Getting media coverage, PR or “press” is basically about drawing attention. It’s an interesting concept in that attention often attracts money often regardless of whether it is good or bad. But as we also know, on the bad side, the wrong kind of attention can devastate a reputation and bank accounts in addition to being emotionally painful for the “target” of the attention.
What most people fail to realize or accept is that when a person, place or thing begins to get attention, there is often the potential for it to go bad to some degree – if for no other reason than the fact that there are people who live to complain about almost anything. So whether there is a minimal or mountain of good in the situation there is still a risk that someone somewhere will find something wrong with it, real or imagined.
This is not paranoia. This ‘negative’ can be in the form of customer complaints, ex-employees or even current employees, people from personal relationships, relatives, competition, legal issues or other sources that can blindside a person or business.
This, if for no other reason, is why most people and businesses should have at least a basic level of reputation control. Getting caught off guard, even for something accidental, makes you a target if you do not have your “ability-to-know-the-future-in-advance-and-act-appropriately” skills operational at all times. And even Superman doesn’t have that ability.
Case in point: look at the immense variety of products that have been developed and put on the market by people who truly thought they had created something useful, only to find out they were dangerous or potentially so, and had to be recalled. Everything from food products to cars, from clothing to electronics – the list is almost endless. This also applies to most all services ranging from medical to financial, restaurants to travel agencies, hospitality to home repair and just about any other business you can think of – including yours.
Connected to those situations are the people who used the products or services and were the victim in some way. While those negative scenarios are often based on truly bad products, when it comes to services, there have been many situations where the person claiming to have the problem was actually the cause of the problem. As a result, when it all washes out the person who was supposedly the victim has the tables turned and ends up with their own reputation issues to handle.
Even so, for the business itself, the accused source of the problem, a simple observation shows that many of the reasons for complaints and problems boil down to the responsibility, ethics and integrity of the people in control – the management and decision-makers.
But there may even be one more thing that is missing from that equation. We believe it is “awareness”.
In other words, many of the situations could have been greatly lessened or completely avoided if those accused had made better choices, taken more responsibility and acted or responded differently. What we’ve seen it that if the people who ultimately get the blame were more aware of the potential problems to begin with and did more to avoid potential problems, many problems would never have occurred.
Businesses, in effect, often allow problems to occur. Few have any sort of staff training to create a culture for having a 5-Star Reputation.
Few businesses take much of any action to do the obvious if they think it’s going to cost them money that doesn’t produce money in return. But in this example on the value and power of having a 5-Star Reputation, they are missing an important fact…
5-Star Reputations Attract More Business, Get More Referrals, And
Reinforce EVERYTHING ELSE In Your Marketing And Advertising!
They literally build a business in more ways, more quickly than most anything else you can do.
MOST IMPORTANTLY:
If your reputation sucks and doesn’t stand out, all the other things you do
to market and advertise your business are rendered ineffective.
So if you advertise to drive traffic to your web site, send people to your Facebook page, Tweet your butt off or post videos and podcasts all day long, when people see your poor reputation, your average or mediocre reputation – or don’t see ANY reputation for your business…they wonder…is this the best I can do?
Think about it. No one is obligated to do business with you just because you’ve promoted to them. The web has change all that, remember? Control is in the hands of consumers now.
Consumers get to choose. That’s why your phone doesn’t ring more often. They aren’t choosing you as often as you’d like them to.
They see other businesses like yours that look like better
choices because of their customer reviews.
All anyone has to do is go to Google, search a word or phrase for what you offer, and see literally hundreds of alternatives. On the first page of Google alone there can be up to 30 or more businesses represented in different ways. What makes you their best choice based on what they can see right there?
Well, if you don’t know, we’ll tell you – your Reputation Review Score. It’s the text that is showing up consistently that reveals how many reviews you have and your average score.
When you get enough reviews in Google, you begin to get gold star ratings. Those are Zagat Reviews.
Some review sites will even show your Reputation Review Score in the search engine’s results and include the gold stars.
So put your ego in your pocket for a minute and answer this next question honestly. As a consumer who is preparing to choose who to do business with, which business do you choose to check out first?
Well, if you are not a normal customer, we accept that ;), but studies how that as human beings we have a tendency to choose the companies with the Gold Star Reviews.
And of those with the gold stars, we choose the 5-Star Reviews first because those appear to be the most trustworthy and credible – especially when those stars are a result of past customers or repeat customers who have already risked doing business with the same company.
Get it? We make buying decisions largely based on fear of loss. 5-star Reviews dramatically reduce our potential loss because we trust the experiences of others more than what you claim. Besides, you’re claiming pretty much what all your competitors are claiming anyway. That makes you blend in more than stand out.
You get the point. Your business is now waiting for you to give it a recognizable, distinctive advantage that goes way beyond the claims you make about your product or services.
Let your customers sell for you by having a Reputation Maximization program that builds, maintains and markets your business with a 5-star Reputation! Use the blue buttons to the right to schedule a phone call to get more info on how we work.