Organic Growth Unleashed

Discover the art of organic growth through strategic social media interactions. Ben and Channing share tips on how to effectively handle customer feedback and complaints to not just maintain, but elevate your brand’s reputation. Tune in now!


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Transcript

Ben: Organic traffic is people who are genuinely interested in you, your product, your brand, your company, whatever it is.

Channing: If your goal is sales, and we recommend your goal shouldn't be sales, you want to stick with sales, and then six months later you don't have any sales, maybe it's time to just let people get to know you.

Ben: Welcome to Velvet Ventures

Channing: Where we talk about life, marriage, and the pursuit of entrepreneurship.

Ben: I'm Ben

Channing: And I'm Channing. And now a word from our sponsors.

Episode Sponsor: Pro's Make Ready Sanitizing Services, a disinfecting and sanitizing service in Oklahoma that uses approved EPA hospital-grade disinfectant against germs, mold, COVID-19, and other viruses that live on surfaces and in the air. They help knock down sickness between 50 and 85%. They can do residential or commercial. They have kept us healthy and safe and allergy-free all year long. There's a link below this episode for more information.

Ben: All right, so today we're gonna be talking about social media traffic, types of traffic, and mainly focusing on organic because that is our...

Channing: Yes, 100%. It's what we specifically use and what we recommend to all of our clients. What is organic traffic?

Ben: So I am not an expert in the definitions, but basically organic traffic is exactly what it sounds like in terms of you're not paying whatever platform you're on to put your video or your content in front of people. Because all the social media platforms, they have a, you fall into categories with them. So if you like the food network and you have liked comment to share any interaction with even slowed your scroll

Channing: right or slowed your scroll clicked on

Ben: or you just would stop scrolling when there was a post from the food network um it knows that and so when somebody else like if they're designing a cookware line and they want to attract people who like the food network facebook for instance knows oh Samantha likes Food Network. So we're going to show her this thing that is completely irrelevant because she's never said that she's interested in cookware. She just happened to stop on a recipe or on a picture of food because, Oh, it looked yummy. But maybe Samantha doesn't cook at all. So really she's not someone who's going to be interested, but Facebook is going to show your ad to her and that costs you money. And so, but that was money, not well spent. It's a shot in the dark. You know, I mean, are there ways to target paid ads to get what they need to? Absolutely. That is nine times out of 10, very expensive. Um, and so the way that we operate is with organic is people getting to know you and that comes organically. So you can't force someone. I can't pay you to be my friend. You know, I could if I paid you an absorbent amount of money, but that doesn't make us friends.

Channing: And as soon as I stop paying,

Ben: Right. We're not friends. So with that being said, if you look at it from that angle of organic traffic is people who are genuinely interested in you, your product, your brand, your company, whatever it is. And so just like with friendships, it takes a lot longer to develop those, but when they're developed, they are, they're strong. You know, I mean think about your work friend, that happened very quickly because y'all were placed desks next to each other, right? That doesn't mean that y'all have these deep connections like y'all may like the same stuff. Y'all talk about the same TV show again That's all very sir on the surface stuff But the day that one of y'all leaves that job you will probably never talk to that person again You know, I mean how many people

Channing: what a really good example because they were both being paid to be there, right?

Ben: so it's like how many people do you talk to on a regular basis that you used to work with?

Channing: None. You.

Ben: Right. Outside of my family members that I've worked with, I don't talk to anybody that I used to work with. And so, but I talk to my friends who maybe I haven't seen in five years, but we were best friends for years during high school age, you know, that we're still friends. Like we may not talk every day, but we talk fairly regularly. We haven't seen each other in a long time, you know, and we may even have kids that we haven't even met their kids, you know, but we're friends and because we know each other and we like each other and it took a lot many years and that relationship has stayed and that sustained itself because of its deep roots. When you get a client via organically, those roots are probably already so deeply set that you don't have to sell them and you don't have to pitch them on. Why they should buy from you, they want to buy from you because they want to, they want what you have. They want what you are offering. They want to be a part of your success story.

Channing: Well, and they already trust that you're the person that can get them to their desired outcome.

