Local Market Monopoly

Speaker 1: Ever wonder exactly how much those customer, client, patient reviews affect your bottom line. I know you do. When you get that notification that we've got a new review, it's like a mini verdict on your business or a mini verdict, the way we feel about, it's like a mini verdict on ourselves. But imagine if the negative feedback starts to outweigh the positive feedback or worse, you get no feedback at all. How much does this affect you? That's what we're going to dive into today, leveraging the secrets of customer client, patient feedback for growth.

Speaker 2: You are listening to local market monopoly with Clarence Fisher uncovering the tools, tactics and strategies the most successful small businesses use to donate their local market and own the box.

Speaker 1: Alright, we're back. And in the intro I said, and I always say this, customer, client, patient because I want to be talking to you, but moving forward for this episode, if I say customer, you know what I'm talking about. If I say client, you know what I'm talking about. This is going to be super crazy. We're just getting over the flu. My entire family just getting over the flu. It's so crazy. We went on a trip to Washington DC my wife and I had not had a vacation this year. It's so crazy. We went so long. Business owners understand what I'm saying. We went so long without being able to take vacations and now I'm the one that's still working, working, working, working. And it's stupid for me to think that I can't take off, which I'm getting better at. Took off a week and dc DC was awesome.
Never been all of the museums totally worth it, but we're around a million people and if you know me, I am perfectly fine in the closet that I do this podcast from this small room that I do this podcast from. I'm perfectly fine living life, so around a million people, but it was great. We get back and I'm trying to, I'm wanting to reward, not reward, that's not the word to use, but every vacation my wife does so much between. We have these family dinners every month that we call first Sunday. We started doing it, man, decades ago. Really? Decades ago. Yeah, seriously, probably two decades ago I would imagine, but first Sunday, which juice? It was not two decades ago, probably 15 years ago. All right. Anyway, so the kids and they're grown now, can stop by every month. My brother, sister-in-Law, everybody here's the deal is on the very first Sunday we are going to have dinner and we're paying for it.
All you have to do is show up. There's games, there's everything. We don't bring anything except for yourself and your kids. And it's a way of just assuring that we stay connected. And if you have grown kids and you have grandkids, you know, you know how it was when you were starting your life as an adult and career. You're just busy and it's not like you hate your parents. You just don't ever make time for that. So first Sunday has been great and everybody always shows up and I say we will take care of everything, but you know how that happens. My wife basically takes care of everything. So we have first Sundays that happen, it's the holidays, she's got all this stuff. So we take the vacation and I'm always checking in, does it feel like a vacation to you yet? I don't know if you and your significant other have this thing, but we have this thing of when does it feel like a vacation?
And it's typically about day two, day three, where everything, where it actually feels like you're starting to get recharged. So we check on each other for that. Has it started yet? Has the vacation started yet? So when we got back, she said, yeah, she had a great vacation. And I'm like, let's put a cherry on top and go get a massage when you get back. So we get back the next day, she's off work and she goes and she gets a massage. Well, a couple of days later we're going to have, we promised one of the girls that we would watch Harry not only watch Harry Potter with her because we've never seen one episode or movie of Harry Potter, hadn't ever seen one of them. So she had the great idea of let's have a Harry Potter marathon. Now this was planned before our DC trip. Let's have a Harry Potter marathon.
And we agree. I know we agree. And it went from two days and I really think it went from two days to one day because I found online where you could start at 4:00 AM and kind of go to midnight. We were going to do two days, but I was telling them if we do two days, you guys are going to church with us and really think that They were like, okay, so we're going to do one day. So everybody comes over Friday night, that Friday night and the day before my wife started coughing, we noticed that she had been coughing for a day, day and a half really heavily. So I text everybody in the group text, say, Hey, grandma's got a cough. Just want to keep you heads up. This is something that we started when Covid very first started kicking off is to just be open with everybody, like what's happening because a gerbo pope.
So I let everybody know and they're going back and forth and I am the most conservative person in the entire family. So they're like, it's not going to be a problem. No big deal, no fevers. Of course we took the at-home Covid test and all that stuff. It's all negative, everything's good, everything's good, everything's good. Everybody starts showing up Friday night. I've got blowup mattresses, I've got people everywhere. And the thing is they're going to spend the night on Friday and then we're going to start at 4:00 AM in the morning and power through the layout that's in the kitchen is crazy, crazy, crazy. Again, my wife, my girls, it is just an awesome thing to sit back and say and have this slumber party with grown kids and grandkids and all this stuff. So it was super awesome, don't get me wrong, but we go through this 20 hours, 19 hours and I think 50 minutes or whatever, Harry Potter.
