Ladies Kickin' Ass
Welcome to "Ladies Kickin' Ass," the podcast where kickass women in the service and trades industries spill the real tea on making it big. Twice a week, host Tanya Wilson brings you the gritty, the pretty, and everything in between.
Catch us every week for a deep dive with a powerhouse entrepreneur. Hear her raw, unfiltered story—from breaking ground in her field to celebrating the ups and downs while scaling her business. These aren’t just chats but your battle plans for crushing it in your business and life!
Then, swing by later in the week for some fierce coaching. Whether from Tanya or a top-notch industry expert, you get the insider tips you need. We’re talking nitty-gritty business & life tactics—from whipping your systems into shape to mastering the art of a kickass workplace vibe and all the marketing savvy you’re skeptical about but seriously need. But let's not forget, it all starts with our mindset, so we'll pepper in some amazing support from women specializing in health, wellness, parenting, and personal development.
"Ladies Kickin' Ass" isn’t just a podcast; it’s your new squad. Here, you’ll link up with fellow badass women, share war stories, swap wisdom, and find tools to amp up your business and life! For every service-based entrepreneurial woman hustlin' to make her mark—welcome home. Let’s rise up and kick ass together!
Ladies Kickin' Ass
#126 - Creating an Unbeatable Online Reputation
Want to know the secrets to building an unbeatable online reputation for your service business? Tune in to this episode of the Ladies Kickin' Ass Podcast where we uncover essential strategies that can set your business apart from the competition. Using septic tank pumping as a prime example, we discuss how authentic branding and consistent content creation can create a memorable customer experience. Learn why your brand extends far beyond a logo and how a professional appearance and consistent messaging are critical components of your business's identity. We also emphasize the importance of setting up robust systems and processes to ensure uniformity in service delivery, and the necessity of maintaining professional profiles across various online business directories to boost your visibility and credibility.
Discover the immense power of customer reviews and learn actionable strategies to leverage them effectively. From automating the review process to incentivizing both customers and employees, we explore how to generate and utilize reviews that can significantly impact potential clients' decisions. We also delve into creating engaging educational content and call-to-action campaigns that establish your business as an industry authority. Practical tools like Canva and automated email campaigns are highlighted to enhance your marketing efforts. By maintaining high service standards, consistently communicating with customers, and using unique customer appreciation tactics like thank-you packets, you'll foster loyalty and generate positive feedback, setting your service business apart from the rest.
Takeaways
- Authentic branding is crucial for service businesses to differentiate themselves from competitors.
- Consistency in service and marketing helps build trust and loyalty with customers.
- Engaging with the audience on social media and responding to comments and messages is essential for building relationships.
- Providing valuable content, such as educational resources and customer stories, helps establish expertise and attract customers.
- Maintaining a high level of service and soliciting customer feedback are key to building a strong online reputation.
- Personalized communication, such as sending thank-you emails and incentives for reviews, can make a business stand out and foster customer loyalty.
A Few Badass Things To Remember:
"A brand is more than a logo. It's a feeling. What do you make people feel?"
"Consistency is so important. Systems and processes are everything in a business to maintaining beautiful consistency."
"You can't just post on social media and expect everyone to come to you. You have to go to them too."
Chapters
- 00:00 - Introduction: The Importance of Online Reputation for Service Businesses
- 02:25 - Chapter 1: Building an Authentic Brand
- 09:25 - Chapter 2: Consistency in Service and Marketing
- 12:14 - Chapter 3: Engaging with Your Audience
- 20:31 - Chapter 4: Providing Valuable Content
- 23:07 - Chapter 5: Maintaining a High
Connect more with Tanya & Ladies Kickin Ass…
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Join the waitlist: BadAss Inner Circle
Welcome to the Ladies Kickin' Ass Podcast, where we help you ignite your inner badass and create the service business of your dreams. I'm your host, tanya Wilson, and together we'll dive into inspiring stories and expert coaching to set your journey on fire. Hey, badasses, welcome back to the podcast. Today we're gonna get nitty-gritty and this is gonna be more workshoppy and things that you can actually implement inside of your business. Today, when building the service reputation of your dreams, I think that your reputation online as a service business is the biggest thing you need to focus on One. Services like septic tank pumping we'll take, for example, since this is my business is something that. Can they hire like seven other companies out here to do that? Yeah, probably like 17 other companies to do that. Can they hire like seven other companies out here to do that? Yeah, probably like 17 other companies to do that. Are they going to provide the same value? No, are they going to provide the same service? No, is the end result going to be the same? Somewhat Depends on how they do it right. We know that if we are in the service business, there are other people that are offering services that are like ours. So I have four ideas for you today to really really focus on when you are building your service business reputation online.
