Bright Lips, Brave Heart

How I Collected Over 1,900 5-Star Reviews (and Why They Matter So Much)

• Amanda Waterstone • Episode 12

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✨ Episode Summary:
In this revealing episode, I share the behind-the-scenes journey of growing QueenMee Accessories through the power of customer reviews. From hand-written notes and £50 startup funds to over 1,900 glowing 5-star reviews, I dive deep into the emotional and strategic value of reviews in building trust, driving sales, and creating genuine connection with your audience. Whether you're just starting out or ready to elevate your customer experience, this episode is packed with practical tips, inspiring stories, and encouragement to help you grow your product-based business.

📌 What You'll Learn in This Episode:

  • Why reviews are your most powerful marketing asset—especially when you're just starting out
  • How Amanda built trust with early customers through handwritten notes and storytelling
  • The exact review-gathering systems she uses across Amazon, Etsy, and her own website
  • Why photo reviews and personal responses deepen customer loyalty and boost credibility
  • Tips for crafting review requests that feel natural and authentic (and actually get results!)
  • How to maximise reviews at in-person events and pop-up shops
  • Real customer feedback that brought a magical moment for Amanda —and confirmed she’s on the right path

💖 Highlight Quote:
"I want my customers to know they’re buying from a person, not a faceless brand. That connection is everything." – Amanda Waterstone

🛠 Resources & Links Mentioned:

📩 Join the Conversation:
Did this episode spark ideas for your own review strategy? DM Amanda on Instagram at @amandawaterstone – she’d love to hear from you!

📣 If you loved this episode…
Please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a fellow creative entrepreneur. Your support helps spread the light and grow this community of brave-hearted business owners. ✨