Ben: And so I think that again, because people want to buy from people, they want to work with people, not with companies that that is what organic to me is, is developing relationships. And again, don't need a huge audience to have a big impact.

Channing: Right. And you don't need, we have 168. Yeah, you don't need it. You don't need a huge client list to be a successful business.

Ben: Yeah. And I think it's the same thing. Like, you don't have to reach the world in order to be successful.

Channing: Right.

Ben: You can be extremely successful in your little community, wherever that may be. You know, whatever your level of success definition is to you, you know, that that can vary. But I think that when you get this organic traffic and when you have organic interactions, they're much more consistent. They want to see you win typically. And the likelihood of...

Channing: You'll be recommended a lot more.

Ben: Yeah, you'll be recommended and just the likelihood of, for instance, if you have a subscription based service and you know, you know, a lot less likely lot less chance of being canceled on three months in, you know, like when you first started like life insurance, you know, people didn't know you, you were talking to people outside of you get, you've never met them.

Channing: Half the time they never even saw me. It was all over the phone.

Ben: Right. Yeah. And because it was during the, when the pandemic first hit, you know, you weren't allowed to. And so people didn't know you. What seven or eight out of 10 would cancel within the first three months of buying a product.

Channing: Yeah. A 40% retention was considered stellar.

Ben: Right. And so, and it's not because you did anything wrong or sleazy, it's when it's time for budget cuts, what's going to go? I don't know this person. I don't know this thing. I don't know this. Like, it's gone. And so, I mean, it's just like with anybody, when you go to budget something, I mean, Netflix or any of those like little things where it's like. I know it does not, I don't know the person that's impacting on the other side. So you're, you're gone. And so I think that, um, when you're using paid ads, they definitely have a place and there are agencies that do that kind of content, right. Um, but with that being said, most of the people in our world are very, um, niche based businesses or they're local, you know, they may not have the means right now to say, you know, if, you know, Sybil wants to do a home sanitation, well, she's not going to drive to Pennsylvania because someone saw her Facebook post and wants to, you know, hey, I really want you to, that's great. I appreciate it, but not driving from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania to service your home right now. And so that's what paid ads gets you a lot of times says, it gets you to a reach beyond who your actual target audience is. May get you some likes and some followers, but they're not more than likely going to turn into anything other than just account on your insights when it's paid, you know? And so I think doing it organically, it doesn't, it's not as grandiose a lot of times. Um, but when it's done with heart and with intention, you know, that's not to say that it can't go viral or can't hit something and explode. But, you know, there's just, for us, what we do and how we believe and how we operate, that's just not something we're interested in.

Channing: Yeah. Because we have right now, at the time of this recording, 169, 170 followers on Facebook, but we reach roughly 10,000 people every 28 days. And for us, like, would it be great to have the 10,000 followers? 100%. But that's more just because that's like a badge of bragging than it is a display of how successful we are or are not. Because for me, if that 170 are all active, engaged and recommending, I'll take that over at 10,000 looky-loos all day long. And so one of the ways that you get to a strong organic traffic is consistency, consistency, consistency, and driving engagement-based posts. So something that encourages interaction. So polls, quizzes, tag friends, asking questions, doing lives where you're telling a story and then asking other people to share their story. Anything like that that's going to encourage people to comment or share, not just like, is gonna be great for your brand. And just being genuine and realizing that like, so when clients come on board with us and we're doing organic traffic, then we always let them know like, one, your social media, the goal should not be sales. And I think there's a big misconception with that. I don't want people, like the goal of our social media, we don't post so that we get sales. We post so that people get to know us. And because people know us, it happens to lead to sales. But we are not, when you post for sales, it can be very obvious to your follower base and to social media platforms, and it feels sleazy, just like the hard close, the hard push, the hard sale. Now, that's not to say you don't talk about your products, your services, your offerings, your price points, any of that, we do all that, but it's not pushy. We're not upset if you don't click the link that we asked you to click. We're not. It's just done with a different intention. And so that comes across on the post. So one, you should not be trying to drive sales from 90% of your social media platforms. There's only a few that are even designed for pushing people to your website and then realizing that when you're doing organic, it's going to be at least two months before you probably even see the needle move. Now we've seen clients move way faster within seven days.

