Why a Marketing Agency Outsourced Its Most Important Proof

Black Box Social Media tried testimonial software and got nothing. Here is why they handed customer proof to Share One, and why agencies should do the same.

By Stacey Lievens, co-owner of Share One. Originally published on LinkedIn on October 8, 2026.

Short answer: Collecting great testimonials isn't a software problem, it's a human one. Someone has to get the customer to say yes, ask the right questions, capture the story and turn it into usable marketing. Agencies that hand that whole job to a dedicated team get a repeatable source of proof without adding work.

There's a funny problem in marketing. Agencies spend all day telling their clients how important trust is. We build campaigns, create content, obsess over positioning, retargeting, acquisition, conversion rates and customer journeys. Yet when it comes to one of the most powerful trust-building assets we can have, real customers talking about their actual experience, a lot of us aren't very good at getting them.

Testimonials are a human problem, not a software problem

Nick Bridges from Black Box Social Media understands this better than most. Nick and his business partner Curt Maly have been running their digital marketing agency for 18 years. They know testimonials matter. They know real customer stories can build trust in a way polished marketing copy simply can't. But knowing you need testimonials and actually getting them are two very different things.

Nick's agency had tried to solve the problem before. They even bought software that promised to automate testimonial collection. They put it into their customer email follow-up process. People clicked. But nothing happened. Not one testimonial came in.

I think that's where a lot of businesses, and especially agencies, get stuck. We keep assuming the problem is the technology. Maybe we need another platform, another automated email, another form, another link or another reminder sequence.

But collecting a great testimonial isn't really a software problem. It's a human problem. You have to get someone to say yes. You have to make them comfortable enough to tell their story. You have to ask the right questions. You have to capture that story well. Then you have to edit it, brand it, package it and turn it into something marketing can actually use. Most importantly, someone has to own that entire process.

That's why Nick's experience with Share One stood out to me. Instead of adding another tool to his agency's tech stack, he handed the responsibility to people whose job is to get it done. As Nick explained it, their part of the process became pretty simple: "Here's our client, here's Share One, you guys do your thing." Then Nick and his team can go back to what they're actually good at, running their agency and taking care of their clients.

That distinction matters. For an agency, Share One isn't simply a way to "get a testimonial." It's a way to turn something agencies know they need, but consistently struggle to execute, into a repeatable source of marketing assets.

There are three big reasons I think that matters.

1. Agencies shouldn't be spending their best hours chasing testimonials

Your team's value is in strategy, creative thinking, media, campaigns, client service and growth. It's probably not in sending the fourth follow-up email asking a happy customer if they had a chance to record that testimonial yet.

Nick described Share One as a time saver, a money saver and a headache saver. That's the value of delegation when it's done correctly. You're not delegating something because it isn't important. You're delegating it precisely because it IS important, and you want someone to own it and make sure it actually happens.

2. Agencies need authentic content more than ever

Nick has a phrase I love. He calls one of their strategies "ethical propaganda." The idea is simple: put good, ethical content in front of prospects throughout their buying journey.

And some of the strongest content you can put in front of someone isn't the agency talking about how great the agency is. It's a customer saying, "Here's what my experience was. Here's what changed. Here's why I would recommend them."

That content can become fuel for retargeting campaigns, acquisition campaigns, websites, email, sales conversations and social media. It's proof without the chest beating. And in a market where people are increasingly skeptical of what brands say about themselves, that distinction matters.

3. Agencies can bring this to their clients too

This might be the most interesting part of Nick's story. Black Box Social Media didn't stop at using Share One for their own agency. They started referring clients.

Why? Because their clients had exactly the same problem. They needed authentic customer content, but they weren't very good at consistently getting it themselves.

So Share One handles the acquisition, interviewing, creation and editing. Then the agency gets professionally produced customer stories it can actually put to work inside campaigns.

Think about that relationship for a minute. The agency doesn't have to become a testimonial production company. The client doesn't have to figure out how to convince customers to record videos. And the marketing team gets the raw material it desperately needs: real people, real experiences and real proof. That's what I think agencies should pay attention to.

We need more evidence, not more marketing

We don't need more marketing that looks like marketing. We need more evidence. We need customers telling stories that other customers recognize themselves in. And we need a reliable process for capturing those stories without creating another job for an already overloaded marketing team.

That challenge isn't unique to agencies, either. It's exactly the kind of problem we hear from marketing leaders who know authentic testimonials are important but don't want another complicated tool, another DIY video project or another process that fizzles out after a few weeks. Nick found a way to hand that responsibility off. And I think his description says it better than any marketing copy I could write:

It's been a no-brainer. It's been a time saver. It's been a money saver, and it's been a headache saver.

That's Unfakeable Marketing.

Watch Nick tell it in his own words

Don't just read about Nick's experience here. Watch his video. Listen to a marketing agency owner who's been doing this for 18 years explain, in his own words, why they decided this was one piece of their marketing they didn't need to keep doing themselves.

Read Nick's full story in the Nick Bridges case study.