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Bright Lips, Brave Heart, the podcast for creative entrepreneurs, bringing you inspiration and actionable steps to help you grow your business. I'm your host, Amanda Waterstone, and I'm on this journey with you. I've grown my product-based business, Queenly Accessories, from scratch whilst raising my two young daughters. I had a creative flame to design accessories burning inside me that I just couldn't put out, and so I left my corporate job and embarked on a rollercoaster entrepreneurial journey. Quite Quite a few highs and lows later, and here I am with the beautiful six-figure business of my dreams that spreads joy as I help women feel colorful and sparkling through their accessories. I'm always learning as I go along, and I'm excited to share what I've learned in Growing Queen Me with you every week so you can build your dream business perhaps a bit more quickly than I've done. My mission is to help creative entrepreneurs like you build a profitable business so you can shine your light bright Hello. Hello. So in today's episode, I'm excited to dive into the topic of reviews with you. They are so important at every stage of your business and especially when you're starting out. This week, the topic felt so perfect because I was doing my weekly read of my reviews on my website when I replied to them. And I was so moved by some of the reviews that were on there. Every single review is precious. But some of them just moved me so much. And, you know, we have ups and downs in business. But when I read an amazing review, it just affects me so much and helps me to know that I'm on the right path and that I'm meant to be doing what I'm doing in Growing Queen Me. Helping customers and knowing that you've made them feel good is just such a wonderful feeling. I always aim for customers to come back to me again and again, but even if it's a one-off purchase, it makes my heart sing when I read a review and I know that I've helped a customer feel really, really great on a special day. Like for example, often customers come to Queen Me when it's their wedding day or when it's their child's wedding day. I get lots of mother of the brides, mother of the grooms, and also wedding guests as well. And I wanted to share with you one of the reviews that particularly moved me. I just, maybe this customer won't come back again but this review just oh my goodness put a lump in my throat and helped me to know that I am definitely on the right path and that I am meant to do what I do with Queen Me so bear with me a minute while I read you the review I'm so excited to share this with you This is what the lovely Colleen wrote. My beautiful jewel stone velvet headband was amazing on my son's wedding day. No hat needed with compliments made right through the day and night. And I can wear it on my cruise in the evening too. My son kept calling me the queen mother. Thank you for making my day. What a review. And thank you, Colleen, for this amazing review and for your kind words. So in this episode, we're going to look at how I have built over 1,900 five-star reviews for Queen Me. And at the end of the episode, I'm going to share my top tips for collecting reviews with you. Now, reviews can help you to grow your customer acquisition, to acquire new customers, and they also deepen relationships with your existing customers, and that's why they are so precious. So let me share with you when I first started, I first started my business before it was even called Queen Me. Originally, it was called Queen Bee Boutique. This was back in the day, so many years ago when my little ones were very small. So I started Queen Me or Queen Bee Boutique as it was then when my eldest daughter was just a toddler. And I started marketplace selling because it was the best option for me because it didn't require a lot of marketing. It was quite straightforward. And it was all about the product as well. And I love the product. So it felt perfectly right for that time. I started selling on Amazon and Etsy. Those were the first two shops that I opened. But it felt like I had a mountain to climb. I looked at other accounts that had thousands of reviews. And it seemed like impossible that I would ever get there. I remember looking at other Etsy sellers and seeing all the amazing reviews they had. Thousands of reviews. And I just couldn't imagine... that I would ever be able to gain that kind of traction with reviews. It felt impossible. But I had to start somewhere. I just told myself, Amanda, just start. And the first thing you've got to do to get started is just to ask for reviews. And you've got to keep asking as many times as you can. Now, how do you ask? Well, I had virtually no starting capital when I started Queen Bee Boutique. I dived into this in a previous podcast episode, which I will link in the show notes. But believe it or not, I started Queen Bee Boutique with just 50 pounds. That was all I had at the time. to invest and that was because I had lost everything when I had to walk away from my previous business. I really had nothing left and I didn't want to use my husband's money but I'd been given£50 as birthday money and I wanted to do something amazing and constructive with it. So I decided to invest in the materials. I invested in some hair clips and some gems but at that point I had, as you can imagine from£50, I had no budget left for printed cards. So in order to ask for reviews, I literally hand wrote them on a piece of paper. That was how I started. I thanked my customers and I let them know just how much this sale meant to me and I used my name, not just the brand name. Now, it took a long time to write out all those reviews requests by hand, but it was totally worth it in the beginning and it got me going. And on Amazon, things can be very, very impersonal. So Having a handwritten note in your Amazon parcel when it arrives from someone who is clearly a genuine small business, I think really affected people and they really did respond to those notes and leave reviews, which was fantastic. So from the handwritten notes, I progressed on to very, very simple black and white cards that were literally a photograph of my handwriting. So they still felt... very personal, even though I didn't have to spend quite so long writing them. I really, really wanted Amazon customers to understand that there was a person behind the brand because I really do think Amazon can be an impersonal place. And as my reviews started to come in, as people did respond to those notes, my sales started to grow. And I did the same on Etsy. I asked for reviews. I put in a handwritten note. And there was a direct correlation between the number of reviews that I received and the marketplace sales. So the more reviews I received and I would ask for them, I would ask them via email as well as via the cards on Amazon and Etsy. I would do it via DMs. The more reviews I received, the more my sales would grow. Now, if I had a negative review, I did everything I could to make it up to the person. They were very few and far between, I think because people understood that they were buying from an individual. And so very, very few people left negative reviews. But if they did, that would have a really bad impact