Ben: That's good to set those expectations of, hey, we're gonna start running ads and within seven days, you're gonna be doing X. That's not that typically, unless you just go insane, hardcore, organic?

Channing: Our clients that push, not push, our clients that put in more effort, they receive more output, obviously. And so when they partner with us, not just expect us to do it, those are the clients that see results in seven days. But typically we warn them it's gonna be one to two days before you even see any kind of result and in six months, we recommend you stay with it for six months. At the end of six months, if you decide I've gotten absolutely nowhere, I have no more people that know me, I'm not getting the traction or the sales. I'm not getting the engagements like whatever your goal is. If you're not seeing that at the end of six months then it's time to look and see like, do we need to adjust what the plan is? Or is it just a content misalignment? Do we need to change how we're branding ourselves? Or do we need to change the goal? If your goal is sales, and we recommend your goal shouldn't be sales, and you wanna stick with sales, and then six months later, you don't have any sales, maybe it's time to just let people to get to know you.

Ben: Yeah. Well, and people should also just know, and whether that's talking to someone who knows, the area and has a field of expertise in that area or doing a little bit of research and finding out like what platforms are meant for sales or not even sales, but let's just call it getting leads. You know, which ones are good for making leads generation, which ones are not meant for that. And then what, because each one has its own thing that is really good at. And so I think if you are someone who likes using Facebook, you've only ever really used Facebook, and now you decided I've started business and I want to start getting leads from Facebook. The only way in my opinion that, that you're, and I mean somewhat scientifically, you know, Facebook does not want you to go off their platform. So by calling them off, so how are you going to get, if your goal is to get leads,

Channing: you need an in Facebook lead form

Ben: or you need to be able to be tailoring your content that they don't need to leave Facebook to get to you. How do they get to you? Are you keeping them on Facebook? That's why some of them have messages on Facebook, because at least you're staying on the platform. Don't put on there like, hey, here's my email address, here's my website. Call us. No, figure out a way to put all your stuff on Facebook. Here's my Facebook account, go to my Facebook profile to learn more about this. Or go to my Facebook video feed for more in depth. So you either need to lean into whatever platform you're comfortable with using or decide, hey, I really need to do this. Well, maybe now I need to go to LinkedIn because I'm just here to, I need to generate this kind of lead, you know? And so it's like, okay, you know, so understanding and knowing where you need to be is a huge benefit to your efforts that you're putting into whatever you're pursuing.

Channing: When bringing in an outside company, whether it's organic or even paid, is the most beneficial decision you can make, especially if you are already in a position where you're feeling desperate, you probably shouldn't be handling your own content. You need either somebody that works with you to handle your content, or you need to hire a company. And again, there's very cheap resources. Use ChatGPT. That's free. You can go look at the previous episode if you wanna learn more about how to use ChatGPT and prompts yeah you can hire Dallowry for 100 bucks a month or you can hire a larger service you know and so there's definitely resources available but if you are desperate if you're desperate for leads you should probably not be writing your own content because what more than likely your language is only going to drive people further away and you're too emotionally tied to it in a negative emotion versus a positive emotion.

Ben: But you have your stink all over it. It's kind of like with relationships too, you know, people there's that old saying stuff of you reek of desperation. And I think it's the same thing, you know, it's people pick up on the fact that you are grabbing at straws to get some business. And no one wants to work with someone who clearly looks like a sinking ship. You know, so I don't think people understand also how damaging, um, their content can be on social media because people are, you know, we're all so subconsciously driven. And if you see someone, I just thought about this where, you know, when you see someone who's over here, deep discounting, or they are just please, please, please call, please call us.

Channing: We talked about this the other month. I said, I am so sick of, so there's a few Facebook groups and I'm probably gonna get a lot of messages about this, but I just don't even care. I'm a part of a lot of Facebook groups and there was a few months ago, several posts, it was like five a day, that there was these messages and half of them would be anonymous. Please, I'm so behind on bills, I just need, you know, side work, I just need to come do da-da-da-da-da. And it was the language for me. Like, you don't deserve more work because you have a sob story. When people play the victim, it is harder for me to jump on board to help, but somebody who's just willing to work, you erase the entire victim story, now I'm on board. How can we help? What do we have that we can give this person to do? But if you come with a victim story, I'm out.

