If you build a gorgeous house in the forest but no one’s there to Instagram it, did it ever really happen at all?
Well, yeah, and you would have the backaches and splinters to prove it.
But in an age when most people are using the internet to inform their hiring and buying decisions, having an online presence is essential – even in an industry as old school as contracting.
Maybe it was Matlock who inspired you. Maybe when “A Few Good Men” came out you spent weeks daydreaming about hissing “You can’t HANDLE the truth!” across a crowded courtroom. Or maybe it was the gentle and honorable Atticus Finch who influenced your career path.
Or maybe you just liked the idea of practicing law. Whatever propelled you to become a lawyer, it probably wasn’t the vision of a perfect Yelp rating.
So we get it: online reviews probably seem completely irrelevant to your practice. They might even seem frivolous compared to the work that you do.
It doesn’t matter what you think about online reviews, though. They matter to your current clients and prospective clients, and anyone who does a cursory Google search of your name can access them.
Imagine, if you will, a website. It belongs to local burger joint Pete’s Burger Barn. Pete wants your opinion about a few different web page options. He’s got one page that includes a high-quality video of himself leading a tour of the Barn and introducing the smiling, visor-wearing high-schoolers who work the register.
Then Pete shows you a second website page. It’s loaded with excerpts of customer reviews. Each customer’s name has a link that leads you to the exact Yelp or Google review from which the quote was taken.
Now, Pete wants your opinion: Which website page is more likely to convince you to visit his restaurant?
Although the video may be more impressive-looking, it doesn’t actually tell you what you want to know: what it’s like to be a customer at Pete’s. The second page, the one that’s loaded with customer testimonials, however? That’s really convincing.
That’s the power of social proof.
If only you got $100 every time a patient mentioned the words “WebMD” and “cancer” in the same sentence, you could afford to leave your office, move to the woods and never hear about patients diagnosing themselves online again.
Of course, that’s not how the world works. Doctors know better than anyone how much the Internet has changed the medical profession, in both good and bad ways.
Telehealth for rural or disabled patients? Helpful. Self-diagnosing every canker sore as a fatal disease? Not so helpful. Online reviews on sites like Healthgrades? It depends…
It is a truth universally acknowledged that everyone has a favorite pizza place.
Maybe you’re a Pete’s person, while your spouse swears that Jimbo’s has the superior sauce. Maybe you prefer a chain over local spots, or you hold the (mistaken) belief that frozen pizza is the best. But if you eat pizza, you probably have preferences about where to go for it.
Online review sites are the same way. Just like pizza places, everyone has individual preferences. These sites are hugely influential for your customers, so you have to know your way around the big ones.
We get it. “Reputation management” sounds like code used by old-timey mobsters or the PR team of a disgraced politician. But businesses of all kinds live and die by their reputations. And a good reputation takes work.
Think of reputation management as a little like selling a house. Would you invite prospective buyers in when the sink is full of dishes, every surface is covered with cat hair, and the fridge is leaking? Or would you try to show off your house looking its best so the right buyer will actually be drawn to it?
That’s what reputation management is all about.
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