And the way you do it is you let the end credits play and when the end credits happen, you go do everything you got to do and you got 11 minutes to go do it. And then there's the next movie. My wife's made butter beer and it's just been, it was awesome. Well, the next day I get a fever and I'm like, whoa, what's going on? I didn't think I did eat a whole bunch of junk and didn't move, but to come down on me like that and then my wife's coughing even more. So I let the girls know, Hey, I got a fever. Well, that afternoon one of the girls said, Hey, I have a fever. And then you guess it, we all call it something. Well, it turns out it was flu a. So I'm thinking we go through all of Washington DC and up and down these elevators with every person who lives in Washington, DC in the elevator, don't get sick, come back and we catch the flu. And so all of that, Cecilia, I just got over the flu and I'm just getting over the flu. And so if I sound like my energy's not there, it's because I'm ramping up. You're like, dad, come man, you took nine minutes to tell us that. It was a great story though, wasn't it? Alright, let's get down to business. By the way, that is something they tell you never to do on a podcast, but you know what? You are my peeps. You are my peep, actually my peep.
So we're talking about positive reviews and I pray that you give me one and don't give me a bad one of that long drawn out story. All right, let's talk about the reviews and the impact that reviews have on you. We all know that positive reviews are golden. I mean, they're like personal recommendations that are being shared with the world. When somebody raves about your service, it's not just a pat on the back, it is a signal. It is the bat signal to others that you're the real deal. I mean, think about the local cafe or here it was Burn co barbecue, you're welcome, burn Co started getting all these five star reviews and all of a sudden P are standing in line for hours, yes hours to get this barbecue. And so it happened so long. I mean months and months and months and months.
So finally I looked at my wife and I said, you know what? We need to go check out that barbecue place. I'm not really wanting to be standing in line, but if it's a thing, all right, you got me, I'm going. And we went and we stood in line and was part of this thing that it was, which is really just barbecue. The barbecue. But that's how positive reviews start snowballing. So you want to make sure number one, that you're asking people, if someone is at your store, your practice and they look happy, you need to ask them for a positive review. Here's your action step. Next time a customer seems happy, just ask them to drop a review. It's simple and it can make a big difference. Matter of fact, just get in the habit of asking people who are happy to leave your review.
Even if you're not in your office, if you see somebody and you're like, Hey man, you look happy, will you leave me a review? Right? Okay, so we got the good reviews happening. Now let's mitigate the negative reviews. Let's talk about those. They're not so fun for review. Also for the positive reviews, let's, why don't we do this? If you go to local market monopoly.com/review request, we have a review email templates that we actually use and have used. I mean they're proven to get more five star reviews and you can have it absolutely free. Just go there and grab it. All right, so mitigating the negative feedback. It happens. Nobody likes 'em, but they're not the end of the world. I'm telling you, they're not the end of the world. In fact, they can be a hidden opportunity, and I've talked about this before. If you get a negative review, it's really about your response to that person, but you're not really responding to that person.
You're responding to everyone else who answers that review. Please get that down. Or whoever is in charge of answering your reviews, which you should be answering both positive and negative reviews, you should be replying to them that the person tell the person that's replying to your reviews on a negative review. You have to imagine we're really replying to the hundreds or thousands of people who are about to see this. So you want to respond professionally, you want to show that you're eager to make things right, show that you care. It's the biggest thing for your reputation, and so it will take any bad review and transform whether that person changes their review or not, and transform that into a revenue generator for you. So respond to that accordingly. As a matter of fact, man, I'm going to hook you up today. So you have the review request. We're also going to give you the review response templates, hundreds of responses that you can make your own and hand this over to the person who is replying to all the online reviews that you get. Just give this to them. They can go through the little training there.
Again, free. Just go download it and then you can use it to respond to the negative reviews. Are you tired of being invisible online? Do you want to be the number one authority in your market but don't know where to start? Imagine having a marketing strategy that helps you dominate your local market and get more customers, clients, or patients than ever before. It works for any business in any market and doesn't cost much money. In fact, it's free. The local market Monopoly newsletter delivers one actionable hyperlocal digital marketing tip straight to your inbox each week designed specifically for small businesses like yours who want to go from surviving with minimal market share and online presence to thriving and becoming omni depressant in your local market. Each week you'll get one powerful tip on how to grow your online reputation, increase your company's reach, repeat sales and referrals without wasting thousands of dollars on tactics that don't work, no gimmicks, just real strategies that work every time. Go to local market monopoly.com, sign up now and start receiving our best of the best marketing strategies immediately. Then you'll receive one proven marketing strategy each week to dominate your local market and own the block.
