What is Online Reputation Management?

Reputation is defined as “the opinion or social evaluation of the group of entities toward a person, a group of people, or an organization.” When we talk about the reputation of a business, we are referring to how a company brand is perceived.

The reputation is built from what your customers are saying about your brand, what ex-employees are saying about the company, and what the competition is saying about you. A positive reputation brings trust, confidence, and sales, which are ultimately reflected in revenue growth and profitability. In contrast, a bad reputation can lead to a decrease in consumer confidence and a reduction in revenue and profits.

Building a reputation on the web is a growing concept. Information travels quickly across the internet through online conversations in forums, message boards, reviews, blogs, and other consumer driven sites. The online conversations include opinions that could positively or negatively affect your company’s reputation. Search engines include the consumer driven sites when they index, causing the positive or negative opinions to appear in search results for your company brand.

Online Reputation Management is a technique used to monitor and influence the opinions built on the web. It incorporates tools that allow you to observe what is being said about your company and to take action on outweighing the negative with the positive.

Why is Reputation Management important?

Today’s society is becoming more and more reliant on the web. Customers use the internet to research and make buying decisions. Even when purchasing products or services offline, they do the pre-work on the web. Whether it is comparing one company to another or determining the cheapest price of a product, the web gives customers on the spot information.

Any information available to your potential customers affects your reputation and their buying decisions. Say for instance, they do a search on your brand and the first result to come up is a negative review posted by a previous customer that was unhappy with your product or service. Not only will the negative remark influence their opinion of your brand, it will also cause them to look elsewhere.

Online Reputation Management is important because it gives your company a means to actively listen and monitor what is being said online. It creates an opportunity to participate in the conversation and take action on preventing any negative remarks from building an unwanted reputation.

What are Google Alerts and why are they important to Online Reputation Management?

Google Alerts is a free online tool that allows you to monitor any word or phrase on the web. The alerts are created through your Google account. Once you set up the words or phrases you want to monitor, Google will send you an email every time the word or phrase is mentioned online. It will include a link to the website so you can become involved in the conversation.

It is important to note that Google Alerts is solely a notification system. It does not add information about your company onto the web. It only notifies you of what information is already out there.

Google Alerts help with Reputation Management because they give you the opportunity to track what is being said about your company brand, your products or services, key employees, and the competition. The alerts present the positive and the negative so you can take action in influencing your reputation.

I get a LOT of people requesting information on an inexpensive microphone that can be used with a Kodak Zi8 Pocket Video Camera

Zi8 camera (which has an external microphone input) or any consumer or prosumer camera that’s cheap, easy to use and gets decent results.

Here’s one that’s only $23.99 from Amazon:

Audio Technica ATR-3350 Lavalier Omnidirectional Condenser Microphone

And in case you’re looking for an excellent deal on Kodak Zi8 replacement batteries, check this out – I found some that work for $9.95 each! (better than the $25 Kodak charges )

TechFuel® Battery for Kodak Zi8 Digital Camera TechFuel

Also check out these 16G or 32G SD cards, allows for several hours of recording time, very good investment.

After Google purchased Youtube.com Videos became all the rage. It used to be that only a handful of corporate websites had videos and now they are on more and more websites. The Kodak Zi8 and Flip HD allow anyone to look pretty professional with out the big expense. Videos allow you and your company an excellent way to connect with prospects and clients on a personal level.

It’s one thing to write compelling web copy that works, but it’s quite another to show a movie of yourself speaking. Personally, I was afraid of sounding stupid, looking weird or actually hurting my marketing rather than helping it. I generally think I am un-photogenic. But the more I worked with videos and spoke to professional I realized those feelings are pretty natural.

We encourage all clients to use videos and we currently recommending the Kodak Zi8 because of it’s external mic jack. We use videos on our facebook page and with our business and sales training.

Here are a few tips we would recommend from our experience.

1. Make sure you have your core message crystal clear. You need to connect empathetically with your customers and speak right to their need and the benefits you offer. If you are unclear of your focus, get help with that before doing your video.

2. If you are using a small digital camera like the Flip HD or Kodak Zi8 like I do, make sure you use good lighting it is fairly easy too, but you’ll definitely need some practice.

3. Keep it well under a minute or less. People will watch a video if it is short and quick. If it goes too long people won’t watch all the way to the end. This means you don’t have to say a lot but what you do say needs to be clear and compelling. Even 15 seconds can be good. We been on national TV and Radio where you only have 2-3 minutes to speak.

4. Make sure you smile, as this makes a huge difference in terms of connecting with people. No one can resist a good smile. Smiling is a skill so again you may need some practice.

5. Make sure you have a call to action at the end. Something that you want people to do. Buy a book; take a class; sign-up for a newsletter or whatever. Don’t lose the opportunity to let people know what to do next, but always bring in the benefits to them.

Go for it and have fun!!

When your video is done you can upload it in on YouTube.Com get the code so you can paste it on your website. Take note add your web address on the first line of the description, so people will see it.

Also I highly recommend an expensive lavalier microphone for any Kodak Zi8 it ads a huge level of professionalism.

Also check out these 16G or 32G SD cards, allows for several hours of recording time, very good investment.

