Page 50 - My Marketing Sucks Book

Word of Mouth - This may seem like a First Point of Contact, as it is out of your

control. But, as you’ll see - it’s not out of your control.

You can and should start to take control of what people are saying about you,
where they’re saying it and who is hearing it.

Look, most owners, operators and entrepreneurs complain to us that they are
“the best kept secret around”. They feel their struggle is getting people to know

they exist. When we start to do some competitive intelligence often times we find
online reviews and sometimes complaints. Too often, they didn’t even know that

was out there.

Do you feel like that at times? Have you run into this problem?

Here is the plan. Get in front of it.

Go online and find everything you can about your business, the ownership and

your key employees. Take note of where you find this stuff:

● Google
● Yahoo

● Bing
● Yelp
● Facebook

Now join in on the conversation.

Reply with a warm thank you where appropriate. You’re putting a human to the
business. Be quick to apologize and slow to be defensive. Remember, you’re not
writing to the complainer (they probably wrote you off already). You are writing

to the person reading the negative review.

Human nature is forgiving. People understand mistake happen. That’s why we

have ‘Shit Happens’ bumper stickers :-).

Next, pull together a few raving fans of yours each month, wherever you find
them saying something positive about your business or employees. Ask these
folks to go back onto Google+, Facebook, Yelp and all the other places you find
comments and drop in some glowing reviews. You can quickly bury the few

negative ones with some positive ones.