Ben: Right. Well, I think another thing on that is, you know, we all go through hard times. And I mean, obviously some of us have harder times than others, but you know, you're right. By removing the this is what we're going through, this is all the details. I mean, you can offer, I've seen where people would post up, you know, if you want more details, like I'll PM you what's going on. Cause maybe there are people who are like, I have resources for this. 100%, that's great.

Channing: Sure, if you're asking for resources, that's different.

Ben: No, I'm not meanin' that. I'm saying some people may see someone's posts and say, I have a resource for you. For your alcohol use or for your. You know, you're fixin' to get kicked out of your apartment or whatever. But a lot of times when people get halfway through one of those posts, they've stopped reading. Instead of, you know, it could be something as simple as changing, you know, to, you know, Hey, we have a family emergency. I'm needing X dollars. I am good at doing these things and I need this quickly. That's a little bit different than the whole woe is me five paragraphs of why I'm so down on my luck.

Channing: When for me, I'm just like, just say what skills you have. Hey, I have, you know, I've got six extra hours, here's the skills I'm good at, who could use some help? Like, why do we need to know that you're going through a hard time at all? And I'm not saying like we can't bring humanity back into it, but there's a difference if you're asking for work versus asking for resources. I think 100%, if you're asking for resources or advice, yeah, give as much backstory as you feel like is necessary. When you play the victim to get work, I don't agree with that. There's companies that do this too though. That's why I'm bringing it up, why it jogged my memory, is when you're desperate for sales and you are writing your content, this is the same type of messaging that's sometimes coming forward. Is we don't wanna have to shut down our family business of 98 years, but man, COVID sure was tough. COVID was two years ago. And I've still seen companies using a woe is me COVID message. Enough is enough. It's totally fine if you're going through a hard time. We all go through hard times. And trust me, I have been a victim of several different situations. But the last thing that I'm going to do is allow my past victim experiences or current victim experiences to sway somebody emotionally into working with me.

Ben: Right, it's manipulation.

Channing: Yeah, I'm not going to manipulate people into working with me. It doesn't feel right, it feels yucky, it feels gross. Just say, I'm skilled at this, I have this many hours, and I could sure use some work.

Ben: Right, yeah, looking to pick up some side work.

Channing: Yeah, that's all it has to be.

Ben: Yeah, well, and it's kind of the same thing with, basically those kind of posts remind me of, those are the modern day panhandlers. They're not gonna stand out on the corner. They're gonna hop on social media, but there's the same message.

Channing: You know what it reminds me of? I can't remember who it is that sings, but that dog commercial? Is it Shania Twain and the dogs? Cindy Crawford?

Ben: Cindy Crawford, no.

Channing: You know what I'm talking about?

Ben: Yeah, yeah, I will remember you.

Channing: Yes. Yeah. And the dogs. Every time I saw that commercial, you know what I thought? Everybody else was like, oh, it made me tear up. I thought immediately, why don't you just save those dogs? Like, you could have rescued all those dogs for the same price you paid for this commercial. Right. Like, all those dogs would have had homes. And that's how I look at, like, the victim posting for work. And it's true of individuals or companies. Like, if you're a company and you're victimizing yourself to get work, I'm out. Like, it's time for you to let somebody else do your content, even if it's ChatGPT. Like, get...

Ben: Don't post it, go to a temp agency. Right. Yeah, well, and I think that...

Channing: Sorry, rabbit hole.

Ben: Rant over.

Channing: Right, I'm off my soapbox.

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Ben: But I think that again, subconsciously people look at everything through this lens of unconsciousness where if if they get this sense of this reek of desperation from this company to make sales, well, why, why am I going to come and support you? Cause like you sound like you're about to go into business, you know, or you sound like, well, if I don't get my thing from you, then you're gone. Well, what if I need customer support later? Or what if?

