I saw a post yesterday on Search Engine Land by Andrew Shotland that got me thinking. It should go without saying, but do you REALLY know that your SEO is affecting your reputation? Every email sent requesting links, every blog comment, and every fake review can come back to bite you in the ass.
Let’s not get carried away. Only 35% of you who are paying an SEO have anything to worry about. Still… Those 35% of you should take a closer look.
Today, we left our local Starbucks full of complicated and mixed emotions. We were told that this store will be closing mid-January due to low traffic volume and uncharacteristically high rent. Sigh.
I’ve been bringing my daughter to this Starbucks since she was 15 months old. She’ll be turning three years old this week. She asks for the baristas by name. She gets upset if we visit a different location. She misses the people. She loves them. They are as much a part of her life as the members of our church.
But that local business family will evaporate from our lives in less than thirty days. I don’t blame Starbucks, really. I understand the principle of ROI. But that doesn’t make it any easier. Each employee we’ve come to know and love will be scattered to different corners of the mid-cities. We might see one or two of them a couple times a year going forward. But it saddens me to know my daughter will have one less home away from home as she gets older.
Before you suggest that we pick the next closest Starbucks as our new home, save your breath. I’ve visited every store multiple times within a ten mile radius and none of them come close to having the same level of friendliness and personality.
So while my children will likely hold a special place for Starbucks in their hearts, our local store cannot be replaced.
EXHIBIT A: We just received a Christmas card this morning from the Starbucks staff. One of them drew a very cute snowman on the front and they all wished my daughter a happy birthday as well. What can I say? These are people every company wants to hire.
EXHIBIT B: Looking back, it was obvious that they were made of a different ilk. From Day One, I saw Erica (spelling?) intentionally remembering the names of her customers. By the third weekend we visited, she knew my name, my daughter’s name, and what I like to drink. That’s impressive.
EXHIBIT C: Did I mention the time we hadn’t been to “our” Starbucks in a month and Katie cried because she missed Erica and Brian? She begged me to go back to see them. I dropped in one day without her and told Brian what she said. He volunteered to come in early in the morning ON HIS DAY OFF just to see her. And he did. He sat down and talked with me, my dad, and my daughter for at least an hour.
Now, I realize that these aren’t company policies, and most nationwide organizations aren’t going to ask their employees to invest in their customers’ lives. But these people have, and they make a difference. I feel rich, knowing that every Saturday morning I can take my daughter somewhere safe where she will not be considered a pest. In fact, they’ll fuss over her and compliment her clothing and engage her in conversation.
Yeah… I have no idea what I’m going to do when they close this store. I may have to track them down at their respective stores just to keep my baby girl happy. She loves her people.
I want to see these people rewarded for the way they give and care about others. And since I can’t depend on a corporation to take note, I will do something about it myself. I will show them in some small way that I appreciate the fact that they did far more than cast a charming spotlight upon their brand and their employer. They became a part of our community.
And that, my friends, is how you win. At business, and at life.
Everyone comes to the Reputation Monitoring party at one stage or another. Maybe you’re a rookie, bumbling around and covering up your mistakes because you don’t know any better. Maybe you’re an empath, getting dirty in the trenches while you ooze sympathy for everyone’s feelings. Perhaps you’re a veteran, wise enough to know thy enemy before he strikes. But maybe, just maybe, you’re a Jedi, aware of all things at all times. Dynamically in touch with The Force.
I started ReputationAdvisor.com back in 2007, when no one but a handful of people were using the term “Online Reputation Management.” Since then, a dozen other “buzz” words have been coined to represent the same thing as everyone tries to own a piece of a new pie.
But we’re not a fledgling industry anymore. The landscape is deluged with ORM services and tools and experts and blogs. So my question to you is:
Which ORM tool do you trust most? And do you trust it because of the famous people who endorse it, or because you’ve tested it against other tools and found it more reliable and accurate?
I’m thinking of specific friends and acquaintances I’ve made over the years who got stuck in one rut or another. And it seems rather obvious that the rut is unavoidable, and we cry out to God over and over again to deliver us from our rut. We pray that He will swoop down like Daddy Warbucks and carry us off to our new mansion we had no idea was waiting.
