How many potential clients are you missing out on because they're too scared to do business with you?

Not that they're afraid of you, but they're afraid of how will it affect them, their business, their reputation, their finances if they make the wrong choice.

So how can you help to remove this fear?

By using your strongest supporters – your clients – as social proof that you’re a business they can trust.

With the power of social media we now live in an age of sharing. People love to feel needed and are happy to share their comments and experiences. And those comments provide powerful evidence which we can all use to judge whether that experience is right for us.

They're crucial in helping us make decisions, you’ve probably used them yourself, when choosing which hotel to book, restaurant to visit or TV to buy.

It’s the same for your business. Very few of us provide services or sell products which are unique. There are many many businesses who do what you do and who your prospective clients could choose.

By using reviews you can give your prospective clients crystal clear reasons to choose you, so removing their unease and fear.

But not just any old reviews – they need to be effective reviews, ones which show:

• what was great about the service you delivered
• the difference you made and
• why your clients would use you again and recommend you.

And getting a regular flow of them enables you to build a big bank of convincing reasons which you can show off to enhance your reputation as the business to choose.

If you're not actively collecting them you could be missing out on potential business. And if you are collecting testimonials - are you promoting them effectively online? It’s no good having them tucked away in a drawer.

At The Best of Barnet Borough, social proof is a core part of our local marketing service.

We provide our business members with a live reviews feed on their own websites. You can see how it looks in the image (below right) and take a look at these examples:

BeeXpress Plumbing and Heating

RPK Painting and Decorating Ltd

Green & Peter Accountants

Barnet Wills

Acculith Repro Digital and Lithographic Printers

Using this provides that extra 3rd party credibility and it gives our business members yet another way to get more reviews. We also help them collect reviews with our special branded review cards (see the image below left for what they look like). 

If you would like to find out how to build social proof into your marketing email us at barnet@thebestof.co.uk or call 07941 798 339.