Most testimonial requests look the same. You email a happy client and ask for a few words. They mean to write something, the email sits for a week, and what arrives is two warm, vague sentences: “Great to work with. Highly recommend.” You thank them and put it on a page, where it does very little.
The fix is not a better email. It is a better, more systematic approach of questioning. Sean D’Souza of Psychotactics has a method for this in his book The Brain Audit, and I built my own testimonial form on it. This article covers what the method is, why it works for a consultant, and how the answers become something you can publish.
Why asking for a quote does not work
A blank box asks the client to do the hardest part of the job. They have to decide what is worth saying, find the words, and make the praise sound credible, all for a favor. Most people respond by writing the safest thing they can think of, which is generic praise.
Generic praise is also the kind a reader discounts. Everyone’s testimonials say the work was excellent. A prospective client reading a consultant’s site is not short of praise. They are short of evidence that someone like them had similar hesitations, hired you anyway, and was joyful to have done so.
D’Souza’s framing is that testimonials are not cheerleaders. In his words, “The job of testimonials is to reduce the customer’s fear of buying the product or service.” That is a narrower and more useful job than flattery, and it changes what you ask for.
The reverse testimonial
A reverse testimonial starts with the doubt. First, the client says what they were worried about before they hired you, and then they say what they actually found. D’Souza puts it as “the testimonial is the flip side of the objection.” If a prospect worries that your fee is high, the useful testimonial is from someone who thought the same thing and can say what changed their mind.
It reads as more believable for a simple reason: people tend to hedge when they praise, so a testimonial that opens with the hedge sounds authentic. The skepticism is the proof that the rest was not written to order.
For a consultant this fits well. You usually sell something a client cannot fully judge before buying it, so the objections are real and predictable: whether the work is worth the fee, whether you understand their field, whether they have time for it. Each one is a testimonial waiting to be asked for.
The six questions
D’Souza’s list, which he publishes on his site, has six questions in a fixed order. They are the six that my form asks, adapted to a service and to my first person.
- The obstacle. What was the obstacle or hesitation that would have prevented you from buying? This is the reverse part. It goes first, while the client still remembers the doubt.
- The outcome. What did you find as a result of working with me? The answer to the doubt, in their words.
- The specific thing they liked most. D’Souza asks about one feature. A broad question invites a vague answer, so he narrows it. A service has no features, so my form asks about a specific moment in the work.
- Three other benefits. After the narrow question, a wide one. The number can change, but a number gets more than “anything else?” does.
- Would you recommend me, and why? Recommending someone puts the client’s own judgment on the line, which makes the answer carry more weight.
- Is there anything you would like to add? A catch-all, and the only optional one on my form. People often save the most useful thing for the last box.
The order matters because each question sets up the next. The doubt makes the outcome land, the narrow question makes the wide one easier, and the catch-all catches what the others missed.
D’Souza’s own preferred method is a phone call. He asks the six questions, records the conversation with the client’s knowledge, and transcribes it. A form trades some of the warmth of a call for the client’s convenience. Their answers arrive when they have time, in writing, with no scheduling. If you only have a few clients, call them. The questions are the part that works, not the form.
From answers to a published quote
My form is a plain HTML form that works with JavaScript off. A submission becomes a draft in the site’s content system and nothing else. It does not automatically appear on the site.
Then I read the six answers and write the quote, using the client’s own words and pulling out the line that does the job, usually the doubt and the turn.
Nothing goes live until the client has approved the wording. A testimonial the client has not seen is a risk to both of you.
Keeping it private
The form is for clients I send the link to, not for the public. It is not in the navigation, it is left out of the sitemap, and it carries a noindex tag. Spam protection is a single hidden field that a person never fills in, which means there is no third-party script on the page. A form that asks for a client’s candid doubts should not also load someone else’s trackers.
What your own site needs
You do not need my setup. You need four things:
- Six questions, in D’Souza’s order, with the obstacle first.
- A place for the answers to land that is not your public page. A form, a shared document, or a recorded call all work.
- You writing the quote from the answers, and the client approving it before it appears.
- A spot on the page where the doubt and the result read together.
If you are deciding where testimonials sit among the rest of your pages, what pages a consulting website needs covers that. For the method itself, go to the source: D’Souza’s six questions and his companion piece on why testimonials are hard to get are both free to read.