MBA2495 Q&A Wednesday: How do I get my first few non-paying clients just to get testimonials?

0:09Heyo, welcome to the$100 MBA show, the place to be to build a business you want with our practical business lessons. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zinhome. And today's episode is Q &A Wednesday, where we answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you've got a question you want to ask, go ahead and email me over at omar at 100mba.net. Today's question is from Sammy. And Sammy asks, how do I get my first non-paying clients just to get testimonials? Now, I know Sammy. He's a friend of mine. And he sent in this question. And it's such a great question because when you're starting out, you need case studies, you need testimonials, you need work that you can show to say, hey, I can do this work.

0:51I can do this job. I'm worth the money. So Sammy says, I haven't got any sales yet for my digital marketing agency, and I'm doing free social media for a couple of friends for recommendations slash testimonials. I offered free website and social media via an email, but no one took me up. Any ideas? Again, this is such a solid question, and I know Sammy's a very smart guy, so he's going to figure this out, but maybe it can help them out a little bit. A lot of people say the hardest client to get is your first client, but I'm here to tell you in order to get your first client, you need to get your first work.

1:23And sometimes you're going to have to do that work for free so that you can get a testimony, like I mentioned, and show that you are capable of amazing work. I'm going to share with you a different technique to get those free testimonials, to get those case studies, but also how to do it, how to actually approach these people that you want to get these testimonials from in exchange for free work and how to get it done quickly so you can start getting paid clients. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Most people, when they want to maybe do a bit of work or consulting so they can get a testimonial exchange, they ask people, they say, hey, I'm getting my business started.

2:04I would love to do XYZ for you. In exchange, can you give me a testimonial? And this is a very honest way to do it and makes total sense, right? Ask people, hey, I got a no-brainer deal for you here. All I'm going to do work for free. All you got to do is give me a testimonial. But here's a rule in life and in business. Anything that's easy to say yes to is also easy to say no to. The opposite is also true, by the way. Anything that's hard to say yes to, it's also very hard to say no to for the right person. But that's another episode. So by asking somebody, hey, can I do some work for you for free, you're making it very easy for them to say no, to say, that's okay.

2:41I'm okay for now. Appreciate it. I'll let you know in the future. All those pleasantries, right? Your job as a business person, which is also a salesperson, is to make it easy for people to say yes. What would make it easy for somebody to say yes to something? Anything. And it's very simple. Proof. Proof that you're not going to waste their time. Proof that it's going to be even worth their time to write a testimonial proof that this is an amazing deal that they're going to regret not saying yes to. So how do you show them proof? Well, you don't ask them if you can do the work. You just do the work.

3:19Now, the reason why this works is twofold. The first reason is that nobody does this. Nobody actually does the work knowing that there's a good chance that they'll get rejected or get nothing in return. It's high risk, low reward. This is why nobody does it. And that's why it works because there's no competition, right? And it's so unique. The second reason, the more important reason why this works is because when you present to them whatever you're offering, so in Sammy's situation, improving their social media, creating a website for them, just create the reels, create the posts, create a simple website and give it to them.

3:59By doing this, they see what you're offering with their own eyes. They see this amazing website. They see some really creative reels. And by just gifting it to them and say, hey, this is for you. If you like it, if you think this is cool, if you find it useful in your business, if you'd like to post it, then it'd be awesome if you can just send me a voice note or write me a message with a testimonial. Or if you really want to be super generous, shoot me a quick one minute video. There's a couple things that go on in this situation. Number one, they're actually quite surprised that you did the work and just gave it to them for free.

4:38So the law of reciprocity kicks in where they feel like, oh, I actually feel embarrassed. I should at least send in a testimonial. So the conversion rate of this is quite high. Second, you have done the work already so that when they give you the testimonial, whether it's an audio testimonial, a written one, a video, and you post it on your website, You can also post the work. So you can say, here's our work. We worked on this project. We've improved their social media posts and their reels, and we created a new website for them to get them started. Here are some of the pages, and this is what the client has said.

5:12So you're all ready to go now since the work is created. And most of the time, this is actually quite easy to do because a lot of people, they have public information out there that you can use to improve upon. So you could just download one of their videos on Instagram, use one of the apps you could find online, just Google it, or you can modify one of their images and make it a better post. Basically, you're taking existing posts and reels, approving upon it, making it like way better and saying, how about post this instead? See how it does. Now, here's the kicker. You've got to be willing to do work and get no reward in return because there will be people that will ignore you.

