Transcription
Why Google reviews are so important. By this point in time, we should be sophisticated enough to really know the obvious answer, but I wanted to go into it a little bit deeper because I still don't think business owners truly understand how important reviews are, but specifically Google reviews.
There are tons of places to get reviews or to ask your clients to leave you reviews, and they're all beneficial. As it stands, it's really difficult to get them to leave one review on one platform. So because of that, what I would encourage you to do is to focus on Google primarily. And if they really really love you and they're motivated, then ask them to leave you a review over on Yelp or Avo or wherever else that may be beneficial to you and in your vertical.
I would like to start off by asking you how often you do anything without checking the reviews. Whether it's watch a movie, go to a restaurant, go to the chiropractor, select a dentist, call a lawyer, you always will check reviews. So for me, the number one big reason is it's a part of our culture now. We want to make sure that the businesses, the movies, whatever we're about to invest our time and money into actually has some positive reviews. We don't want to go to something that a movie that is pretty much agreed upon by both reviewers and uh the audience that is crap. We want to go see something that we will probably enjoy. We at least want to receive. We at least want to give it a benefit of the doubt by having a few good reviews.
Number two, what is better than you saying you're awesome? I mean, you could say you're awesome. I could say I'm awesome at what I do, but that's pretty pretentious. And of course, I'm going to say that. So, what's better than me saying it is someone else saying it. And this goes back to word of mouth, marketing, word of mouth of the good old days. It's nothing. There's nothing better than getting a referral from someone you know saying that this chiropractor down the street is the best chiropractor in town. How do they know? Because they actually went through the process, went through their entire program, and improved their health, their back pain, whatever. Right? It's better that someone else say it other than you.
Number three, and I just alluded to it a second ago, is word of mouth marketing. Essentially, 2.0, 3.0. Word of mouth marketing has been around forever. And if you ask many business owners, they'll actually tell you that when you ask them, well, how do you get new business? Oh, word of mouth. Word of mouth. That's primarily word of mouth, which is fantastic. That means human beings actually love what you do and they have to tell others. But the challenge with word of mouth is that you're counting on that individual to say the right thing at the right time to the right person who needs your service in that moment which can be good. uh ideally your former client, patient or whatever says, "Hey, I know a person, right? It's one to one." However, with reviews, Google reviews, it's one to many.
I like to tell you a quick story about reviews and how they've benefited me and how I was able to leverage online reviews, especially at the beginning when I when I was doing a lot of free work. I realized that I had done a ton of free work for a lot of people, but I had not got reviews from them. So what I decided to do is to ask those individuals for who I had done that work for to please leave me a review to please go to Google, go to Yelp, go to what was the other one? I feel like there was a third one. I forgot now. Point is, I asked them to leave me a review and at one point in time I had 30 or 40 reviews on Yelp and Google. It was fantastic. And every and and for a few years I would consistently get business from those reviews and from those platforms. Those reviews can live for essentially forever or until the platform collapses. Yelp isn't the powerhouse that it once was when it comes to to reviews. And I think a lot of it probably has to do with the fact that Google stopped ranking ranking them as high for your business. That's why I encourage you to tell your people to leave reviews on Google because it is the number one search engine in the world. And because of that, there's a lot of trust embedded into those Google reviews.
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The big point I wanted to make there is that for years I was getting business consistently from those reviews. Those individuals, my former clients, their reviews continue to deliver value to me. And it was a beautiful, magnificent thing that to this day I'm incredibly thankful for. So I would encourage you if you don't have getting reviews, the activity of actually getting reviews embedded into your company culture and in your processes, then you're really, really losing out.
Which brings me to the next few big important points. Number four, you want to protect your brand online. It doesn't even really matter how big you are. You maybe you just started out and you just started helping people. I would highly encourage you to start asking for reviews immediately because especially when you start out, you don't have any reviews. And I guarantee you, and I used to tell this to my my uh law firm clients, that you're only one bad review away from bleeding revenue and money, especially when you don't have any. Cuz if you if you just started and you have no reviews, but that one negative one or two negative ones, I guarantee you people will run away from you. But if you have 30 or 40 reviews and then you have those one or two negative ones, well, people take it into account and they don't weigh it as much. They're not going to punish you for it. But once again, look at your own behavior. If you Google someone, a business that may have been referred to you and you Google them, you're going to find that and you find that they only have one or two reviews and negative ones at that, you're not going to give them a chance. our time and our money is so valuable that we're not going to risk the possibility of going to someone that isn't viable and reliable. At least that's the presumption. That's the assumption we make in that moment.
Number five, revenue. It's just straight up revenue. Given our current behavior, how we will Google anything and everything, it is in your best interest. On the positive side, you will close more clients. Even if a former client of yours gives a word of mouth referral to someone else, that someone else is still going to Google you to almost to confirm. Years ago, I think I heard a stat that 75% of people that receive a word of mouth referral have said that they still Google them. I guarantee you now it's closer to 100%. We want to make sure that we can trust that referral. What are what are other people saying about them? How are they being presented? What kind of content do they have? Are they professional? Are they well spoken? cannot vibe with them. You will close more business simply by just having some good reviews that allows people to confirm that they can go with you and they can trust that you're gonna take care of them.
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And now that we got to the end, I want to share this incredibly powerful tip for you. And here's my top recommendation as it relates to these reviews. You've done this hard work. You continue to follow up with people to get those reviews. You got 10, 20, 30 reviews. The last piece to this is to market your reviews. Market those testimonials. Don't just let them sit on Google. Grab them, use them, market them, create graphics around them, create reaction videos around it where maybe you're you have a screenshot of the of the testimonial of the review and you're talking about the story related to that individual that you helped. this great piece of content and it will give people another reason for them to go with you. Don't just sit on the on that testimonial and review and not market it out. It's something that people completely undervalue and don't re realize that they could really benefit from as a product offering that I have for my clients is I'll grab those reviews and create content around them. I'll create uh some image posts. I'll create some reals, something to allow them to get those reviews and that word of mouth out into the open and put money behind it. Your testimonials and reviews are going to be your biggest, most powerful marketing asset. You just have to really leverage and be creative about how to use it. And I said it a second ago, and I I touched on this a second ago. Put money behind those graphics and those videos. I'm a big proponent of spending money and advertising to make sure that your your brand and your service is in front of as many people as possible every single day. The best thing you can market, the best thing you can advertise is going to be those reviews. So go do that. Go make it happen and get your get your brand out in front of everyone.