Why we became very worried about our reputation...

reputation

the estimation in which a person or thing is held, especially by the community or the public generally; repute : a man of good reputation. from: Dictionary.com

A digital footprint can last a lifetime unless an individual diligently practices online reputation management (monitoring).

The Internet is permanent, plain and simple. Imagine a bathroom wall full of graffiti, except this wall can be read by anyone with an Internet connection, including potentials buyers and sellers, business folks in your area, school admissions counselors, and future employers. Many investors don’t realize how much information about them can be easily found online, nor do they understand the consequences of that information being publically available.c

What I found is that everyone looks for reviews now. And having no reviews is almost as bad as having bad reviews. I decided to take my two realtors that work for me and build their reputation. We went through 8 months painstaking work to produce a solid reputation for buyers and sellers.

That was awesome, we saw an uptick in our sales (27%), and that was worth it a lone. But something else happened.

Our business partners, lumber yard, bank, etc. started offering us better deals, better rates, and we started to see VIP treatment. It was really nice.

On a third leg of this journey into building our reputation online was that other business professionals starting asking how we did it. It became pressing that we started to help them. We decided to only help restaurants, we charged a minimum price and then asked for free meal tickets in exchange for services. It was a win-win for everyone.

In conclusion I will tell you for certain this, your reputation is your success, and good reviews are the new SEO and SEM.

If you want to sell homes, you have to have a sterling reputation online.