Now, let's talk about the actual impact of that. Reviews have first the influence of negative reviews. So about 94% of people, about an exact 94% of people say that bad online reviews have convinced them not to buy from a business. 94%. Is that ever happen to you where you look at it, it happens to us all the time. When I'm looking, I'm looking for the response actually of the owner really is what I'm looking for. Just like I told you before, the absolute worst thing I can see is bad reviews and no one is responding to 'em at this point in the game.
We're done. I mean, we're done with looking at that business, but moreover, more than half, 57% exact of customers wouldn't consider using a business with a consumer rating or review lower than four out of five stars. This is huge. So half the people aren't going to, and as I say this, I mean think about it yourself. Are you going to go to a three point something business? You're not going to do it. Now, we all know that five stars, perfect, five stars with 1500, 2000 ratings probably is not real, but just at this point in the game, again, four point something is normal, but when you hit the threes, I was telling this to a buddy of mine about a restaurant, when it hits the threes, then that is very, very hard to overcome. Okay? So even what's crazier is a single negative review is enough for 35% of the people to decide not to buy from that company.
More than four negative reviews decreases the company's sales by 70%. Now, I'm going to say if you've got four, I'm going to say I can't say not four reviews. I don't think I agree with that. I am looking at the stats, but I don't think I agree with that. More than four negative reviews can decrease AC company's sales by 70%. Negative reviews influence the buying decisions of 86% of company. Actually, yeah, I agree with that, with the 86%. But here is where they're the stats. Where are these coming from? We have the site reputation x.com. All right, there we go. There we go. All right, but it's a big deal. I guess what I was going to say is this is the big reason why you don't want negative reviews to start out shining positive reviews. Now, I do know that for a fact, you're definitely going to decrease sales by about that 70%.
You start getting more negative reviews than positive reviews. And this is what keeps a lot of business owners and businesses from actively asking for reviews. But you have to have that system in place because if you don't, you will start getting more negative reviews than positive reviews, and most people will leave you a review. They just haven't been asked. And I've seen this happen. I've seen this happen with clients who feel like or felt like their business did not lend itself to asking for reviews because of the nature of the business that the business is very private. I mean, the matter that they're handling is private. And so I'm like, well, I would still ask because the people who don't mind telling about their situation and how you're helping them, we want to find those people. And sure there's probably fewer than them than what a normal business would have, but there are going to be some.
And what happened was the people who were disgruntled started posting and there was nothing to combat it. Even though we're responding to it all, the majority of the reviews are bad. So yes, we're handling it, but it looks like, oh, well, I don't want to be the next person. And so now they're getting positive reviews proactively and the tides have turned. And then you also have to understand that the more negative reviews, if you're not proactive about getting the good reviews, will dip you below the four stars, then no one's really coming. It's a three star, three points something star. And yes, they are replying, but they're all bad reviews. So negative reviews will definitely impact, but so will positive reviews. Okay? A one star increase in Yelp, by the way, can result in a revenue increase of five to 9%. That's huge. A one star increase.
Now, it takes a lot of positives to increase by one star, but oh, I want to add this too, is when you have positive reviews and you practically get the positive reviews, and every now and then you get a negative review, you'll start seeing people coming to your aid without you even asking. People are like, Uhuh, she's the best in the world. I don't know what you're talking about. You're stupid. You know what I'm saying? People will get that Facebook banging going on, going on in Google, in the Google reviews. So you've got a single positive review can improve your conversion rate. And if you've got hundreds of reviews, I mean you're talking about improving, they got 37% here of improving your reviews. So positive reviews can do good, right? Another thing that I think people don't really take into consideration is that negative reviews can have a devastating consequence on not only your business, I mean costing you potentially like tens of thousands of dollars in revenue and all kinds of other expenses.
They also increase hiring costs. Statistics say by 10% more per hire due to the damage to your company's reputation. So we don't want negative reviews. And I know you're like, Clarence, listen, I know we don't want negative reviews. That's a given and we want more positive reviews. That's a given. Make sure you go and download the templates or the review requests email that we're giving you, and then also the responses that we're giving you. But what we're doing today is we just want to put some numbers behind this. So one star increase in Yelp, and it would translate also to Google a five to 9% revenue increase by just increasing by one star. Every single positive review also increases, improves conversion, maybe not your total revenue, but it improves your conversions.
