There once was a time when reputation (good or bad) was carried by word-of-mouth. Remember the aphorism (we’re paraphrasing here), receive good service and one person knows; receive bad service and you tell 10 of your friends. Well we have news for you, in 2010 you should be so lucky to have only 10 people know if you provide bad service. In the inter-connected world we live in today, receive bad service and literally the world may know, within minutes
Now, in this terrifying exposure potential lies tremendous power for the entrepreneur – reputation management. That’s right – you have an opportunity to manage how prospective customers see you. It’s better than the yellow pages, it’s better than word of mouth and it’s better than advertising. And best of all – it’s free.
Your reputation is being framed by services collectively called social directories. These include: Angie’s List. InsiderPages, JudysBook, ServiceMagic, and Zipingo. These services are set up to “capture word-of-mouth wisdom”. Consumers submit reviews of the service they received and post it on the sites. Additionally, social networking sites (Facebook, LinkedIn elicit recommendations and Twitter promotes tweets good and bad). People with access to these sites (which are most of us these days) can read the reviews and make their selection and purchasing decisions accordingly.
Now instead of musing about how people would flock to your company and happily buy your service if they only knew how good you were – now you have a way to make that happen.
We have a special interest in working with women entrepreneurs and enjoyed the story published on January 1, 2010 in Angie’s List about 3 business women who built a place in the contractor field. It relates the story of “three highly rated service providers who pursued careers once performed exclusively by men”. Quality does count in the mind of the buyers – regardless of gender, race or age.
How many times have your heard (or may have even said yourself) – I’m too old, I’m too young, I’m the wrong gender and so on – ad nauseam. For the vast majority of professions and business – it doesn’t matter. What matters is how good you are at what you do and more importantly, who says so.
You can manage your reputation by:
- Providing outstanding service
- Encouraging not only written testimonials, but also testimonials on the social directories
- Improving your service if the feedback you get suggests how you can improve
- Insuring that you let your prospective customers know about the social directories where reviews of you/r work appears.
You can catapult yourself and your company to growth and profitability faster than at anytime in the past by knowing how to manage your reputation. And there is nothing manipulative about it. You provide valuable work, and thousands of people learn about it. There is nothing wrong with claiming it—in fact, you should. To use a title from one of Wayne Dyer’s books – EXCUSES BEGONE.
Copyright 2010 Kubica and LaForest
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