Episode 4: How to Make Strangers Say ‘Yes!’ with Social Proof
Show Notes:
In this episode of The Table, we explore the power of social proof—how reviews and testimonials can be your most valuable marketing asset. While many entrepreneurs gather reviews, they often underestimate the impact these can have on building trust and influencing buying decisions. We dive into the psychology behind why social proof works, common pitfalls, and how to leverage your existing client feedback strategically to attract and convert your ideal audience.
This episode is designed specifically for experienced service-based entrepreneurs who are looking to step beyond the basics of marketing. If you want to evolve your messaging, amplify your impact, and unlock new growth in your business, this conversation will provide actionable insights and practical tactics to use your social proof like a pro.
In this episode, we walk through how to:
Understand the deep psychology behind social proof and why it impacts buying decisions.
Identify common mistakes entrepreneurs make around collecting and using reviews.
Learn legal guidelines and automation tools for gathering testimonials effectively.
Discover creative ways to showcase social proof across your marketing channels to build confidence and momentum.
Resources Mentioned:
Authentic testimonials request template for inspiration (I mean, hey feel free to leave me some feedback there, too!)
Blog: From Browsers to Buyers: How Customer Reviews Boost Conversions
Thanks for pulling up a chair with me today. See you next time—I’ll make sure to save you a seat.
Transcript:
What's the first thing you do before buying something online? You check the reviews, right? Even if it's something kind of silly like a banana slicer with a thousand five-star ratings, it can make all the difference between, eh, do I really need this? And, oh my god, take my money. Even if your logical brain says no, your human brain says, but if it worked for them, that is social proof at work. It's not just a tactic, it's trust. It's our brain looking for safety in the choices of others. And it matters a lot more than most small businesses realize.
Hey, I'm Dani Hanneberger, strategic advisor, founder of Mise en Plan, and your host here at the table. I work with experienced founders who are navigating that in between, evolving offers, shifting strategies, and the messaging that doesn't quite match where we're headed. This podcast is where we talk about the real stuff, that marketing that feels clear, strategy that actually fits, and what no one tells you about running a business when you're not new anymore, but you're also not done evolving. So pull up a chair, let's talk about what's really going on with reviews and testimonials, and how they actually function in your marketing, and how you can use what you already have to build more trust and convert more clients.
Now, if you're like, Dani, I already have some great reviews on Google. Oh, great. But I promise, you still need to stick around because I want you to start thinking about them differently, especially if you're someone who's been doing some really great work quietly, but might not be featuring that work in ways that help your next right fit person say yes.
And so we've got to talk about social proof. It's so, so, so important. And it's important because people don't like to go first. They need proof from their friends, from their peers, from other people out there that it is safe. They look for others' validation. Someone picks a short straw, tries the mushroom, survives, and huzzah, we can all eat the mushroom and now our little town is saved. But if we all just up and try the bad mushroom, we'd all be doomed. So this all comes from a deep-rooted survival mechanism that lives within all of us as humans. And so trust gets built through pattern recognition. They did it and they survived, or even better, they did it and thrived, so I'm going to go and do it too. Sixty-eight percent of consumers say that a star rating is a top decision factor alongside the number of reviews and how recent those reviews are when it comes to making a purchase decision.
I want to talk about what I mean when we're talking about social proof here today. Yes, we've got reviews, those things that are star-rated, the casual comments on platforms like Google or Yelp. Then you have testimonials. Those are slightly more curated quotes or messages that can be used a little bit more intentionally than just a casual review. And then we have case studies. Those are a little bit more in-depth success journeys. We won't be talking too much about those today, but definitely reviews and testimonials. But I don't want us to get stuck on format. I want to focus on the function because of all of these, it's a yes and situation. So just like there are other forms of social proof out there, like that's why stuff have logos on it. That's why that's a thing. It's not just status for the person wearing it, it's for the brand too. Refer back to the mushroom example. Hey, if they're wearing it and they look cool, that's going to make me look cool too, right? So that goes back to that.
When it comes to reviews and testimonials and getting social proof from your customers, there are a couple of really common mistakes that I come across when I'm working with clients or just talking to small business owners out in the wild.
One of the biggest ones is not asking for reviews. I actually just had a conversation the other day with someone who asked me if it was okay if they reached out and asked for a review. Unequivocally, yes, reach out, find out what they're thinking. In fact, prompted reviews, reviews where you've actually asked them for it, on average have a higher rating, and that's because people are more likely to leave a bad review unsolicited than they are to leave a good one. So by asking, you're increasing the likelihood of getting better reviews. It increases the percent likelihood or percentage of your star rating.
