Newsletter 89 – Group activities, Bad reviews, and Vietnam

GREG’S RIGHT FIT NEWSLETTER #89
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Quick notes to help you get more done in less time. . . next week.

In this issue:

– Techniques for FIT
– Being Human
– Random Stuff

Techniques for FIT
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• After saying “Thank you,” if I reply, “I know you’ll do the same for someone else,” just slap me.
• Ask yourself, “Why bother?” Not to give yourself an excuse to stop an activity, but to give yourself a chance to come up with a good reason to try harder.
• Knowing where you are today and where you want to be tomorrow lets you evaluate alternatives.
• Next week, find a group activity and join it. If you’re having a tough time finding one, try meetup.com. There are some weird ones in there. We’re social creatures.

 

Being Human – Bad reviews
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Not impressed. . .

What do you do when a bad review comes your way? These days, it happens to businesses of all types. This week a call came in from a professional services business that had its first review on Yelp. It wasn’t a nice one. My caller was mad. He’s been in business for decades, how dare this person put that out there! Who should he call to get it taken down?

We talked how to respond but I wondered whether or not the caller used reviews in his decision making process. On occasion, he said. Do you remember any review swaying you one way or the other? I do not, he said.

I remember one. I had a stuck drain, looked up drain cleaning. Every other company in the search results had maybe a dozen reviews, but this one had almost 200. In a spooky Google kind of way the first review I saw was my wife’s aunt. She gave them five stars. I called and booked an appointment. Other than that, it’s hard to say if I’m swayed by a particular review.

What I am swayed by are bunches of overly positive reviews. If a book has 100 five star reviews, I think “bullcrap.” If the reviews are all bad, I think “well that’s not good.” In all cases, I use it as a data point in my decision process and I think most people are the same. If you see a business that has been around for 20 years and looks stable, a single Yelp review isn’t going to sway you. If you’re mad at them and you see a negative review, however, you might pile on.

My advice to him? Respond as if his mom were going to read it. Take responsibility and suggest that he’s personally handling the problem. Apologize. Just don’t lead with “I’m sorry.”

I have a list of how to handle negative reviews for you if you want it. (Last time I said that I had to write it, but this time I have it. Swear.)

 

Random Stuff
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Today was a bad day

It happens to everyone. Mine was very “first-world” bad, so maybe I’m just being a baby, but I wanted to go to back to bed right after the coffee grounds missed the trash can and slopped across the kitchen floor at 6am.

The worst part is every one of my issues could be traced directly to me thinking hours or days before, “I should really do X to prevent Y.” More water in the basement, a missed sales call, a vendor finally cashing a check, and a client asking me the same question he complains about his clients asking.

I plopped down in front of the TV to watch the news because, why not, right? I fell asleep and woke up to the voice of Peter Coyote talking about the horrors of the Vietnam war.

Things can always be worse.

 

Booking Calendar
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