Channing: I think sometimes it's just the skill of telling a story with an emotional hook that that skill hasn't been developed. Like they're using a marketing technique, which marketing tells you make them feel, don't just tell them to buy, but they're just not using it effectively. And the emotion that I want our clients to feel is not sadness or, you know, empathy or guilt.

Ben: I don't want them to feel an obligation to help us by-

Channing: I want them to feel excitement, you know, joy, potential. Passion like those are the things that I want our clients to experience and so our messaging needs to line up with that story. Not with the opposing story and yes All marketing is emotional a getting to know a business owner is you should have an emotional attachment like people Know like and trust trust is an emotion trust is tied to emotion

Ben: Safety.

Channing: And so if you can't build, if you can't have an emotional story, you're not going to be able to build trust because then it's just, this is a piece of paper. Great, I'm never gonna feel like, oh my gosh, it's a piece of paper. Like it is what it is. And that's, if you don't have emotion, that's what your company becomes. But it's what kind of emotions are we displaying? What kind of emotions do we want to draw out and how do we effectively do that so we get the result that we want?

Ben: I just really believe that being genuine is going to get you a lot farther in your marketing, in your sales, in your interactions with other people than anything else. It's slower. It does.

Channing: Some people aren't going to like you. I know for a fact I'm going to have some people that don't like my soapbox I just jumped on. They don't agree with it. They're not going to like it. I had to get used to whenever I started posting videos of myself on TikTok for my insurance brokerage, I got a lot of hate on some of them, even though they were meant to be funny videos. Like I got a lot of hate and like hurt people hurt people. And I just got to know that and move on.

Ben: Like, well, and you are not responsible for the context in which they are receiving your public video or your public post.

Channing: It is who I am. They don't have to like me. And I don't have to change who I am so that they do like me.

Ben: Well, I think we all, you know, you watch a certain show when you wanna feel a certain way, right? I can watch, you know, the best show in the world, Friends. And if I'm just in a bad mood or I'm whatever, like, it's not as funny. It's not going to just flip a switch and now everything is okay. Right. Everything's fine. Well, it's the same thing. If I'm scrolling, I'm, you know, I'm having a terrible night or a terrible day and I'm scrolling on Facebook and I see you doing what you are intending to be a funny video that in a different context or a different day, I would have found funny. Now I just find it offensive or now I find it annoying. You as the person posting are not responsible for that. And just like, if you're marketing stuff, when you make a post for your business and you have negative interactions, like you don't know what that person is going through, that is not a reflection of you as the business.

Channing: Yeah. And you just need to decide, like, is it feedback that you need to take and you need to make some adjustments on? Is it a false opinion or an opinion you're not concerned about? Or is your marketing message way off? Because like it could be that that statement is true. And like I sat back and I looked at like, okay, is this video? Is it offensive? Should I have not done it? Like it was meant as a joke, but maybe, maybe it was in bad taste and I didn't know it. And you know, after looking at the 27 other positive ones, I'm like, no, there's just two jerks in the mix. And like, I'm not, again, I'm not gonna change who I am for two fricking jerks.

Ben: Right. But I think that, you know, as business owners and as just people in general, you know, if you're getting on any social media platform, like, you have to understand that you're opening yourself up to a certain level of ridicule. You know, I mean you can't go on here and expect that every interaction is going to be rosy or that everybody's going to like you or that everybody's going to agree with you. And so, I mean, we have family members who differ from how we view things. And so, don't let that dictate, you know, the direction that you're doing your organic growth and your organic marketing stuff through because you know. It's not, it's your company, you know, and you need to make the decisions on the direction in which I take it, do I feel actually led and called down this direction? It may be a little more controversial. And sometimes those posts are good.

Channing: There's an entire marketing plan that's based on controversy. It's not one we recommend. But we don't hide from controversy either.

Ben: Right. Well, and I think that there's different, obviously, levels of controversy.

Channing: Like this podcast, for instance, there's going to be a lot of people who oppose it because they believe in paid advertising and they don't believe in waiting for organic. So this is a controversy in and of itself. It's just not offensive.

