One part luck, one part hard work, and the remainder a blessing from God!

I’ve spent the last ten years of my career focusing on Internet marketing–particularly search engine optimization. A few years ago, I started getting requests to help clients “clean up” their Google reputation–pushing down negative items when you Google their name. Between 2005 and 2007, that expanded to other areas and I found myself helping businesses manage all aspects of their online reputation. I coauthored Radically Transparent, which was released in 2008 and that really helped to shift my focus from SEO to online reputation management. Soon after, I founded Trackur.com and since then I’ve found myself firmly planted in the world of reputation management and social media monitoring.

Your feature-rich online reputation monitoring service, Trackur, has created quite a buzz. Can you tell us more about it?

After writing Radically Transparent, I realize that there was a huge void between the rather basic Google Alerts, and the rather expensive social media monitoring solutions–some of which cost thousands of dollars a month. I felt there was a need for an online reputation monitoring tool that offered sophisticated features, yet was easy to set-up and didn’t break the budget. Trackur launched in February 2008 with a plan that started at just $18 a month and took just 60-seconds to set-up. Since then, more than 11,000 accounts have been registered and Trackur’s not only helping the small business owner monitor their reputation, but it’s also used by many large companies and PR firms.

You’ve consulted on reputation management for a wide range of clientele, ranging from small companies all the way up to Fortune 500 companies that we’ve all heard of. Do you see any common trends when it comes to the reputation challenges that companies find themselves in or their responses to them?

The commonality is that both small and large businesses need to ensure they have a positive reputation. After that, it somewhat divides. Small companies lack the budget to build flashy blogs or invest in infrastructure to monitor and manage their online reputation. However, they tend to be in a position to make faster decisions and are able to work one-on-one with the customers–it’s usually the business owner that participates in the management of their online reputation.

Fortune 500 companies have the opposite problem. They typically have the financial resources, but they tend to be such large, complex organizations that any information collected is often silo’d and it takes weeks to get approval to implement strategies that would benefit the company’s online reputation.

What are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve seen people make when it comes to responding to a reputation management crisis, and how someone salvage the situation if they’ve already made one of these mistakes?

The biggest mistake is simply not having official channels in place to allow your customers to complain. Most disgruntled customers post to blogs and Twitter because they feel like they are not being heard by your company. They get frustrated with your lack of customer service and they think to themselves, “I’ll show them, I’ll post a negative review on Yelp/Twitter/Blog.” If companies would simply look at how they’re listening to their customers, and how they escalate and resolve customer service complaints, many of the reputation problems you see would never make it to the web.

Perhaps the second biggest mistake is not apologizing soon enough. We tend to get too defensive, when we screw-up. We want to try and resolve the problem without accepting blame and without putting our hands in our pockets. When your business faces a legitimate complaint, move quickly to resolve it. Don’t think about the few dollars in refund demanded by the customer, instead think about the thousands of dollars in lost revenue, if the customer creates a reputation headache for your business!

Obviously, being proactive is always the best approach, so what are some things that companies can do to help protect their reputation ahead of time?

First, be honest with yourself about your company’s weaknesses. You need to know what your Achilles’ heel is, so you have a better idea of where a complaint is going to surface. If you can’t improve your product or service, then you should at least be aware of the issues. Second, simply listen. If you did nothing else than listen to what’s being said about your company on the Internet, you’d be ahead of your competition. Listen to complaints, praise, product features–heck even listen to what’s being said about your biggest competitors!

Lastly, figure out your company’s “centers of influence” before you start any social media engagement. If your customers aren’t the type to use Twitter, it’s pointless investing in a Twitter strategy–no matter how trendy it is! Once you know the best channel for reaching your customers, focus on it like it’s another one of your products or services. Don’t just launch it, then forget about it. Invest the time and resources into making it a success!

If a company does find themselves in a crisis, what are a some things they can do to minimize the impact it has on their business?

We have an entire chapter about that in Radically Transparent, but I can distill my advice down to just three words.

Sincerity, Transparency, and Consistency.

Be sincere in your apology. Let your detractor know that you acknowledge your mistake and are truly sorry. Next, be transparent in how this situation arose. Was it poor customer training? Or, perhaps a problem with your manufacturing process. Whatever the issue, be open about it and be equally open about how you plan to resolve the situation. Lastly, be consistent in your future actions. Your customers will forgive you the first time, but they’ll look to make sure that this situation doesn’t happen again. It can take 2-3 years before they fully trust your company again, so you have to be consistent.

Can you recommend any free tools that people can use to streamline their reputation management efforts?

For listening, I would start with Google Alerts–it’s free. If you outgrow that–or need something more powerful–then Trackur’s just $18 a month. As far as engagement, WordPress, Twitter, Facebook and most of the other social media channels are completely free. Typically you don’t have to invest hard dollars in technology, you have to invest your time. It’s that personal connection between you and your customer that truly helps strengthen your online reputation.

