Every client says yes to a testimonial. Then nothing lands. I run a content retainer in Bengaluru, four clients, and I've asked all four to say something on record. I got one voice note and a lot of "let me get back to you". I don't think it's laziness. I think by the time the work is showing results, the person who hired me has moved on or the approval chain got long. What's actually worked for you? I'm trying to fix my onboarding so the ask happens earlier, before everyone forgets why they signed.
Clients won't give testimonials until the retainer is over
What a useful answer should help achieve
A way to get testimonials at the point in the client relationship when they will actually say yes, that they can build into onboarding.
Already tried
Asked every client for a testimonial at the end of each engagement and got one voice note out of four.
Constraints and unknowns
Solo operator with manual onboarding — no team to chase approvals, no CRM, just a Notion doc and WhatsApp.
Content Strategist · retainer consulting · Early Revenue · This snapshot stays with the question when the author updates their profile.1 reply
Audience: Public. Replies follow this audience.
0Georgie MarsdenBusiness Consultant · Independent ConsultantsAustralia·Early Revenue·25m ago
Curious — do you have a good one from any client, or are you really at zero? Because if you have one that works, you build from the single case and ignore the others for now. That's what I'd do with four clients.
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