Hi Contrarians,

Maybe you’re just tinkering. Maybe you’ve got a side hustle juuuussst getting off the ground. Or maybe you’re a full-time biz owner.

Whatever the case, chances are you want to grow it.

Good news for you…

As we’ve seen with our biz’s, one of the most effective ways to do this costs next to nothing.

Today in 5 minutes or less, you’ll learn...

✔️ Reviews: why they’re SO important for every biz

✔️ 7 practical ways to get more reviews in 2024

✔️ If you do 1 thing this week, do this…

Reviews: why they’re SO important for every biz

Prioritizing reviews may sound like a lot of time and effort… and maybe like it’s not worth it.

Hate to break it ya — that’s a buncha bologna.

Not only are they worth it, but they might actually be the number one item owners should be prioritizing in 2024.

Competition? It’s fierce as ever.

Customers? Demanding as ever.

Consumer trust? Deteriorating as we speak.

In recent years, Trustpilot’s found that:

• 89% of global consumers check online reviews as part of their buying journey
  
  
• 49% consider positive reviews one of their top three purchase influences
  
  
• 66% of US consumers ranked online reviews as being “the most influential factor in their buying decisions”

Plus, here’s the reality of the world we’ve learned we live in:

• Potential customers might not even consider you without reviews
  
  
• Unhappy customers are often the ones more likely to leave reviews than happy ones

Between Contrarian Thinking, Main Street Hold Co., and Contrarian Thinking Capital, it’s safe to say we’ve found at least 1 thing that holds true across the board…

If you have a business, you’re going to need people to say nice things about it.

So today, we’ll use our biz as an example, along with a few others, and show you some of the specific tactics we love to use to get more reviews.

#1: The Ultimate Mind Hack

We applied this at one of our service companies, and here’s how it works…

First things first, above all, you want other people to review your people.

So how do we do it?

After a technician completes a job, an automatic text goes out to the customer that looks something like this:

Law of Reciprocity, folks.

Bob left you a nice review, mind quickly reviewing him?

Show your customers good service, toss in some appreciation, and they’ll feel like they should probably return the favor — as long as you make it easy.

#2: Have a positive review loop

Let’s look at one way we do this at Contrarian Thinking.

Whenever we see something like this from one of our members…

…We don’t pat ourselves on the back, tell them “Nice work!”, and call it a day.

They’re in a heightened state. They’re excited. They’re proud. As they should be.

So we track these messages like hawks and when it makes sense, we engage with them in that moment to wish congrats and respectfully ask for a quick review.

Do the work upfront building your loop for tracking, collecting, saving, and sharing these so you can capitalize every time someone says something nice.

#3: Event → Review

We give you an event, you give us a review.

Background: Codie knew a coffee shop that would do a monthly community coffee night.

The owner would walk around, thank people for coming, and say, “You know how you could help us as a small business the most? Post a quick review on Google. Here’s a QR code.”

What are people gonna do? Say no?

So he’d see the reviews come in live, get a tad teary-eyed, and thank them in real-time. As a review generator, it worked like magic.

We’ve tried using the same tactic, and turns out — it works pretty well! But we’ve even grown a little bit smarter…

We’ve started connecting our members more effectively, and they’ve started hosting their own Contrarian Community events locally. It’s more meaningful for them, it costs everyone less, and look at this:

We grab even more reviews.

Sometimes, they bring friends, too (AKA, referrals).

#4: Texts for tips

Nolan Gore is an amazing veteran turned landscape biz operator with dozens of employees.

He has a review-generating tip that’s brilliant.

Just brilliant.

We all know tipping culture has gone COMPLETELY off the rails…

But offer customers a way to tip someone who did well $10 bucks at no personal cost?

No-brainer.

#5: Drip, drip, drip

We learned this one from Johnny Robinson, who would send his window cleaning customers a text to leave a review, followed by two well-timed follow-up emails if they didn’t respond.

He added hundreds of reviews & claimed the No. 1 spot for ‘window cleaning’ searches in the area.

Try it out, but please, get ridiculous with this.

Seriously.

How? Let’s say you own a household plumbing company.

One day, your guy goes in to fix a customer’s precarious… situation.

💣

🚽

🌊

🛠️

They emerge victorious.

Then here's what you do:

Day of? Send the customer a message like Nolan’s above.

Day three, no response? Shoot ‘em something like this:

“We’ve sent a few signals down the pipeline, but it seems they might have gotten lost in the sewers. Could you spare a moment to leave us a review? Think of it as helping your neighbors avoid a ‘crappy’ situation.”

Still nothing?

A week later, provide even more entertainment:

“Rumor has it, your neighbors are flush with envy at your newly fixed throne. But without your royal decree (AKA a review), how will the kingdom know of our valiant efforts? Lend us your quill for a moment and scribe a tale of triumph over that treacherous clog. P.S. Your next flush could be famous in the realm!”

See what we mean?

Keep chipping away and you may be surprised at the positive response you can shape up.

#6: Have a Wall of Success

“Location, location, location” matters just as much for reviews as it does for everything else.

WAY too many businesses put reviews in the worst places humanly possible.

Bottom of your site? C’mon, man.

The last thing you need is to hide positive reviews. Instead, make them the first thing people see.

Once you start collecting reviews, testimonials, and all this other undeniable proof, stack them up nice and tall. Show ‘em off, for goodness sake.

You have to trade on trust, and to trade on trust sometimes you need people to tell other people about you before you can tell them about yourself.

#7: Butter ‘em up, baby

So, you have customers who are purchasing or using your product or service...

As they do, they hit certain milestones. For instance:

• Making a first purchase
• Being a “power user” on your site
• 1-year anniversary of being a customer
• Buying X repeat services

How do you show them some extra love as they hit these, making it easier for them to take the time to give a review?

For us, one way we do it is by giving our members a cool little plaque if they close a deal or buy a business.

Do something like that, and afterward, you’ll find it a lot less awkward to drop a “Hey, have you left a review yet?”

If you do one thing this week…

Take a minute and drop your favorite small business of the month a five-star review.

You have no idea the impact.

Want free stuff? Yeah you do...

Use the link below to share the newsletter with a friend... And that’s it. Nothing more to it. Try it out. It’s pretty cool.

Use this link.

What’d you think of this week’s newsletter?

✔️ How ya feeling? Hit reply to let us know! Did we crush it? Blow your mind? How can we do better?

Want more?

✔️ For practical tips on biz-buying, we have another newsletter you might like... Sign up free here.

✔️ Check out our Contrarian Community. Learn how to buy your first (or next) business with guidance, support, and accountability.

Powered by HubSpot

Adelante = always moving forward

This email was brought to you by Codie Sanchez, Jacob Cohen, and Jazmine Anderson