on my sales and my listing. So I did everything within my power to make it up to them, to send them a new product, to do whatever I had to do. So what I found right in the beginning on Amazon and Etsy and what I have continued to find in growing my reviews on my own website is that it's the combination of using cards, insert cards in your orders and also the email marketing which reminds people to leave the reviews, the combination of the two that is very, very important. So moving on from Amazon and Etsy, when I decided to launch my own website, the reviews became even more important because I was asking customers to trust my website and they weren't on a platform like Amazon and Etsy where there was built-in trust. They may not have heard of queenme.com before and there was no external validation. So the reviews were the number one thing that I had to let people know that I was trustworthy. And because they were the number one asset that I had, I did everything I could to get the reviews flowing in on my website. I made the reviews my number one priority. I set up the email systems to ask for reviews. I imported reviews where I could from Amazon and Etsy. And where I needed to, I sent out review requests manually. I would follow up with customers in the DMs and ask them for review requests. I focused on it 100% in the early days. And I also asked for photos as well to really build a sense of community on my website. So I had a separate insert card that I put into my orders. which actually asked for photographs and it was a picture of me dressing up in a headband and then I had a little caption which said, do you like dressing up too? So I asked for photographs and I told customers how much photographs meant to me and that really worked. Customers really responded to that and the photos started coming in and they really added an extra layer of validation and community to my website. It always makes my day when I receive a lovely review. It just lifts me so much. I'm so grateful for them. And with a photo too, the review is just totally magical. It really brings it to life and it lifts me and motivates me and helps me to know that I should carry on doing what I'm doing. Now I think when you respond to reviews, that is where the magic can really happen. So if you get any photos, always reply to the customer and let them know how much you value the photo. You can share the photo on your website and on your social media platforms and that lets customers know how special they are to you. I also like to feature customers in my weekly emails as well when I get lovely photos. That helps other customers to know how special customers are to me and it also encourages other customers to send in photographs. And I found my customers absolutely love being featured in the weekly newsletter. They get a lovely surprise when they're featured and it's just a win-win all round. Replying to reviews is so important as well, so I try to do it as much as possible on my website when I receive a lovely review. My review software, JudgeMe, has an AI tool built in, but I find that it's just not quite personal enough. It doesn't get quite the right tone, so I do take the time to reply in my own words and give a really thoughtful response to reviews. They are so precious, and I think they really needed to be treated as though they are precious. It's important to take the time to reply and really give a thoughtful response to the customer. Now some people are shy about sending in photos and you know photos are so powerful so if you're doing a pop-up shop I would encourage you to ask customers for photos. If you see a customer that is happy to wear the wear whatever piece you might have or try your skincare range, for example, or hold a candle or whatever it is, whatever your product is. If you see a customer that you feel would be comfortable on camera, then ask them for a photo. You can talk about your reviews at pop-up shops too. Sometimes customers will ask me, What happens if you're a pop-up shop and the quality isn't so good? Who do I go to? And then whenever I mention the number of five-star reviews I have at Queen Me, so over 1,900, it's such a stamp of validation. Customers absolutely love it and they feel assured that they know that I will give them a really, really good quality service. So offline and online, reviews are just such a great way to grow your business and such an important stamp of validation. So my top tips for collecting reviews, they're really quite simple. It's about making it personal. So at Queen Me, I have a card which shows my face on the front and it has my name next to the face and it says, thank you so much. Love, Amanda. And then on the back of the card is my story. And it talks about how I grew Queen Me from my kitchen table and the vision that I have in growing Queen Me and how much it means to me to serve my customers. So it's a very personal story. And I thank my customers. And then I just tell them how much a review would mean to me. And I echo this in my email marketing as well. So I'll really take the time to add a photograph to my email marketing. I tell a short story with the email marketing and ask customers for a review. I have a little picture of me with my children and I say, by giving this review, you are supporting my small business and helping support my family. And customers really respond to this. They just want to know that their time, that giving their time to leave the review makes a difference. In fact, I had an amazing experience recently when I did Spirit of Christmas and a customer came up to me and told me that she knew my brand that she bought from me before, which was just wonderful in itself, obviously. And then she told me that one of the things that she loved most about my brand was the fact that when she bought, she felt like she was buying from a person, not a brand. And she told me that it was very unusual. She said that she doesn't usually feel like that when she buys from small businesses, but that it had really stood out when she bought from Queen Me and that meant so much to me because I knew that the hard work that I'd put into creating my cards with the story and the photos and making the email marketing so personal I knew that it was working because that was what had stood out to her about Queen Me and it's such a powerful connection when customers want to help you, they want to support your small business and they want to do it because they want to buy from you and so making Your email requests, really, really personal, replying in a personal way is such a powerful thing and it helps you grow your business, gain new customers and also strengthen your relationship with the customers that you already have so they're more likely to come back and buy again. So if you make your review requests personal on your cards and your emails, you're going to be away with this. I can't wait to hear how you get on. Do let me know. go to my Instagram account at Amanda Waterstone and send me a DM. I would love to hear from you and I really hope this helps you grow your business too and that you have the joy of receiving many wonderful reviews.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

to help this podcast grow and spread the light. Thank you.