Except God doesn’t often work this way. So why do we handle our ruts the same way over and over again?
At some point, we must stop doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.
Should we stop praying? Of course not. But there’s a mindset that needs to shift. One that goes from a belief of “All I can do is just sit here and wait for deliverance” to “what steps are available RIGHT NOW that I could take and be proven as a good steward?”
When it comes to emotional malfunction – call it trauma, depression, heartbreak, addiction, inferiority, ADHD, panic attacks, PTSD – whatever the case, there are steps we can each take WHILE we cry out to the Lord for deliverance.
It’s not that we assume the responsibility of wholeness completely. It’s more that we don’t pawn off our portion of responsibility upon the Father so that we have nothing to do but cry and whine at him month after month, year after year, until we grow disheartened and disillusioned.
There are steps you can take today. Pray for those. Begin to channel your daily prayers into two directions: Father, deliver me and set me on the path of restoration and fulfillment of my purpose; and Father, I’m ready to take a step toward wholeness and restoration today – show me the step that is before me.
I’ve invested thousands of dollars in alternative treatments for my wife and I. I was willing to do what sounds foolish for the sake of even the slightest chance of improvement. Why? Because it’s more important to become restored than to look and feel dignified. If you are unwilling to look foolish, you will miss out on the vast majority of what God has for you. It is an act of self humbling to lower one’s self to do something that appears foolish or undignified in the eyes of others – IF you do it for a purpose. Being foolish in and of itself is not humbling, but rather wasteful. But there is a significant difference between looking foolish and acting foolish.
How did I find these alternative health treatments? Research. My wife, my mother-in-law, and I invested our time into seeking out treatments because remaining a malfunctioning person is unacceptable. It cost us television time; hangout with the friends time. And you know what? We’ve found more healing and restoration as a result of not allowing our peers to determine that remaining just like you are is acceptable.
It’s a never-ending pursuit of wholeness and relationship with Jesus. I seek Father God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit because I want to become who I was meant to be. But I also pursue healing apart from prayer and waiting because sometimes I can’t see God as He truly is until I remove the hurts and lies. And sometimes I can’t see what is what until I treat my body’s ailments first.
Body, Soul, and Spirit. Each has needs. Legitimate needs. The question is, as the only person who can guarantee continual effort for the sake of your own good, are you going to take up the mantle of responsibility and seek out your complete healing and restoration, or are you going to settle for brokenness and for living a sub-standard lifestyle?
The choice is yours. And it’s mine. Let’s take it seriously.
* image by alexbruda
детско обзавежданеWhat does it mean that I have no close friends who share the same interests? I began to unravel this question just yesterday as I met a guy from church at the local coffee shop. We sat down to talk social media and blog promotion, and somehow my explanations turned into a relational retrospective.
When you hear the phrase “Green Marketing”, what image pops in your mind? Some of you will think of traditional and web marketing approaches to eco-friendly industries. Others will think of strategically eco-friendly methods to marketing which can be applied to any business.
My business aims to be the former. But I get there by also being the latter. Let’s be intellectually honest at the outset: even if we save trees from being chopped because we read newspapers and magazines on Kindles, iPads, and Nooks, the energy and resources necessary to power your servers and create your computers didn’t materialize from thin air. You pay a price for living in the information age, whether you realize it or not.
Did you know that the average server produces the same emissions as a 15 mpg SUV? I didn’t… until this year. Now, I’m not here to tell you which hosting company to use. All I’ll tell you is that the hosting company I use, Host Gator, has a negative carbon footprint. All of HostGator shared and reseller servers are 130% wind powered! That’s right. HostGator is giving more energy back than it’s using. That’s the equivalent of protecting 551 acres of forest for a year. How awesome is that?
Not every company can go green overnight. I realize that. What started out as a perfectly acceptable business mindset 20 years ago has been turned on its ear, and business owners are scrambling to determine the best ways to make their company’s green. Not only is it the responsible thing to do. It’s going to become the norm at some point. Early adopters become brilliant trendsetters and the stragglers are seen as uncaring or indifferent.
Do you make sound business decisions that also give back to our planet? If not, start small by switching your hosting to a greener provider today.