Alert: You’ve received a negative review.

If you’ve been in business for long enough, you’ve inevitably received an email or alert with those fateful words.

It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person or run a bad business, but it hurts just the same. I get it. I remember when I wrote my first book, eBoot Camp, and I woke up to a 1500-word diatribe of how much my book sucked. I was gutted. He spent hours carefully poking holes in every chapter. True or false, it didn’t matter. It was there for the world to see, and I just knew my career was over.

You all know the end of the story…life went on, and that review didn’t ruin my career.

But it did teach me a valuable lesson. You see, I hadn’t been proactive in asking readers to review my book. I had a few good organic reviews, but it paled in comparison to the amount of books I had sold. I learned something very valuable about people and reviews…

They are more motivated when they’re unhappy than when they’re happy.

We all have good intentions to write our 4, or 5-star reviews, but oftentimes, we get distracted, and a week turns into never.

The lesson I learned through that experience was to always be proactive in asking for positive reviews. Had I done that with eBoot Camp, I would have had 100+ positive reviews to combat that one negative review. All I had to do was ask my loyal tribe, and they would have responded accordingly. And yes, I did ask them after the fact, and they did eventually bury the review. But the damage was already done. His review saw the light of day for way too long and probably caused many people to not buy the book. The best time to start compiling positive reviews is way before you ever receive a negative one.

With that in mind, (yes, here it comes), I would really appreciate those of you who have read my latest book, Authentically Social, to head over to Amazonor Good Reads and leave a positive review about the book. You are my tribe, and I can’t thank you enough for taking a few minutes to do this for me.

01 START HERE FIRST:

Where are you light on reviews for your business? Google My Business? Yelp? LinkedIn? Nextdoor? Glassdoor?
Prioritize the sites with the fewest reviews or with the most negative reviews.

02 TAKE ACTION:

Create a process for getting positive reviews.
Use QR codes, links, etc., to make it as easy as possible for your happy clients to give you positive feedback.
Retroactively, send an email to past clients and ask for reviews.
But more importantly, make sure there is a clear process moving forward for getting positive reviews. Timing is everything, and it’s best to get the review right after the time of service.

03 WHAT TO DO NEXT:

Once you’ve achieved a solid number of positive reviews, move to the next prioritized site. If you have 100+ reviews on Google, for example, it’s time to move to another directory or social media platform.
Thank your reviewers. I will be watching my Amazon page, and you better believe I will be thanking those of you who take the time to write a review. Our time is valuable, and it’s important to acknowledge those who make the effort to write the review.
Share those reviews on your social media! These can start on Google or Yelp, but you should leverage them across your social platforms for maximum exposure. Share the good news!

We can’t avoid the negativity on social media or the Internet. But we can do something about rallying our supporters to our cause. Don’t wait around and be reactive—instead, be proactive by getting positive reviews to the places that matter most.