 The Masterplan: goal setting ft Janine Coombes and friends
b-side Word of the year
b-side LinkedIn revisited
14 Handbags and Gladrags: Industry Awards ft Charles Commins and Fab Giovannetti
13 You’re The Voice: Tone Of Voice ft Nick Parker, Rishi Dastidar and Amy Nolan
12 Plug In Baby: Software ft Jo Shock and Jack Chambers-Ward
11 Somebody Told Me: Referrals ft Bob Burg and Penni and Jo Pickering
10 Paranoid Android: AI vs creativity ft Tom Albrighton and Molly Scanlan
09 Shiny Happy People: Personal brands ft Lea Turner and Steve Folland
08 Chasing Rainbows: Business planning ft. Alastair Thomson and Melanie Johnson
07 A Design For Life: Creating for yourself with guest co-host Dan Nelken ft. Penny Brazier and The McKinneys
06 I Bet You Look Good On The Timeline ft. Dave Harland and Jonathan Wilcock
05 Flaming Lips: Public Speaking ft. Pascalle Bergmans, Becki Wilson and Nikki Pilkington
04 A Little Respect: Client Relationships ft. Jodie Newman and Sophie Cross
03 All Together Now: Communities ft. Mark Masters and Ant Henderson
02 It’s Oh So Quiet: Finding Clients ft. John Lyons and Bonnie Harrington
01 Fools Gold: Pricing your projects ft. Tom Garfield and Ange Lyons
00 What’s The Story? Podcast origins
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