You Were Created to Succeed!
Bert Martinez

Everything we buy has an emotional explanation. When we buy something, our subconscious level is as active as our conscious one, because deep inside, everyone feels the need to fulfill certain human needs. The easiest of which is avoiding fear/pain/boredom or to gain excitement/pleasure/certainty.
The majority of us, when we buy something, are trying to fill an emotional void. We are attempting to get closer to happiness and to a life free of problems. This is why we buy what we want as much as, or even more than, what we need, to get rid of the pain or to feel happy. There may be exceptions to this — it’s doubtful that you feel an emotional connection to your laundry detergent or toilet paper — but any items that require a decision-making process definitely fall into the “emotional connection” category.
Below we discuss the 6 basic human needs that control the pleasure/pain buttons. Our advice as marketing/business experts is that when you are trying to sell a product or service, link it to one of these, and you will get the person to connect emotionally with your offering.

1. First necessity: Certainty
If you can prove to people that your product or service will bring certainty to their lives, they will buy it. It can be the certainty of love, security, health, self-respect, financial freedom, or peace, you name it, just know your potential clients’ desires.

2. Second necessity: Variety
While there is a small group of folks that we would classify as “creatures of habit,” most people need variety to feel alive. The same, over and over again, bores them. We travel, read, meet people, and try new foods, among other things, in search for variety. Some people hate routine, so present your product or service as a routine breaker.

3. Third necessity: Significance
Significance is a great buying motivator; however, this word has a very subjective meaning. People have different views and experiences in regards to what is significant for them. You have to clearly identify what matters to your potential clients in order to present the significance your product or service may have for them.

4. Fourth necessity: Connection
Connection is vital in a person’s life. We have the need to feel deeply connected to our family, friends, community, society, and country. How can your product or service enhance that connection?

5. Fifth necessity: Growth
Life is about growth. People need to grow every day in order to feel alive, successful and prosperous. One can grow emotionally, professionally, spiritually, financially, etc. If your product or service supports a person’s growth in any area, there is a big chance they will buy it.

6. Sixth necessity: Contribution
Everyone has a purpose in life. Everyone was born to fulfill a mission, and this is why everyone needs to know that his or her life matters. Human beings have the need to make a difference and to contribute to the wellness of the world in some way.

Your product or service will connect deeply with your customers if it offers them an opportunity to tap into their emotions.

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Psyching Yourself Out of A Sale

When clients ask for help in closing more sales, I’d ask them to list the objections they are hearing that prevented the sale. It’s when they start stumbling over their response that I ask, “Are these the objections you are hearing directly from your prospects or what you’re assuming as the reason why they don’t buy?”

Whether it’s around our sales efforts, during a conversation with our boss (and our kids), or when trying to uncover ways to best manage your sales team training, certain assumptions can dramatically affect the results we seek to achieve, especially during a conversation.

Rather than uncovering the real barrier to the sale, assuming the objection becomes a detrimental process that spreads like a virus throughout every sales call. These assumptions are not based on the facts but rather the salesperson’s assumption of the truth.

When clients ask for help in closing more sales, I’d ask them to list the objections they are hearing that prevented the sale. It’s when they start stumbling over their response that I ask, “Are these the objections you are hearing directly from your prospects or what you’re assuming as the reason why they don’t buy?”

Whether it’s around our sales efforts, during a conversation with our boss (and our kids), or when trying to uncover ways to best manage your team, certain assumptions can dramatically affect the results we seek to achieve, especially during a conversation.

Rather than uncovering the real barrier to the sale, assuming the objection becomes a detrimental process that spreads like a virus throughout every sales call. These assumptions are not based on the facts but rather the salesperson’s assumption of the truth.

Salespeople often fall into this trap when creating solutions for their prospects. During a conversation with a prospect, they uncover a similar situation or problem that they have handled with a previous client. So, they assume that the same solution will fit for this prospect as well.

The problem arises when the salesperson fails to invest the time to go beyond what may be obvious and explore the prospect’s specific objectives or concerns.

Thinking they “know” this prospect, the salesperson provides them with the benefits of his service that he perceives to be important, without considering the prospect’s particular needs.

The next time you’re speaking with your boss, your family your employees, or if you’re on a sales call, rather than assuming the objection, how the prospect makes a buying decision, what they know or what they want to hear, follow these suggestions to create more selling opportunities.

1. Identify The Knowledge Gap.
That’s the space between what people know and what they don’t know. Instead of assuming what they know, start determining what they need/want to learn in order to fill in this gap and ensure clear communication. What may seem old or common to you is new to them. Use questions up front to uncover what’s needed to fill in the gap. Example: “Just so I don’t sound repetitive, how familiar are you with-?”

2. Be Curious.
Question everything! Since you’re in the business
of providing solutions, invest the time to uncover the person’s specific need or problem, as opposed to providing common solutions that you assume may fit for everyone. For example, the words “Frustrated, successful, affordable, reliable and quality,” can be interpreted in a variety of ways and often carry a different meaning for each of us.

When you hear a prospect make a comment like, “I want a quality product that will give me the results I want at an affordable price,” use this as an opportunity to explore deeper into what they want or need most. “What type of results are you looking for?” “What is affordable to you?” Questions allow you to clarify what you have heard or go into a topic in more depth so you can become clear with what they are really saying.

3. Clarify!
Make each prospect feel that they are truly being listened to and understood. Use a clarifier when responding to what you’ve heard during the conversation. Rephrase in your own words what they had said to ensure that you not only heard, but also understood them. Then, confirm the next course of action. Examples: “What I’m hearing you say is…” “Tell me more about that.” “What do you see as the next step?”

4. Just The Facts, Please
“I told a prospect that I’d follow up within a week. Two weeks later, I figured I missed my chance and they went with someone else.” Sound familiar? Effective salespeople don’t guess themselves into a sale. To ensure you’re operating with the facts, ask yourself this, “Do I have evidence to support my assumption or how I’m feeling?” Enjoy the peace of mind that comes from gaining clarity rather than drowning in the stories that you believe are true.

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