5:53But business is a numbers game. You have to just do the reps. So say, for example, you want 5K studies, then you should at least go for 20 free work projects. One out of four people are going to be able to give you a testimonial, actually reply to you, not ignore you, appreciate the work that you've done. This is hard work, I know, and it's going to take some time, but it's more in your control. You can do the 20 pieces of work, to 20 projects and go and just give it to the people that you know, ask for the testimonial. And then once they give you the testimonial, you can ask for a reference, a referral.

6:32Hey, who do you know that would like to work with me, would need these services, would benefit from some of the things I've done? This is an old tactic in sales, by the way. I actually learned this from my father who was a car salesman for two decades. Your words matter. There's a difference between saying, do you know anybody? And who do you know? Who do you know makes them start thinking, okay, I know this person, I know this person. So who do you know that could benefit from the work I do? Two or three people would be great. Even if they give you one person, now you got your first paying client.

7:06You get five people to give you one person, some of them will give you two, you got a minimum of five new paying clients. So you're investing right now to get these clients with no upfront cost other than your time. But all you got is time because you got no customers. So it's worth it. Now, if you know these people personally that you're reaching out to give the work, you're not offering any work, you're giving them the work completed and asking for a testimonial if they find it useful, if they like it, don't do an email campaign to everybody. Don't be informal. Get as personal as possible. If you can speak to them in person, do it in person.

7:47It's more authentic, it's more genuine, and it's harder for them to say no in person. If you can't do it in person, do it over the phone. If you can't do it over the phone, send them a personal text message. If you can't do a text message, send them a WhatsApp. Can't send them a WhatsApp, send them an email. But a personal one-on-one email, not a blanket email campaign slash newsletter to everybody at once. When you're starting out, you have to do the things that don't scale so that you can build out your business and start getting clients. Again, you have time on your side, so you can do these things that don't scale.

8:21And then you can figure out how to scale when it's time to grow, do things that do scale when it's time to grow, when you have so many clients you don't know what to do. But right now, you're trying to get your first client to do these things that don't scale. Get personal. Talk to them. And when you're talking to them, make sure you spend 80 % of the time talking about the benefits that they're going to get. What are they going to get? What's in it for them? If you created new social media posts, improved versions of their social media posts, then give it to them and say, hey, these posts that I just created for you, again, you've already created them, are designed for more engagement, for more comments and more reach.

8:59Give them a try. See if they do better than the current posts. And if they do, let me know in a testimonial. Thanks so much. If you want to be exceptional, if you want exceptional results, you're going to have to do exceptional things. You got to do things that people are not willing to do that are fine and legal, but are just a lot of work. Just like pushing a boulder. If you ever grew up in a climate where there was snow and you're sitting on your sled, you got to kind of give your sled a push so it can go down the hill. You got to kind of give it a start. It's a little bit of effort you got to give.

9:32It's not just going to go by itself because when you're standing or you're sitting on your sled, you're in a standstill. There's no momentum. So in the beginning of your business, it's the same way. You got to just give yourself a push. You got to make some effort first. So there's some momentum. And then once you make that effort, you make that investment, it pays back dividends because you get your first and second and third and fourth and fifth client, like I mentioned, when you ask for that referral. Again, who do you know that could benefit from what I just did for you? Thanks so much for listening to The$100 MBA Show.

10:06And thanks, Amy, for your question. I miss you, bud. Hope it was helpful. I wish you all the best in your new business and the adventure ahead. If you've got a question you want to ask, go ahead and email me over at omar at 100mba.net. I'll make sure to answer it right here on Q &A Wednesday. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Back in 2012, I started a business consulting agency, and part of our services was creating branding logos websites. In order for me to get traction, to get my first clients, I actually lost money. I actually lost money. I remember one time I agreed to create somebody a logo for$75.

10:45I was starting out. I needed the money, but I also needed the experience, and I needed that portfolio work. I was living in Lower Manhattan that time, and I had to go to Brooklyn to meet the person in person. They wanted me to meet me at a cafe to discuss his ambitions for his$75 logo. It was the middle of winter. It was freezing cold. I took the train to go see him. It cost me about$3 to get to Brooklyn. But then a storm came in after I met with the client. I missed the last train before they closed the trains because of the storm was so bad. It was getting dark. It was so numbingly cold. I had no choice but to get a cab.

11:23And the cab from Brooklyn back to Manhattan cost me more than$75. If you don't have war stories like that in your past, you're not working hard enough. You're not trying hard enough. It's those stories that make me so proud of my journey because I know I've earned my stripes. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in the next episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

11:52Thank you.