Your Moving Company's Online Reputation

Hey, my friends, it's Louis Massaro. And welcome to another episode of the Moving Mastery Podcast.

If you own a moving company these days, you know how important it is to have a solid online reputation, right? We know that our customers are going to go. They're going to Google the name of the company, and they're going to check you out. So what do you do about it when you know you've got this amazing. You put in all this work, right? You put in all this effort, you get, train your movers, you're doing a good job, you set up your whole business, and now maybe you get a bad review, maybe you get a great review, but sites like Yelp don't list it, right? Or maybe you get no reviews at all. It's really impacting your business. And I know that could be frustrating. I hear it from clients all the time. So when you set out to run a successful business, you're just thinking about, I want to do a good job, and as long as I do a good job, that should be enough. But in today's modern day of, you know, living in a fishbowl right to where, you know, everybody could see everything, you've got to have a solid online reputation, because, let's face it, when a customer goes to move with you, they're gonna Google the name of your company. And if they don't like what they see, they'll choose somebody else where it's a better presentation. And, you know, the reason this gets so frustrating is because there are some really, really good companies that I know do a great job, but they pay very little attention to their online reputation, and they're suffering for it. They're losing business for it. They're not getting all of the jobs that they could. And here's what you need to do in order to make sure that your online reputation allows you to book more customers. Because, remember, when you spend money on marketing, you need to convert them into a customer. When you get repeat and referral business, you need to convert them into a customer. And you want to make sure that you. That your online reputation is solid, right? So how do you do that? The one thing that you can do to make sure that your online reputation starts to become impeccable is to treat the first page of Google like a garden. And what do I mean by that? If you type in the name of your moving company and you see what shows up on that first page, that's what customers are seeing. So, typically, what will happen when we do this is we'll start to see Some good stuff. We'll start to see some bad stuff. Maybe the first listing will be the name of your own personal website. Then maybe Yelp BBB may have a listing, some moving lead providers, right? The list goes on of different stuff that shows up on that first page. Whatever shows up on that first page, you've got to cultivate it like a garden. And what does that mean? You've got to, you know, the stuff that needs some work, right? You've got to put some fertilizer on it. The weeds. You got to get rid of the weeds. The stuff that's already flourishing, you got to make that it continues to flourish. So when was it? About two years ago now. I taught this to our Moving Mastery members and we talked about cultivating the first page of Google as if it's a garden. All right? And the results that they've seen are incredible because they put in the work and they put in the time. So in order to really make sure that your online reputation is on point, I just need you to think about the very simple thing that you need to do, and that's cultivate the first page of Google like it's a garden. But how do you go about doing that? First thing you need to do is you need to just type in the name of your company into Google. Okay? This isn't, you know, this isn't a matter of typing in movers in your city. This is the name of your company specifically. Type it in, okay? See what shows up on that first page. What you want to do next is you want to identify what areas need some fertilizer, right? So let's say the first listing is your.