Ben: Right. Yeah. I mean, I think that there's a difference between, you know, the controversies of was slavery right or wrong or is chocolate or vanilla a better ice cream flavor? And so these are all forms of controversy. And so I think that understanding and knowing how to use them, because, you know, for instance, if you look on your feed and that maybe this I know it's not just me, but for me, I can be on a local page, City of Edmond, Everything Edmond page. And I'm on there and I'm looking at stuff and it's like, sometimes when you're scrolling, you're seeing, man, there's just a lot of negativity. Well, then you can go through and because we're humans, we're looky-loos, you see a wreck on the road, you break your neck trying to look and see animals cause another wreck.

Channing: He parked in a position where I could see an arrest happening the other day at Best Buy because he needed to go in and shop for something. I said, why don't you park where I can see so I can tell you what happened.

Ben: Right. And so it's the same thing because I mean, I catch myself even if someone posts a picture and like, oh, this is a beautiful sunset. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then if someone says, oh my gosh, I went to this restaurant and I saw rats or, you know, whatever it may be. It's like, unfortunately I am false. I'm susceptible to all that too. I'll probably click on that post to see what's going on because it has 248 comments. The algorithms start learning that and it's going to just start putting the negatives in front. But then if you go to that page, you'll see a lot of positives. And it's kind of the same thing that sometimes you want to put a little controversy in your page because it's going to then put it in front of people who are more likely to click on controversial things. And people are more likely to, I want to voice my opinion.

Channing: Yeah. I mean, we intentionally misspell posts sometimes. Just because we know that the haters will absolutely jump on it.

Ben: As long as it's not damaging to anybody or anything, put wrong facts in there.

Channing: We've put a comma in the wrong position. Like instead of 1000%, it says 100, 0%. And people will hop on and go, don't you mean 1000?

Ben: People love correcting people.

Channing: Oh yeah.

Ben: And people love feeling superior. Give them a reason to, hop on there. We don't need to be the most important and the most brilliant people. Did the chicken or the egg come first? I think it's the egg. Yeah. And just let the argument start. So as long as you're not hurting anybody, it's fun to start.

Channing: We use this or that a lot, so you make them choose one or the other and then we do polls a lot, and those are good engagements. But once you start gaining organic engagement, so when people are commenting, when people are sharing, all those things, but especially comments, the worst thing that you can possibly do is disrespect your audience by not engaging back. And so there's a lot of companies that they'll finally start getting traction, and then it drops back off three months later, and they're like, what the heck? And we're looking back and we're like, well, you had 17 comments, you never even went through and liked any of those comments. You never appreciated the engagement that they were giving you. Yeah. So why would they continue? It's like, you know, why would I come and I'm writing on this board and nobody's even like seeing it. I'm gonna stop writing on the board.

Ben: It's like not sending a thank you email to a client who ordered something from you. Yeah. You know, if you never received an order confirmation and they just took your money like Amazon. If Amazon just said they just, you know, you hit buy now, just out of wait. Yeah. Like you would be very like, this sucks. And so it's the same thing. Like if people are commenting, they're taking the time to comment on anything of yours, good or bad, you should take the time or someone in your company should take the time. And it doesn't have to be immediate. I think that's the other thing is people think that it's immediacy. Yeah. Like, oh, I gotta get on this thing now.

Channing: Immediate is better. But it's not necessary.

Ben: Yeah, but if you could just at night when you're doom-scrolling on the toilet, go through there and like your comments and comment back and just respond to them, positive or negative, like, hey, I'm sorry you had this experience or, you know, hey, thanks. I'll let so and so know they did a great job today when you interacted with them at the store or whatever.

Channing: And especially on like negative comments, for instance. Although it is important to pull those into a private message so you can work through whatever the issue is more in depth and it not be publicly just blasted everywhere, you do still need to respond to it publicly with grace and with professionalism.

Ben: Yeah, thank you for your response.

Channing: Yes, people want to see because what that shows is that even if I have issues, they're still going to be there. We're all just children. We want to know that our parents are gonna love us even when we're ugly and we piss them off yeah, we want to know that we can mess up and they're still gonna be there and Your customers are no different. They want to know that when you mess up You're still gonna be there when they mess up. You're still going to be there when they're hateful. You are still going to be there You're not going anywhere because again consistency, consistency, consistency builds trust and You showing up even when it sucks and even when it's hard builds trust.