That's so big. Every positive review you have increases your conversion rate. So when you're talking to people, when people are calling your business, closing it out, I have a couple of things I wanted to share with you. Let's talk about the market research. Your customers are talking about you. You got to make sure you're listening. This is part of your research. The reviews are goldmine of insights. We just watched a documentary, I think it was on Amazon, called Maxine's Baby, I think is what it was, but it's the documentary. It's a documentary of Tyler Perry and his rise from no one knowing him except for black audiences to becoming one of the biggest number one movie producers, directors and having his own sound stages and his own studio now outside of the Hollywood machine. But it's an incredible, incredible, I would go watch it and I'm telling everybody to go watch it.
Not necessarily as a Tyler Perry fan, I am a Tyler Perry fan, but mainly because of what he's done. It's so funny. I thought I was doing something years ago when he was doing plays and I, I bought my mom a, bought my mom a ticket. And if you know about Tyler Perry, then this will be funny to you, but bought my mom a ticket and she goes to the play. I was on radio at that time. I was on the radio and the play was coming to town and big wig in it, right? Get send my mom, and it's supposed to be a Christian, a gospel play, and Tyler tries to reach people where they're at. And so you've got some strong language, you've got some innuendos, you've got all this stuff in his plays. And my mom calls me and she is like, junior, I walked out.
I said, what? She said, Uhuh, Uhuh, I get it. We want to reach people where they are, but you don't got to be like that. You ain't got to be all like that. I was like, oh. So Tyler Perry is not everybody's flavor, but the big thing that stood out to me, and especially as a business owner or a marketing executive, what will stand out to you is that this guy spins, maybe not now, but he did before, two hundred and fifty, two hundred sixty days a year, getting to know his market so much so that when Hollywood finally, when he got on Hollywood's radar and they were like, Hollywood's going to be like, Hey, we want a piece of that money. We don't know who you are or whatever, but somehow you're packing out that he was like, I want to keep ownership of everything. And he has kept ownership of everything.
And he is a billionaire now almost well over a billion dollars from knowing your market, looking at the reviews, he talks about that. He's looking at the actual reviews after every single performance, and they are implementing things based on that. You have the same power is by looking at your reviews. If you haven't been doing that, it's time for change, especially if you're a service business. You have to have to scan your reviews, look for patterns, use the feedback to fine tune your business. And finally, we want to leverage the reviews in marketing. You got to have reviews everywhere. One of the biggest things that I think we don't see enough of that everyone should do is when you go to your website and do this with your brochures as well, when you present a feature or benefit that a person will receive by purchasing this product from you, put a review on that page that speaks to that specific offering, that speaks to that specific benefit that you are promising because our customers don't believe us.
We can say something, but they don't believe us. Not really, but when someone else says it, then they believe that person. We just talked about it. Almost 90% of people believe strangers rather than the person they're talking to at the business. So this will increase your conversions. Go through your website and say you have a page about, I don't know, checkups, and it's talking about how thorough you are. We'll put a review on there from someone who is supporting what you're saying. Do that on your website. Do that on your brochure. Do that in arguments with your significant other. Alright, hold on, hold on, hold on. Let me call somebody now, but go through your site and your brochure and do that. You want to build a review culture at your business, okay? Get people to understand that you want reviews, and we'll talk about referrals a bit later, but build that review culture.
Make it part of the customer experience. It's all about creating that habit. You're not getting on their nerves by sending them the automated review after every job, after every time they come in, you're not getting on their nerves. So you can also consider a small incentive, but we're not supposed to do this, but you can consider have a drawing once a month, something like that for people who leave a review, but build it into your culture. All right? So there you have it. Customer reviews are way more than just words. They're so powerful, powerful tools for business growth. You want to harness them wisely and watch your business grow. Go download the resources that I've given you today. We're going to have them in the show notes as well. And then also don't miss, go to local market monopoly.com and just sign up for the newsletter Local Market Monopoly. You'll get trainings that you don't get here when these episodes come out like once a week, but you're going to get stuff that I've not been able to release here, there on the newsletter, local market monopoly.com. So until next week, I'm going to get out of here and get some vitamin C, so I continue to get better and better and better, and you go own your block.

Speaker 3: We appreciate you listening to local Market Monopoly. Be sure to rate, review and subscribe to the show and visit local market monopoly for more resources that will help you dominate your local.