Your. Your page, right? Your website. And the second listing is Yelp. Well, how many stars does Yelp show? Right? If you do a search, you'll have Yelp and you'll have other review sites that will actually show the stars right there on the page. And you want to make sure that what is front facing to the customer right when they Google it looking good. So you want to identify the areas that need some work, either weeds that need to be pulled or things that need to be fertilized or things that are already flourishing that you need to make sure continue to flourish. And the next thing you want to do is you want to nurture each of these listings that Google has on there. You want to nurture each of them individually. And what does that mean? Well, Yelp, for example, you. You may have good reviews, bad reviews, whatever it is, but the way that you handle Yelp is Gonna be much different than the way that you handle, let's say the bbb, for example, or Google Maps. Right? Google business listing to where they're showing stars as well. So you wanna understand how each individual one operates and then work to make it look good. Right? People don't really go past the first page of Google typically, so you want to make sure that first page looks solid. You know, I hear from a lot of companies and it's unfortunate when they say it. They'll say things like, you know, the BBB's old school, it doesn't matter anymore. Well, if it shows up on the first page when someone Googles the name of your company, it does matter, right? I see companies that are five stars across the board with everything. You click on their BBB link and they have an F. You look at the reason why they didn't respond to a few complaints, right? Something as simple as going in and actually just responding to those complaints doesn't mean you have to pay them out. Doesn't mean you have to, you know, acknowledge that it's true. But just to respond to them will keep your score up. But don't think that the BBB is old school. And it doesn't matter if it's showing up on that first page of Google for your company. It matters. Anything that shows up on that first page matters. That's what customers are seeing. So you want to make sure that you take a look at each one and handle them all individually. You want this to be a beautiful picture, that first page of Google with your name at the top. When somebody scrolls anything that has stars, it's got four to five stars in it. Anything that has some kind of information about your company, it says something good. This is all stuff that could be nurtured and improved if you put your attention on it. Like I said, I taught this two years ago to our Moving Mastery members and they've all seen the results. It's not something that happens overnight. You need to continually work on it. But if you're in this business for the long run and you don't want to continue to spend money on marketing, to have customer Google you and then go, yeah, no, they only have one star on Yelp. You could explain it all day long, right? You could talk about, yeah, but there's some good reviews and Google and Yelp hides them, right? We've got all these good reviews, but they don't show them. They only show the bad reviews. You know, we could complain about that all day long, but it's just the reality that we live in, right? So you have to play the game the way that the game is set up. And we can't dictate what's on that first page. Actually we can dictate what's on that first page, but what's there today you can't go remove this, remove that, right? With some cleanup, right? With some nurturing, with some SEO work, you can start to dictate what's on that first page. But it's something that you have to nurture. All right? Fourth thing you want to do is you want to make sure you're monitoring the progress every month, alright? So again, this isn't something that you're going to go and, you know, take care of a few things and it's going to instantly resolve the issue. It's something that you need to monitor and work on monthly. What can we do? BBB shows a score we shouldn't have. Call them. They are somebody that you could speak to. Call them, speak to them, ask them. What can we do to improve our score? What can we do to improve our grade? Right? Go down the list, check them all. Keep a checklist, right? Keep an accounting of what you're working on and what the improvements are. When you start to put your attention on something, that's when it improves. When you neglect an area of your business, it's just gonna naturally decay. Same thing with a garden. You can't just plant the garden and then leave it there. You've got to nurture it. It's the same thing with the first page of Google, which is your online reputation, right? That's what your online reputation is, is that first page of Google and whatever shows up there. Fifth thing you want to do is get more five star reviews, right? And I know you might say, Louis, we try, you know, Yelp takes them down. Customers don't want to give them whatever the case may be. And the reality is you can, all right, if you put in a diligent effort to, to go out there and get more five star reviews and you have a program for doing it. In my Moving Sales Academy program, we teach the Safety Net Review Fetcher, that same system. We also put in my software, Smart Moving, so that after the move, automatically customer gets an email, customer gets a text message, they click on it, they rate you based on the rating that they give you, right? It either takes them to here rate us on one of these sites or, or so for example, if it's four or five stars, it'll then prompt them to go to any site of your choice, whether it's Google, Yelp, whatever it might be, Facebook, and give you the review, or let's say it's three stars and under it'll have them fill out what's wrong so that it'll actually come directly to your customer service. So you're not sending somebody to put a review that is not gonna put a good review. Right? So you've got to make that diligent effort. Your online reputation today in this modern day of moving is.

Crucial. All right? It's so important that you cultivate that and it has to be front of mind in what you do with your business. If you're just starting out and you don't have much there, you want to start saying, what can we get to show up on that first page of Google so that we could help decide what's there. If you've been in business a long time, there's a bunch of listings that are probably showing up for a lot of different things. Make sure they're all accurate, make sure they're all updated. If you've got social media platforms that maybe you're not active on, that's okay, but make sure the information is updated. Make sure the information is relevant to where they're not clicking on some Facebook page that maybe you had, you know, a nephew or a friend set up for you at some point that has like the wrong address, has no pictures and looks like a ghost town, like you're out of business. All right, it's very simple. Type the name of your company into Google, all right? Identify the areas that need some help, that need some fertilizer. Nurture each one of those listings, individually monitor the progress monthly and then go out there and get more 5 star reviews using smart moving or some other type of platform that will make 10 this whole process easier. All right? If you don't ask for the review, you won't get the review. And it's a numbers game. We know that. You know, sites like Yelp are not going to post all of them. That's okay. Get more of them and they will show up. All right. I hope this was helpful. Like always go out there every single day. Profit in your business, thrive in your life. If you found this helpful today, please share this with a friend that might find it valuable in their business and hit the like button for me. I'd really appreciate it. I'll see you later.

Sam.