Ben: Yeah. Well, and I think that the other thing is, is very disarming. You know, when someone is all up in arms and then the manager at the restaurant comes and says like, hey, we really apologize. We're going to comp your drinks or your meal or your whatever, that typically deescalates it very quickly. And it's the same thing in those comments. Like, that's a way for you to deescalate that person.

Channing: That's you touching you touching the table.

Ben: Right. And so, by that person complaining about whatever it is on your post or on your page or even just the review on Google that they left you, respond to that, let people see that you addressed them and that you will handle this. Hey, please email us at this and we will get you taken care of, we apologize. We want everyone to have a great experience.

Channing: Yeah, if you've already offered that customer, let's say you've already handled this offsite and they're coming online to be rude because that's likely to happen as well bring up in a very graceful way, bring up what you already did, the steps you already did to try and resolve that solution. So let's say that there's a situation and you've already told the client, hey, we can't do what you're asking because the contract terms have already been met. However, we're more than happy to give you this additional thing at no cost because you were unhappy with this service or it was a misalignment or it didn't, it wasn't what you thought it was. Even though we had, you know. We thought we communicated clearly. You thought you understood clearly. Somehow there was a disconnect. We can't fix this, because this is already done and over. But we can give you this as a way of, essentially apologizing for wherever this miscommunication was. If they decline that and then they still come on social and they're still poking at, poking like a bear attacking you, I would comment and say like, hey, you know, we're still more than happy. We're still more than happy to offer you the additional complimentary services that we discussed. And unfortunately, we hate that you weren't happy. Just something along those lines. But I would point to the fact that this has already been addressed.

Ben: Yeah, if they come on and try to blast you after you've already tried to reconcile this in a respectful manner.I personally don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with, and again, it varies, but let's say that you know the name. Hey, so-and-so, I spoke to Tom at your organization, or I spoke to Tom about this. We offered to supply them with X, Y, and Z, or to comp this, or to throw in that to make this right. Did they not communicate that with you? Based on your review here or your whatever, it sounds like maybe that was not communicated down the line.

Channing: And definitely dispute a review. Like if you've already handled a situation and then a bad review comes in, you are within your legal rights to dispute that and most of the time you're gonna win when it comes to Facebook and Google. But if they start commenting nasty things, still address every single one of those nasty comments, but make sure that your followers know, like you did write by the client. They chose not to accept it and that's not on you.

Ben: Yeah. And I mean, definitely going into this because I have, you know, there's some places that I frequent that there's been a few times whenever the product that I got was not satisfactory. And I didn't go on social to blast this store or this location of the store. I just, I mean, because like this one particular is a corporation, I get on their face or on their website, find the chat box, hop on there. And because I want real time, I use the chat and just let them know like, Hey, I was just at this location and the stores don't have direct numbers. And so I was just at this store location. And I think that this product is bad.

Channing: And by bad, he means spoiled.

Ben: Yeah. Like, Hey, for instance, I got a coffee and I think the milk was spoiled. You know, Hey, I just I wanted to let you know so maybe someone can reach out to the store to say, hey, maybe they need to just go through real quick and let the store manager know to check the expiration dates on the products. And typically it's, you know, it's met with a gracious thank you. Like I'm not here to bash you. It happens. No one was rude about it. It could have been a complete slip. No one's I'm not mad. I'm disappointed. You know what's happened is because I enter all those in with grace and I don't go into I'm not ranting and saying y'all suck. I have always been comped my beverage or my whatever because I'm going at it from a point of I just want to help because I've been in the industry and I know how much it sucks to then you're going to get a Karen who comes on there and does that. So I'm going to try to let them know, hey, check this. I was just in 15 minutes ago. So as a consumer, if you are upset and you haven't emailed anybody, instead of hopping on a comment or publicly posting a review, how about you give the business the opportunity to fix it first and you hop in a private chat or a DM or a PM or some type of messaging platform and let them know what the situation is.

