I Had 3 Google Reviews After 31 Years in Business. Then I Finally Asked.
I’ve been running New Phase for more than 31 years.
Yesterday morning, my Google Business Profile had exactly three reviews.
They were all five-star reviews, which is great. But still — three?
For a business that’s been around this long and has worked with a lot of clients over the years, that number was pretty pathetic.
The funny thing is, I knew exactly why.
I had never really asked.
The cobbler’s shoes
There’s an old expression about the cobbler’s children having the worst shoes.
People who spend their days solving problems for clients often neglect those same things in their own businesses.
But eventually, that excuse starts wearing a little thin.
I regularly tell clients that their Google Business Profile matters. I tell them reviews matter. I tell them they need to pay attention to how their business appears when someone searches for them online.
So I had to ask myself a slightly uncomfortable question:
Am I practicing what I preach?
I wouldn’t be particularly impressed by a fitness coach who spent every evening on the sofa eating potato chips. And I’d probably question a stylist who looked completely unkempt.
At some point, the solution provider has to demonstrate the solution.
So I decided to do something about my three reviews.
I sent one simple email
I have roughly 50 active clients — people or companies I’ve done work for and billed within approximately the past year.
I sent all of them an email.
Not just the clients I thought would give me five stars. Everybody.
Here’s what I wrote:
I’m working on getting the word out about New Phase, and reviews from the people I actually work with make a real difference. If you have a couple of minutes, would you mind leaving an honest review on my Google Business Profile?
A sentence or two about what it’s like working with me is plenty. And if there’s anything I could be doing better, I’d genuinely like to hear that too.
Thanks for your trust over the years. I really appreciate it.
And I included a link that took them directly to the place where they could leave the review.
That little detail matters.
Don’t make someone who’s doing you a favor hunt around Google trying to figure out where to leave a review. Remove as much friction as possible.
Then something happened
Within about five minutes, one of my longtime clients left a five-star review.
Then another came in.
And another.
In less than 24 hours, my Google Business Profile went from 3 reviews to 13.
Ten new reviews.
Every one of them five stars.
I’m not going to pretend that didn’t feel good.
It was validating.
When you’ve spent years working with clients, solving problems and building relationships, it’s rewarding to see people publicly say, Yeah, this guy has done a good job for us.
But there was a much bigger business lesson hiding in those ten reviews.
Your happy customers probably aren’t going to think of this themselves
Before doing this, I wasn’t particularly worried that my clients were unhappy.
What I wondered was whether they would actually take the time to leave a review.
That’s the problem.
Someone can think you’re fantastic and still never review your business.
They’re busy.
Leaving you a Google review simply isn’t high on their priority list. They may fully intend to do it someday, but someday has a habit of never arriving.
Sometimes people just need a nudge.
And apparently, that nudge doesn’t have to be complicated.
Don’t buy the review
Before sending the email, I considered offering an incentive.
Maybe a $25 Starbucks gift card.
I also wondered about offering to reciprocate by reviewing their business in return.
I decided against both.
Google has policies around incentivized and manipulated reviews, and I certainly didn’t want to turn a perfectly legitimate request into something that could create problems. In Canada, the Competition Bureau also treats paid or incentivized reviews as potentially misleading.
So I stripped the idea down to its simplest form:
Would you mind leaving me an honest review?
No reward.
No quid pro quo.
No request for five stars.
Just an ask.
And it worked.
Respond to the reviews, too
Getting reviews is only half of this.
Businesses should respond to them.
That includes the five-star reviews — but it also includes the one-star reviews.
Eventually, almost every business gets a negative review. Sometimes it’s justified. Sometimes it isn’t. Occasionally you may even wonder whether the person was really a customer.
Either way, remember that your response isn’t only for the person who wrote the review.
It’s also for the next potential customer who reads it.
A calm, professional response tells them something about how you conduct business.
Your Google Business Profile isn’t an afterthought
I think a lot of small business owners spend enormous amounts of time thinking about their websites and comparatively little time thinking about their Google Business Profiles.
That’s a mistake.
For many potential customers, Google is the modern phone book, Yellow Pages and business directory rolled into one.
Your profile contains your reviews, photos, business hours, contact information, updates and other information people may use to decide whether they even want to visit your website.
And now there’s another reason to pay attention to your overall online presence: AI-driven discovery.
People increasingly ask AI tools for recommendations instead of conducting a traditional search. That makes having clear, consistent and credible information about your business across authoritative online sources increasingly important.
In other words, this isn’t the time to neglect your digital footprint.
So take it from the guy who had three reviews
If you’ve been in business for years and your Google Business Profile has only a handful of reviews, don’t overcomplicate the solution.
I did.
I wondered whether I needed an incentive. I worried that asking might sound needy. I wondered whether people would bother.
Then I finally just asked.
Three reviews became thirteen in less than 24 hours.
Sometimes marketing really is that simple.
Have you worked with me? I’d genuinely appreciate an honest review: leave a review on my Google Business Profile.