Do you have anything new on the horizon that you’d like to tell us about?

Right now I’m focusing my time on adding new features to Trackur. I’m extremely proud of what we’ve built and I want to continue adding value to those that trust their reputation monitoring to us!

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You’re not alone. This is a challenge most people go through, but most give up before they realize their mistake. They are talking to an empty room.

For years, we’ve been fed the lie that “content is king.” From a search engine’s point of view, fresh content is great, but search engines are not your customers. People are, and if you want to get them to your website, you’ll have to connect with them first. Just as giving a sales pitch in an empty room will not produce any revenue, neither will posting content to a website that has no traffic. So what’s the solution? You need to find out which websites your potential customers are likely visiting, and reach them there. Some approaches you could take are:

• Offer to guest post on relevant blogs that have a larger following. Keep in mind, the idea is to provide original and useful information for the readers, not a press release extolling the virtues of your company. A few sentences or so at the end of the post is where you will mention your company.
• Interview people on your website. It’s a great way to connect with prominent people in your industry while getting exposure and creating fresh content.
• Participate on relevant forums, and be sure to include a link to your website in your signature. The key here is to add value to the conversation, rather than just trying to get in as many posts as you can.
• Answer relevant questions on LinkedIn and Yahoo Answers.
• Submit content to high-traffic article directories. Remember the 80/20 rule though; there are hundreds of thousands of article directories out there, but only a handful will create any exposure for you.

While you’re doing all of this, don’t forget to keep up with your own content. You want to make sure that your new visitors have an incentive to stick around.

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The thing is, they are wrong. There is no one thing that everyone needs.

Worse than being wrong, they are setting themselves up for failure. By convincing themselves that everyone needs what they’re offering, they end up burning out because it takes significantly more effort to convert their prospects into customers. It can be tempting to look at larger segments of the population as your target market, but it all comes down to one thing; conversions. Would you rather spend your time trying to convince 1,000 people who are slightly interested in what you have and converting 50 of them, or trying to convince 100 people who are absolutely passionate about what you have and converting 20 of them?

If you focus on a more targeted prospect, you’ll find that:

• Your sales process is easier and faster, which means you can spend more time finding even more like-minded prospects
• You’ll get more referrals
• The amount of time you spend handling customer service related issues goes down, which again, means that you can spend more time finding even more like-minded prospects

If you still think you can convince everyone, remember, 6% of the US population thinks we never landed on the moon. Good luck with that!

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One school of thought says to give your service away for free in order to get exposure and dominate the market, then find a way to monetize your service. There is some validity to this, but for most people/companies, it just won’t work. First, you have to have money to support yourself and/or your company during the free period, and this isn’t just a matter of providing the service because a large percentage of the people receiving your free service will expect you to provide free support as well. Another factor is that, quite often, the people interested in your free service won’t be willing to pay for it, so once you find a way to monetize it, you will lose them. Don’t get me wrong, that’s not a bad thing because it will filter out people who will waste your time. Just make sure that you don’t base your financial projections on your pre-monetization users.

Free can work to create exposure, reach new prospects and increase market share, but only if done correctly. Some of these approaches may work for your business model:

• Offer free content, but also offer premium content. A good example of this is Aaron Wall’s SEO Book. He regularly posts useful and informative articles in his blog, but he also has a very active paid membership community where you can find some of the most up-to-date SEO information available anywhere. The free content helps to create exposure, draw in targeted traffic and give visitors a taste of what’s inside, while the premium content is where the real treasure is.
• Provide tools and resources that your visitors can use for free, making your website a valuable resource that others will want to talk about and link to. This helps you to increase your exposure and traffic, and to create a defensible website.
• Develop useful and original free content on your own website and guest-post on other popular, relevant websites. If the quality of your content is superior, it will show your visitors that you are the expert in your field, which you can then leverage to sell them your services.

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But if we start thinking like kids more often, we can become much more effective and achieve far more than we’ve ever imagined. In case you need a quick refresher, here is how to start thinking like a kid again:

1. Get excited

When your son gives you a home made Father’s day card he made out of construction paper, he believes with absolute certainty that it is the best Father’s day card in the world. You can’t help but agree, knowing that he made it because he knows you are the best father in the world! The fact that he is nearly bubbling over with excitement and pride when he gives you his masterpiece adds to the impact.

If you’re not excited about your own product or service, why should anyone else be?

2. Think big

As a kid, I didn’t want to build just any fort, I wanted to build a giant sprawling complex, complete with camouflage, secret underground passages, and even a periscope. I wasn’t deterred by the magnitude of my plans, on the contrary, I was motivated by it. As kids, most of us had dreams that were considered unrealistic by adults. The thing is, it takes about the same amount of effort to produce outstanding results as it does to produce average results. On a side note – it’s a lot easier to get excited (and get others excited) about a big idea.