Another thing is people worry a little too much about the platform itself. If you're not able to get a Google business profile because you're a virtual worker, you work all over the place and you've just had a really hard time with it, don't sweat. That's okay, it happens. It's not ideal. I actually don't have one for myself. It was just way too complicated to set up and maybe down the road I'll try again. But you can get reviews other places, like LinkedIn, Yelp, just depends on the type of business that you have.
Screenshots are really powerful, we'll talk about those in a minute.
But also just collecting testimonials purposefully from your ideal clients. What you want is just to be able to make sure that as people find you, they can see social proof on the place where they find you.
Another thing that I see happen is people obsessing over only collecting perfect five-star reviews or absolutely perfect reviews. So don't freak out when something isn't 100% peaches, right? Imperfection actually builds trust. How often have you been on Amazon and seen like 5,000 five-star reviews or even just that one that has like five five-star reviews and you're like, something's sus here. It's a little too perfect. I don't believe it's real. I don't believe these reviews are real because we are living in an age of AI-generated reviews and things just don't always line up. So don't worry. If it's not perfect, it actually helps build trust. And those little points of feedback of like, "This was one thing that wasn't super right to me as a customer," are actually really powerful notes because it gives more authority to the rest of the testimonial or the right reviews that are there.
And another thing is just letting them die on Google or die on whatever other platform that is not your website. Make sure they are there and you're using them. You can put them on your website, you can use them all over the place on Instagram, use them as social proof beyond just where they're living. They have so much power and life to live.
I want to talk tactical tips for asking for and actually managing those reviews once you have them.
My number one tip is to make it as easy as possible for the person you are asking. Keep the ask short, let them know why you want to know, and give them a direct link to where you want them to leave the review. Don't just say, "Go leave me a review on Google." Then make them go and find you on Google to do it because they won't. You want as few clicks as it can take to get to the center of the Tootsie Pop here because the path of least resistance is what's going to get you results.
Another thing is testing and learning. Experiment with how you're asking for them, experiment with how long you wait before you ask, and even potentially try some incentives. When it comes to incentives, I do feel like it's really important to make sure that you're aware legally, if someone receives anything of value in exchange for a review, like a discount, a free product, a gift card, or even an entry into like a giveaway, they and you are legally required to disclose that that exchange has happened or that that's been promised.
Another thing is to make it a habit. I can't tell you how often I'm having conversations and people are like, "Oh, well, I actually haven't gotten a new review in over a year." You should be aiming, depending on your industry, when I was in the wedding industry, I would recommend at least five new reviews, three to five new reviews a year. Granted, those are a little bit different, but if you're doing product reviews, the more the merrier. But make it a habit. Use automation wherever you can. Schedule it, a task maybe monthly or quarterly for you to reach out. Tools like Enji are really great and helpful for doing that. I can leave a link in the show notes so you can take a look at what Enji has to offer.
And if you can, reply to the review. It makes you look human and it shows that you appreciate the people who have chosen to work with you and take the time to say good things about you.
And if it's a negative review, it happens. You're not meant for everybody and that's okay. And like I said before, it helps you seem more real. Just have a plan for how you handle those as a brand. I'm not going to go into reputation management right now because that is a whole thing, but just have a think about what kind of gracious response you can give, and how to handle particularly prickly people if you need to.
Don't forget that you can screenshot any comments or messages you may get to some of your private messaging apps or comments on your Instagram or what have you. These are honestly the real gold in today's marketing. Something about a real screenshot just resonates as, oh my god, it's real. Even though we all know people can fake that stuff in Canva, whatever, but it just hits different than a copy-paste testimonial or review. But I want you to make sure that you're using your judgment, and I really do encourage you to check in with the person who left it and see if you can get a written okay before using it. Again, we want to see why from a legal perspective and make sure you're representing them with their consent. In general, on that point, when you get a review, you can indeed take pieces of it and make small typos or other edits as long as you don't change the integrity of the statement itself. If you do, I recommend going back and asking if you have approval to post a revised version. Most of the time people will say, yes, absolutely, go ahead. This sounds like something I would say anyways. If they don't, then obviously you can't. This is actually something that I like to ask about on my own testimonial form. Years in corporate and getting lectured by legal really opened my eyes to how important it is to have two-sided agreement and consent on what you can post and what it is that you can post. And so just getting the authority that yes, I can make small changes as long as they're not huge can be just opening up the opportunity to just get it approved without having to have email back and forth, etc., and not having someone respond to you.
