How to Get Testimonials When You’re Just Starting Out
Every freelancer and side hustler hears the same advice: show testimonials to get clients. And every beginner has the same question: how do I get testimonials if I don’t have clients yet? It feels like a trap, but it isn’t. Testimonials don’t have to come from paying clients, and you don’t need dozens of them. Three honest, specific quotes can change how strangers see you.
Here is how to get testimonials when you are just starting out, starting from zero.
Understand what a testimonial actually does
A testimonial answers one question for a potential client: “Did this work for someone like me?” A good one has three parts:
- The situation — what the person needed or struggled with.
- The result — what you did and what changed.
- The experience — what it was like working with you.
“We loved working with Sarah, she is great!” is nice but useless. “We were drowning in unread customer emails. Sarah set up a reply system in a week and our response time dropped from two days to under four hours. She was easy to reach and explained everything clearly.” That second one sells. When you ask for testimonials, you will gently guide people toward the specific version.
Testimonial source #1: free or discounted trial work
This is the fastest legitimate path. Offer one small project for free or at a discount in exchange for an honest testimonial — not a guaranteed five-star review, an honest one. Pick work that matches what you want to sell later, so the testimonial helps you get paid versions of the same thing.
Set boundaries so free work doesn’t turn into unpaid exploitation:
- Limit it to 2–3 projects, total. After that, you charge.
- Scope it tightly. “I’ll write three product descriptions” beats “I’ll help with your website.”
- Put the testimonial agreement in writing. A simple message works: “Happy to do this project free in exchange for a short testimonial about the experience and the result, plus permission to use it on my portfolio. Does that work for you?”
Good people to approach: friends who own businesses, local nonprofits, community groups, former coworkers, or people in online groups who have a problem you can solve. A florist who needs Instagram captions, a nonprofit that needs a flyer — these are real clients with real problems, and their testimonials count.
Testimonial source #2: volunteer and community work
If you volunteer your skills for a nonprofit, a school fundraiser, or a community event, ask for a testimonial from the organizer when you’re done. Nonprofit directors, teachers, and community leaders carry real credibility, and volunteering often leads to paid work — organizers talk to other organizers.
The key is the same: ask at the moment of completion, when the person is happiest with what you delivered. Don’t wait three weeks. The day you hand something over is the day you ask.
Testimonial source #3: your former job
If you are starting a side hustle that relates to your day job or a past job, your colleagues and managers are gold. A manager who says “allic was the most reliable person on our team — whenever something broke, they fixed it” is a testimonial, even if your old job wasn’t freelance work. Transferable proof counts.
Ask former coworkers, bosses, or clients of a previous employer. Frame it as: “I’m starting to offer [service] and I’d love a sentence or two about what it was like working with me.” Most people are happy to help, and workplace praise sounds natural because it is.
Testimonial source #4: beta and “pay what you want” offers
If you are launching a small product or service, run a beta round: the first 5–10 people get it free or pay-what-you-want, and in return they give feedback and a testimonial. This works for courses, templates, coaching calls, audits, and design work. Beta users know they’re early, so they’re forgiving — and their quotes describe the value from a beginner-friendly angle, which often resonates better with other beginners than polished expert reviews would.
Be upfront: “This is new, so I’m offering it free to my first ten users in exchange for honest feedback and a testimonial.” Honesty here builds more trust than pretending you’ve been doing it for years.
How to actually ask (without feeling awkward)
Most beginners don’t fail to get testimonials — they fail to ask. Use a short message at the moment the work is delivered:
“I’m really glad we got this done! I’m building my portfolio and would love a short testimonial. Would you be willing to write 2–3 sentences about what it was like working with me? Anything specific about [the result] would be extra helpful.”
A few rules that make asking easier:
- Ask when they’re happiest. Right after delivery, right after a compliment, right after a result lands.
- Make it easy. Offer to draft one from what they told you and let them edit it. Most people say yes because it saves them effort — just make sure the final wording is genuinely theirs.
- Ask specific questions if they get stuck. “What problem did you have before?” “What changed after?” “What would you tell someone thinking about working with me?” Their answers are the testimonial.
- Always get permission to publish. Ask: “Is it okay if I use this on my website with your name and business?” Get the yes in writing — a chat message counts.
What if you truly have no one yet?
If you have no clients, no employer references, and no volunteer work, you still have one option: create the work yourself. Write a sample project as if a client hired you — a mock brand design, a sample blog post for an imaginary business, a spreadsheet template with sample data. You can’t collect a testimonial for it, but you can show it as a “sample project” in your portfolio, and the moment one real person reacts to it (a comment, a share, a request for a variation), that reaction becomes your first piece of social proof.
Screenshots of kind messages, comments, or replies work as micro-testimonials too, as long as they’re real and you have permission to share them. Proof compounds: one screenshot becomes two, two become a pattern.
Where to put them once you have them
Testimonials do nothing sitting in your inbox. As you collect them:
- Add the best one to your homepage or the top of your portfolio.
- Put two or three on a dedicated testimonials page or section.
- Screenshot them for social posts (one quote per post).
- Keep the original messages saved somewhere — you may want the exact wording later.
Update them every few months. Old testimonials from a different kind of work stop helping once you’ve moved on.
The bottom line
You do not need paying clients to get testimonials. You need delivered work — free, discounted, volunteered, or borrowed from a previous job — and the courage to ask while the other person is still smiling about the result. Three honest, specific quotes beat a blank page every time, and a blank page is the only thing you actually need to avoid.
IncomeXP publishes practical, hype-free guides to earning more — no promises, just information you can use.