By the way, I did end up building that fort!

3. Be creative

Kids love to be different, and they want attention for it. Most adults just want to fit in though. That’s killing your marketing. Take a stand and differentiate your self from your competitors in a bold, fresh way.

4. Make friends

Kids can make a new friend in just a few seconds on the playground. As adults though, we often finds that we’re too busy with what we’re doing to think about others. That’s nonsense – we should embrace every opportunity to make new friends. Maybe they can help us meet that dream client, spark a new idea or help provide just the leverage we need. Perhaps they can become a mentor or even a business partner. Or maybe we end up doing something for them instead, and learn something in the process. The bottom line is we can achieve more together than we ever can on our own.

5. Have fun

Many of us can remember sitting on the top bunk bed pretending to be in the crows nest of our very own pirate ship, scanning the high seas with a telescope made from a paper towel tube. When we were kids we had fun doing almost anything, but as adults we often find ourselves putting fun off until later. That’s a bad idea because when you take the fun out of something, you begin to be less passionate about it and become less effective at it.

Besides, if you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, why are you doing it?

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At every step of the way, you should be asking yourself “What can I do right now to add more value than my competitors are adding and than my prospects expect?”  In doing so, you’re developing the image of a market leader, positioning your company as a valuable partner rather than just a commodity, and building a stronger, long-term business model.

Take a look at what your company offers, find ways to add value and then take action. Even better, add value while cutting costs. Then, make that added value known; point it out in your marketing, tell your clients about it, have your employees spread the word. Make sure that as many people know as possible.

This simple one-two combo will put you light years ahead of your competitors, shorten your sales cycle and increase your revenue and profit. Now get to work!

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In my own unscientific opinion, I would be willing to bet that most people are nearly as adverse to making a sales call, whether in person or on the phone, as they are terrified of public speaking. But what are they really afraid of? Rejection? Failure? Wasting their time?

Well, let’s face the facts; you’re going to experience rejection. Not everyone needs, wants or can afford what you’re selling. Sales is partially a numbers game, so the more people you get in front of, the more opportunities you’ll have to sell your product or service. You’re also going to face failure, but failure is how you learn. Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly until you get good at it. So far, it sounds like you’ve got your work cut out for you; almost everything that you have been looking at as a negative actually creates a positive benefit for you.

Wasting your time, however, can cripple your sales efforts. You could spend countless days calling leads over and over and not receive a single call back. You could spend hours on the phone or sitting down with prospects to learn about their needs, and then find out they aren’t even authorized to make a decision. You could even prepare a detailed custom proposal for every potential client, learning later that they just took your information and cut you out of the equation. The common factor here is quickly learning what type of prospect you’re talking to, and then allocating the appropriate amount of time; nothing more and nothing less.

Everyone has different circumstances, but like Tyler Durden said in Fight Club, they are “not a unique snowflake.” In reality, you’ll find that 99% of your prospects fall into one of 4 groups.

Rubber-neckers

These prospects happened to drop by your trade show booth, visit your website or see one of your ads and decide that they’d like to know more about your company. The problem is they have absolutely no interest in investing in what you’re selling. They may fill out your contact form online, mail in a request for more information or even call you, but you’ll never hear from them again. You can usually spot these prospects pretty quickly because when you start asking them basic questions, they don’t have any answers – they just want you to send them every bit of information on your company. They will typically contact you once, or at most twice, and you’ll never be able to reach them again, so if you can’t reach them after three or four phone calls and an email or two, it’s time to move on.

Tire kickers

When you encounter tire-kickers, they will deluge you with requests for more and more information, which will often span several weeks or months while they are “weighing their options.” If you happen to get to a point where you have enough information to produce a proposal, they will usually drastically change the scope of their project, and then the process starts all over. These prospects are relatively simple to spot if you’re paying attention because you’ll find that the more information you give them, the more they want. Often, they will add to or change the scope of the project at every step of the way. If they are going to act like this before they are even a client/customer, think of how they will act once they are. As soon as you realize that you’re dealing with a tire-kicker, shift gears to spend your time with prospects that are likely to move forward.

Bargain hunters

Sometimes, you’re going to come across a prospect that really is a good person with limited resources, and in those cases, it’s fine to massage the terms of a deal to help them out as long as you’re not hurting yourself. There is nothing wrong with looking for a good deal, but when it comes to negotiating, the bargain hunter wants the world handed to them. When presented with a price, they will usually ask for a discount right off the bat. You may be tempted to cave in order to land the project, but keep in mind, they are just going to keep whittling your prices down until you can’t go any lower, and then they will jump ship for the next company that will do it for $10 less. This prospect will treat you as a commodity and has no loyalty to you, so while you may end up lowering your prices for them, make sure the numbers still make sense for you.