Speaker 1:The first thing I want to talk to you about is content and authentic branding. Who the hell are you and why should someone pick you? Are you showing up authentically or are you trying to copy what everybody else is doing? I think mimicking some things that you see from a myriad of different businesses is very, very normal. I think it's very, very important. I will tell you I've had people mimic my business so much that they've tried to rip off my entire freaking website Not once, but twice. That's happened to me. You don't want to be copying people. That is not the authentic way of showing up.
Speaker 1:What is your brand? Let's start there. Lots of times, people don't even know what the brand is. A brand is way more than a logo. I'm going to say it again for the people in the back A brand is more than a logo. Many times when we think we're creating a brand, we think of what the visual part of it is, and that is it. A brand is a feeling. What do you make people feel? Do you feel professional? Do you look professional? It is visual. I'll give you some of that, but it's also the way you sound, the way you show up, the way that you talk, the way that you make them feel. Remember, I say all the time on the podcast you're always making somebody feel something. I say all the time on the podcast you're always making somebody feel something. How can we make that feeling so memorable that they want to leave you online reviews. They want to tell their neighbors about you. They want to hype about you on the local Facebook group page Like how do we build that one?
Speaker 1:Consistency. Consistency is so important and this starts with your systems and processes inside of your business. How do you run a service call? How do you answer the phone? What questions do you ask? How do you consistently book jobs? How do you follow up with customers? What is the process from your CRM that you're using Systems and processes are everything in a business to maintaining beautiful consistency.
Speaker 1:You can't just have an idea in your head as the owner, hire people to work in your business and expect them to think the same way that you do, because they don't. But if you have systems and processes in place that they can follow, they're following the same footsteps that you would. Now it's up to you to coach on mindset and be able to hire the right people that are going to fulfill that as close to what you would want it fulfilled. Does that make sense? It really is kind of an intricate thing with consistency, but you want to make sure that you are being consistent with the service that is being given, also in your marketing and branding of your business.
Speaker 1:Are you consistent across your website? Are you consistent across social media profiles and business directories online? Do you show up consistently in places? If you are concerned about this and you're like I don't know if I'm in business, what do you mean? Business directories? Is your Google my Business consistent with what you are offering? Are you listed on all the business directories online? I know that we think of like yellow pages. Those are so like 20 years ago, but yellow pages online is still like one of the most used internet directories. Isn't that kind of crazy? But they have excellent SEO too. So if you have a great profile belt out on that, you're going to show up, even under a listing for Yellow Pages. Maybe it's not your individual website, but you will still show up Yelp.
Speaker 1:Are you across that? Are you across all of these ones that start popping up If you're a home service provider, maybe Angie's List, you all of these ones to start popping up. If you're a home service provider, maybe Angie's List. You don't have to pay to be on Angie's List. In fact, I would highly highly on Yelp and Angie's List. Don't do that, because the leads you can get for way cheaper somewhere else by investing in your own platform versus theirs, but that's a whole nother podcast. I would very, very much recommend that you build out profiles on those. Still, you can have a profile for free on all of those. Okay, all of them. That's super, super important because it's giving you another opportunity to show up online.
Speaker 1:You want to make sure you're using the same logo, the same color scheme. I see sometimes that people, even punk trucks are out there and they have two different logos and designs and they look different Like. Have a uniform fleet, have it all look the same. It's very, very important that you do that and make sure that your messaging is very cohesive of what it is that you are doing that separates you from the rest of the people. Lots of times in home service and even online services, they say oh, that's such a saturated market. There are saturated markets. There's a lot of people out there providing plumbing, septic, electrical, dog setting, house cleaning, babysitting, whatever, haircutting. But what makes you different? What makes you stand out? You hear the saying people buy from people. It's true, people buy from people. Show them who you are. Don't be afraid to authentically show up as who you are. It's so cool. Authenticity is the second part of this number one thing I'm bringing up to you Authentic branding. Be genuine in your communications.