But if someone does ask you to end up removing a testimonial later, maybe their mind has changed or maybe they're just not feeling comfortable having their name or their face featured, you can, you actually have to remove that.
So I recommend everybody keep track of where you put them and when you use them so that you can easily go and find where any testimonials or reviews are living that may have come from a particular person.
So you've reached out, you've gotten all these reviews. Now, what do we do with them? Well, here are some tactical tips for actually leveraging those reviews and testimonials.
Use them early and often.
Make it visible. Use social posts, sales pages, onboarding decks. These are all great places for them to go. Every page on your website should have reviews and testimonials that are related to that particular page. Your about page, make it about you: "Working with Danielle is such a delight." Your homepage, make it general about the transformation: "I've had a breakthrough since we worked together." A particular service page, make it about that service if you can: "I have so much more clarity on my messaging and my ideal clients," and so on. And yes, those are all real testimonials from my clients. But these are just more relevant and they echo what the different checkpoints that people are going through mentally to try and make a decision on whether or not they're making the right one.
What else can you do?
Well, you can turn your best reviews into case studies. You can translate those over to your social channels and in creative ways that ideally aren't just a static quote post. You can integrate them into your reels in creative ways.
And my favorite tip is to use testimonials to learn how your customers talk about their transformation that they have had with you. It is full of the words that they actually use. This is actually a key step in my work with my clients and I can't tell you how often we have found new product opportunities, new angles on messaging, and even new markets all together. It's really powerful stuff.
Reviews can also be something super powerful beyond just a review itself. One example I like to use is for how reviews can become kind of like a product of their own is Sephora. People leave reviews on Sephora—it's like a community of people that leave reviews on the stuff they've tried and they rely on the reviews of the stuff that other people have tried before making decisions on whether they should move forward. It's—it is a community now. It helps people find what is the best fit. In fact, that's actually become a product of its own right on Sephora—just helping you make better decisions. Rent the Runway is another great example. Their reviews can be sorted by size, weight, height. So you can see what that particular dress will look like on other people who have a similar build to you. Again, this aids in that decision-making and the confidence-building when it comes to pulling the trigger and deciding whether or not that's the right thing for you to be able to move forward with.
So, I want you to look at this as a sort of inspiration for how else, just besides just plopping them up onto your website or just letting them die on Google, that you can use them. How can reviews help people make decisions about what is the right choice for them? How can these reviews make them feel more confident that you are the right choice? And not just you, but that one particular thing that they're going for is the right choice for them.
So as you go forth and you start thinking about your new review strategy that you've got lined up for yourself, I want you to just go find one message or review that you're proud of that you haven't used yet and go put it somewhere more visible, whether that's your Instagram or ideally somewhere on your website. Make it, make it sing, make it do its work for you. And then I want you to start thinking about how you can set up a small system or a habit to start collecting that feedback, collecting these reviews and testimonials, because like I said, you have to ask for them. Sometimes people don't think that there's an opportunity for them to give you any feedback, but just ask. If they say no, then you're no better off than you were before—or no worse off than you were before.
So as a recap, don't forget: social proof builds trust. It builds momentum, it builds confidence, but only if you actually use it. So go and use it. And just a reminder, you don't need a hundred reviews, you need the right ones. You need recent ones and you need meaningful ones. Granted, this depends on your industry. Product sales is going to look a little bit different from services, but I want you to just go out there, ask for a few and make them happen.
Now, if the work we've done here today and after you've gone through and looked at your testimonials have made you think, "Oh my gosh, there's so much in here as far as messaging and potential, but I'm not really sure how I can make sense of it all in a way that's going to apply to me," reach out. That's exactly what I'm here for. I love looking at that, making sense of it, figuring out how it can apply to you and how we can use it to get you where you need to go. So let's talk, let's figure out what needs to change based on the reviews and what opportunities are there for you.
Don't forget to check out the show notes and get some more information and some links and some samples of some great review and testimonial request forms. And hey, don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss the next one. Thanks for pulling up a chair with me today. See you next time. I'll make sure to save you a seat.
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