If you’ve had results (or your clients have had results) but your message still feels a little… off, you’re probably not missing another “better hook” or a new content calendar.

You’re missing something simple that most service-based business owners ignore because it feels too obvious: testimonials.

Not the polished, pretty ones that sit quietly on your website.

I’m talking about the real receipts, your clients’ words, your clients’ wins, your clients’ before-and-afters, the proof your future clients are waiting to see before they ever decide to trust you, DM you, or buy from you.

I’m Lisbeth Graham, and I’m a messaging and sales strategist for mission-led service-based business owners.

Since 2023, I’ve helped over a dozen women sell confidently inside of the DMs without a script.

And one of the biggest reasons people freeze up in the DMs is because they don’t feel grounded in their own message.

They know they can help, but they don’t have enough proof in their content to create that natural “I need you” moment from the right people.

Testimonials fix that, they bring clarity and build belie, both for your audience and for you.

Here’s the part that might sting a little, but it’s true: most people do not go to your website first.

They go to your social media first unless they found you through a blog or a search engine, your website testimonials are not doing the heavy lifting you think they’re doing.

Your content is doing the selling, your message is doing the selling and if your content never shows proof that you can get results, your audience has no reason to move from “this sounds nice” to “I trust her enough to DM her.”

The receipts are what shorten the trust timeline.

They’re what help someone see themselves in the transformation you offer, even before you ever speak to them one-on-one.

Step 1: Share results like they’re part of the message, not a side note

The first move is simple: you have to share the results you’ve gotten.

I know it can feel small, like “that can’t be the missing thing,” but it very often is.

People want to see evidence that you can help them get the outcome they want.

They want to see that someone like them took a step, invested, and experienced a real change.

When you share results consistently, it becomes easier for the right people to connect themselves to your work.

Without results, you’re basically asking strangers to believe you because you said so, and in 2026, people are not buying like that. They want proof.

They want clarity, to understand what you actually do and what changes because of it.

This doesn’t mean you need dramatic, huge, flashy outcomes to talk about.

It means you need to be honest about what changed.

Maybe your client went from inconsistent clients to steady inquiries.

Maybe your client went from “I’m all over the place” to “I finally have a roadmap.”

Maybe your client stopped feeling anxious every time they opened their DMs because they had a clearer message and a simple plan. That’s a result. That’s a receipt.

And when you start weaving that into your messaging, your content becomes more specific, more believable, and more likely to drive the next step which is a DM conversation.

Step 2: Use the exact words your clients used when they said yes

The second move is where most people miss it: you don’t just share the result, you share it using the words your clients used.

Think back to a client you followed up with, the one you knew you could help, and you kept nurturing because fortune is in the follow-up.

What was the moment that made them say, “Okay, I’m in”? What did they finally admit they needed? What were the words they repeated in the DMs?

That language is gold, because it’s not your marketing brain guessing what might land, it’s your buyer telling you what matters to them.

I’ll give you a simple example. One of my first clients (out of the 12 I signed in a year) wasn’t buying because she needed another tactic.

She wasn’t buying because she wanted a prettier Canva template.

She was stuck because she was unclear and didn’t know if she should keep doing social media management, focus on graphic design, go all-in on Canva, or shift into something else.

She was scattered and second-guessing everything. The words that mattered to her were “roadmap,” “direction,” and “clarity.”

So when I talked about results, I didn’t just say, “I help women grow their business.” I said what she needed to hear: if you’re lacking clarity on what to do next, this is for you.

That’s what it means to use testimonial language.

You’re not just describing your service, you’re calling out the internal struggle your person is living in.

If you don’t know what your audience is saying, or you’re not confident in the words to use, this is exactly why I created my Spark the Conversation Challenge.

Inside that five-day experience, you spend 20 minutes a day learning how to do simple audience research so you can start collecting the phrases, pain points, and desires your people actually have.

Because a vague message calls vague buyers, but when you can speak your audience’s language, your content starts attracting the right people, and your DMs stop feeling like a random guessing game.

Step 3: Use this messaging template to tighten your results into something clear

If you’ve been feeling stuck, here’s a simple template you can fill out to see if you’re on the right track.

When you can confidently fill this out, your message is usually close you might just need a few tweaks.

The template is:

I help (who) go from (before) to (after) by (how).

The key is that you cannot be vague. “Women entrepreneurs” is too broad. “Busy moms” might be a starting point, but it’s not specific enough by itself.

You want to name who they are and what they’re struggling with so the right people can immediately self-identify.

For example, you might say: I help service-based business owners struggling to land consistent clients go from quiet DMs to confident conversations and consistent clients by using market research and simple messaging that brings in leads.

That statement is clear enough that someone will either feel seen or realize it’s not for them.

And that’s the point.

You are not here to please everyone.

When you try to please everyone, you water down the message, and then you end up working harder to convince people who were never your people in the first place.

Step 4: Open the DMs the right way (because the goal is conversation, not a pitch)

Once your content is sharing real receipts and using real language, you’ll start getting more responses, more replies, more “okay tell me more” moments.

And this is where you need to remember something that will save you from being awkward:

the goal of the DM is not to sell. The goal of the DM is to start a conversation.

If you need to write that on a sticky note, do it because when you enter a DM thinking you have to close, you’ll over-explain, panic, and drop a whole CVS receipt of text that nobody wants to read.

But when you enter a DM thinking, “I’m here to understand,” you relax, you ask better questions, and you create trust.

A simple way to open is to acknowledge what they engaged with and ask permission to ask a question.

Something like: “Hey, I saw you resonated with what I shared about quiet DMs, would you mind if I ask you one quick question?”

Then you ask something that helps you understand their situation: “What do you feel is missing right now that’s keeping people from responding?”

That’s it. Your job is not to shove your offer into the conversation.

Your job is to understand them from there, the conversation will naturally become one of three outcomes:

a client, a connection, or a conversation that teaches you more about your audience.

All three are valuable, and not everybody is meant to be your client.

Your weekly homework (keep it simple and actually do it)

This week, I want you to do three things.

First, refine your “I help who go from before to after by how” statement until it’s clear enough that it feels like a line in the sand.

Second, choose a testimonial or client win and pull out the exact words your client used, then write a hook using those words so it sounds like your audience, not like generic marketing.

Third, start one DM conversation with a single question, purely for understanding. No pitching, no dumping, no over-explaining. Just one question that builds confidence and connection.

And if you want support tightening your message and organizing your testimonials into content that consistently drives DM conversations, I’ll encourage you to step into The Phoenix Experience.

Inside the membership, I help you get your messaging clean, your proof clear, and your DM rhythm simple so you can confidently call in aligned clients without scripts.

If you’re not clear on your audience yet, start with the Spark the Conversation Challenge first, because that foundation changes everything.

If you stick with this, sharing receipts, using real client language, and treating DMs as conversation, you’ll stop feeling like you’re guessing.

And you’ll start feeling that shift every business owner wants: “Oh… this is what I’ve been missing.”