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As we move toward launching some of our early publisher partners, I wanted to share some personal experience in selling reputation management directly to an SMB. I’ve done it over the phone, cold calling in person and with businesses I have long standing relationships with. The outcome was pretty similar.

The Process

In every case, the best practice is to first get the initial findings from the report in the hands of the business owner. Every RepShield partner has the ability to create prospect reports and should do so regularly.

1. We always represent ourselves as an agency focused on the growth of local business and transferring online research to offline sales.
2. We briefly discuss the research we are doing on local presence and reputation, explaining how there are hundreds of sites on the web and data is naturally dirty on the web due to the number of processes going on and the number of people touching data. (Not too detailed but enough to gain understanding)
3. We share the report and their Presence Score we pulled about them explaining the key elements and why it matters. Of course, they gravitate toward the ratings area but we focus them in on some of the key sites their business is listed on and the accuracy of that content- wrong phone numbers, wrong addresses, no products or services listed, etc.
4. At this point, the normal response is that they wouldn’t know how to start managing that process which leads to the offer.
5. The offer is 100% managed process, reputation monitoring, monthly reports, real-time notifications and a view of their competitors for $1500 or $200/ month with a minimum 12 month agreement. (Over the phone the close tends to be annually reporting and notification for $360 or $40/ month and a follow-up in person meeting)

The Followup

After the close, we layout the follow-up process with the customer.

1. We will begin updating 5 sites per month immediately using the information we gathered from you. We let them know this will be their master file.
2. Notifications will also begin immediately and they will get notifications when reviews are written about them, if they are mentioned in an article or content changes occur.
3. Monthly reports will be delivered to the email address provided beginning 30 days from now. The report will basically summarize the notifications for the month and give you our next steps.
4. Our next visit will take place in 90 days when we will review your progress and discuss additional options.

The Additional Options

The follow up appointment tends to lead to a few different options for the customer-

• Custom Facebook and Twitter design
• Business blog creation and content management
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Email Marketing- We love Mailchimp!
• Advertising Spend Auditing- We see a lot of spending outside of traditional media.

Selling Reputation Management is really beginning a consultative relationship with the business owner. Becoming an adviser, at first, with the potential of becoming their Agency of Record.

Regarding becoming the Agency of Record, look for an announcement from Dream Local in the next few weeks about our winter development cycle. We call it RepShield-SocialCast and it will put our publishing partners in the driver’s seat of every business relationship they have.