Family and Friends

No matter what industry you’re in, family and friends will always expect favors from you. This is a tough one because there are personal relationships involved, but you need to handle them the same way that you would handle bargain hunters, otherwise, you may end up feeling like they’re taking advantage of you and you’ll end up resenting them.

Go-getters

These prospects are great! They either already know what they want or they trust you as the professional to tell them what they need – and they’re ready to take action right away. Typically they are value-based shoppers, so they don’t mind paying a premium as long as they are getting their money’s worth, and they are usually quick to make a decision, which means that your sales cycle can be unbelievably short, but it also means that if you’re not meeting their needs, they will go elsewhere just as quickly. Spend the time necessary to properly qualify them, develop a proposal that’s tailored to their specific needs, be available and don’t be afraid to ask for the sale. If you spend your time with more of this type of prospect and less time with the others, you’ll quickly see a change in your revenue and you profit margins.

Looking back, you can now probably see some patterns with some of the prospects you’ve worked with in the past. Hopefully going forward, you now have the information to be more selective and work with more of the prospects who will improve your bottom line and less of the ones that will waste your time. Remember the 80/20 rule.

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But is it really the rise of social media, as some “so-called” SEO experts claim, that’s making it tougher to build quality links that corrolate to organic ranking, or is it something else?

The truth is, it’s a bit of both. Most social media channels, such as Facebook or Twitter, use a link shortening service and/or add the nofollow attribute to external links. This negates most, if not all of the potential SEO benefits of that link. But most people are using social media poorly anyway – you should be using it to establish and nurture relationships, not to blast your message to as many people as possible. Bloggers are still blogging, and while they may be posting less, they are still linking out from their posts. If you’ve used social media properly by building relationships, which takes time,  quite often you’ll find that these people mention you and link to your content without so much as a nudge from you. And if they don’t, it’s easy to ask them to help you get the word out if you’ve already established a relationship with them.

Social media may have changed some of the dynamics of SEO lately, but it certainly isn’t killing it. Search engine optimization always has and always will evolve, it’s up to you to adjust your strategies or become extinct.

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On October 5th, the regulatory agency announced that for the first time since 1980, it has updated its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

The FTC’s press release states:

The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other “word-of-mouth” marketers. The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.

A blogger who violates the rules could reportedly face up to $11,000 in fines. However, the FTC is not 100% clear on what constitutes “material connections.” Payments or free products are obvious, but what about less direct benefits, such as affiliate links where you would receive payment if a visitor happens to follow your link and purchase something from the merchant? Or would promoting a website your own using another websites that you own fall under these guidelines?

It’s doubtful that most bloggers/website owners have much, if anything to worry about. This seems to be directed more at reducing the açaí, teeth whitening, work from home, and other scams that have been popping up everywhere lately, but given the current economic climate, it’s certainly plausible that the government will use any opportunity they can find to fill their coffers. Ironically, you don’t see this type of disclosure being required on network television, which engages in more questionable practices and has far more reach than any single blog.

To play on the safe side of the fence, you should add a disclosure page that is easily accessible to your website and indicate that you may be compensated in some manner for anything that you review or endorse.

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Sometimes you may have to cut your prices just to keep revenue flowing, but you still need to make a reasonable profit. The problem is that if you spend much time working with an unprofitable client, it takes away from the time you could be spending with profitable clients, and you’ll most likely begin to become resentful and under-appreciated. Before long, you’ll find yourself looking for ways to cut corners on their project so that you can get it done and move on to more profitable ones.

Keep in mind that you are responsible for the perception of value with your clients – if you arbitrarily drop your prices without adjusting what they receive in return, you will diminish their perceived value of our products or services and they will come to expect discounts all the time. Your company will become a commodity and client loyalty will go to the lowest bidder. When you find yourself in a position where you have to provide a discount in order to make a deal work, you also have to adjust the products or services you are providing. Remember, your goal is to create a win-win scenario and if you’re handing out discounts just because clients asked for them, you’re not winning anything.

Some options, instead of offering discounts, are to:

• Add more value, such as adding additional products or services for the same price. This will give your clients more bang for their buck while helping you to keep your profit margin higher than if you simply gave them a discount.
• Offer in-house financing. If your client just doesn’t have the appropriate funds at the moment, but they are comfortable with the price, you may be able to finance a portion or all of the price. You will want to be very selective with this though, perhaps limiting it to existing clients with a solid track record.
• Create a referral program where clients earn credit toward purchases from your company by sending you qualified prospects who become clients. In their eyes, it’s free money for them, and for you, it can be a steady stream of business from a trusted source.

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