What Are They Saying About You?

Why Not Asking This Question Could Cost You Your Business

Imagine this scenario:

You run a completely honest and reputable business and you spend valuable time, effort and money promoting your business, its products and its services.

And yet, mysteriously, sales are not what you expect.

Even worse would be, while you’re doing everything you ever did, your sales are actually starting to fall and you sense that despite your best efforts, it’s your credibility that’s lacking.

In fact, when you finally ask some people why they don’t buy from you, they mutter something about ‘No smoke without fire’, or they talk about your reputation and how there is so much bad stuff written about you that some of it must be true.

Well, then you know you’re in trouble, because with all that bad publicity out there you’re suddenly fighting a rearguard action, trying to convince people you’re one of the good guys really.

But that can take months, even years, and that bad publicity might never truly go away.

Meanwhile, you’ve missed out on a load of business. You might even have gone under, and just because a few people started saying unfair things about you. When a few people start to talk about you, whatever they have to say can be all over the Internet in no time at all, especially if your name is already well known.

That’s why a reputation management strategy is so important for every business these days.

With a reputation management strategy in place you can see every time you or your business is mentioned anywhere and react accordingly. You can deal with complaints, correct errors of fact and put your side of any story. You can react to praise, too.

Without a strategy in place you’re basically gambling that no one, ever, will have a bad word to say about you or your business or even your products.

And however honest and ethical you may be, that’s a pretty unlikely scenario, isn’t it?

Reputation management doesn’t have to be about suing anyone who ever says a bad thing about you but it does pay to defend yourself against the unfair accusations that even the nicest people have levelled against them from time to time.

And sometimes you’ll even get to say ‘Thank you’.

Roy

PS. Naturally, Cinnamon Edge can help you with reputation management as well, because we do much more than just online marketing in Bury St Edmunds.