Channing: And if you still don't get handled with grace or there's absolutely no effort to make a resolution to a justified request or justified concern, then it's appropriate to post a review that's not positive. Then it's appropriate to comment so other people can see. But to just blast a company that you've given no opportunity to correct is not appropriate. And as a company, for you not to address a concern or a feedback is not appropriate.

Ben: Right. And I think addressing, and again, looking at this from a stance of a small business owner, I mean, those reviews can have huge impacts on your business, especially whenever you have five reviews. And if three of those are crappy, that's going to have a big impact on you.

Channing: That's why organic matters so much because your organic traffic is more likely to review you than any paid.

Ben: And in the spirit of that, I think addressing an issue or a review the same way like how we have learned to communicate in our marriage, which is not using a definitive language. You always do this. That's not true. I do not always do this and you don't always do that. And so using that kind of language when, you know, if you're reviewing some place and say you, you reached out, they didn't make it right. Um, and they, or they made no effort to respond or get some right. Then it's, you know, you can look at it. I mean, I think to some level it's your duty as a consumer to make the general public aware of any issues that may arise from here, from a safety or satisfaction standpoint. Um, and so I think using language, like I visited this on this date and this time, this is what happened this instance, not facts.

Channing: Right. You stick to the facts.

Ben: You stick to what actually happened to you. Not this is what happened to me and I heard someone else had a bad experience and every time I talked to somebody about this, they always have something bad. Probably because y'all may y'all are all you are who you five friends are. So maybe y'all are all Karens or maybe y'all are all people who just don't are not very easily pleased.

Channing: You know, I feel bad for the Karens of the world.

Ben: I know, using their names in such derogatory ways.

Channing: Yeah, as a verb. Right? Yeah. You know, so, yeah. Sorry, Karens. We don't think this of all of you. It's just the word. But also, as a company when you're responding, so like one of the things that we use in our marriage is we don't... We try very hard not to say the word but, especially when apologizing. Because if I say, I'm so sorry, you know, my behavior was inappropriate, but you blah, blah, blah, I did not take any ownership of that. All I did was pass it on to you. And it doesn't, even if it is sincere, it doesn't sound sincere. And so instead we use the word and. I'm so sorry, my behavior was completely inappropriate and I was really hurt when you blah, blah, blah. That is completely different. Even if I say almost the exact same thing. I'm not negating the apology because it is sincere, but I do get to address, here's the trigger point or here's what I didn't appreciate about what this situation was going forward. And so, it can be really hard in the heat of the moment, but if you practice that over and over and over and over and over, it becomes more natural. And we've also learned that the situation's difficult, whether it's in our marriage communication style or with a client communication style, we slow down. And we've kind of already talked about this in another episode, but like we slow down. So when we're, we just did this the other night, we were not agreeing on how a proposal should be sent. And so our language, we said the exact same thing, but we slowed down the speed that we delivered it. We changed the tone of the delivery. And then also leading with like, I'm gonna play devil's advocate. I'm not just trying to piss you off and then saying it instead of just attack first, right?

Ben: Well, I think that by making your intent known It's gonna is de-arming. Yes. I agree. I think that when you go into a review in that instance is you know, if you said, you know, let's say you went to a pizza place and You know the pizza was good, but the service was crap and it was dirty. You know, instead you could say something along the lines like the pizza was great. Um, we had a great time and I can see the potential in this place. Once they get better management in place or once they get the cleanliness up because you're addressing the issue. The issue is that it wasn't clean, but you're not saying this pizza was good, but it's filthy and disgusting. And yada, yada, yada. And so what you're doing instead is you're spinning it in a way that is deescalating and you're making it known what the issue is without them feeling like they need to jump on the defensive. You're leaving an opportunity for impact instead of closing a door. So I think that you can take that into your marriage, into your speech with children or anybody really, but also in your, in your business, you know, just you definitely need to be more mindful if organic traffic is, you know, bringing this back home.

Channing: If organic traffic is your goal, your language matters greatly because you are not paying for followers. And so you've got to earn every single one of those and you've got to maintain that trust. And that's a lot of responsibility, but it's also a great honor. And so treating it as that and making sure that if you are too desperate and your language is showing it, you need to use resources tools or outsource that task if you ever want to climb out of the desperation cycle.

Conclusion

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