Speaker 1:My deal inside of my business it's a lot of fun trying to market a second company and people will be like how do you even market that? We've just made it fun. Like how can we play on this? So our values inside of our business, the things that we know, like our logo is we do epic shit. Epic shit has its whole write out. This is our core values in our business.
Speaker 1:E stands for education. It is the foundation of our business. P stands for people. I stands for integrity. C stands for consistency and collaboration. Like there's such a fun way. So epic shit stands for something and it is how we conduct ourselves in business.
Speaker 1:It's also on our shirts and everybody loves our shirts. They're like oh my God, that's so funny. Everywhere I go that I have an epic shit shirt on. Everybody asks questions what is that? Oh my gosh, I love your shirt. We are putting off a vibe that we're fun, we're knowledgeable and we get shit done, and we're going to be efficient and we're going to give you the best value you've ever had, because when I leave your home or business, you're going to know things that you didn't know about the system before I got here. I'm going to leave you in a better place than I found you, and that is the messaging that comes out in everything.
Speaker 1:If you look at my social media priority pumping on Instagram, that's an easy one because you can scroll through everything. You will see consistency and we are constantly educating the people that follow us on their systems. We're constantly showing up in like having fun as a team together. We're celebrating, we're doing things together. We're also working in the community. We mean what we say. When we say we're part of this town, we engulf ourselves in things that are going on in this town. So what you say, you need to back up, and social media is a beautiful way to be able to string all of those things together for you. Way to be able to string all of those things together for you.
Speaker 1:Number two thing I would say in building your service business reputation online is that you have to engage with your audience. You can post all the shit that you want to, but if you never get on and you engage with them, or if you don't reach out to people that follow you or you don't respond to comments of what they leave for you, you are missing a huge opportunity. Many times, people think well, I keep posting on social media and my following is not growing. Who are you interacting with? You have to be social, hence word social media. You can't just post and expect everyone to come to you. You have to go to them too. Seek out other people that are in your industry and start following them and pay them a compliment on something that they're doing.
Speaker 1:If I want to work with real estate agents, I'm going to go on and I'm going to find and follow a bunch of real estate agents that are in my local town. Reach out to them, say something nice about their page on Instagram or the things that they're posting on Instagram, comment on a few of their posts that they have. Follow them. Let them know that you followed them. I'm here to support you in any way possible. We're both local in Gilbert. If you ever have any septic or sewer questions, please give me a call, not hey, book me for the next service. But if you have any questions, I'm providing value for you. Now I am reaching out, volunteering to be a resource for you. Watch your following grow when you do this. It's really really cool.
Speaker 1:It's something that we're really focusing on for the latter half of this year is really reaching out to people and making those connections through social media. Really making the connections with people through networking events, so that we go to a networking event, we get business cards, we allot time when we come back from the networking event for at least a half an hour to an hour to touch base with those people, follow them online, let them know that you follow them online and then suggest them through your stories or something like that, just to promote them. And you know how many people do that stuff Like this many Zero. If you're not watching me, I'm holding up a zero. This is one of the ways that you will stand out.
Speaker 1:Another thing with that, too respond to your reviews. If you are not using a software at this point in time in your service business that automates asking for reviews and even, I would add, campaign style. So you're asking for them more than once. If you need help with this, reach out to me. You are missing out on a huge opportunity. Reviews are huge. Do you know that nine out of 10 people, before they select a service company, will check the reviews? Even if they were referred by their neighbor or someone that they trust? Seven out of 10 people are still going back and checking the reviews before they call the company.
Speaker 1:Isn't that crazy? If you are not getting reviews consistently in your business, you have to figure out a way to do that, and there's so many automation programs that will allow you to do this. Ours just goes automatically and it's set up campaign style. So if they get a text message and they don't leave a review, they'll send them another text message in another day and then follow up via email. We are even going another layer deep this last half of this year, and at the end of the week I am also sending out an email as the owner of the business saying thank you so much for your business. We really do appreciate you. And, at the bottom, if you have not had an opportunity to leave us a review. I would love to see that.
Speaker 1:I think, as I'm just saying this, I might add an extra little layer to that that if you're willing to video a review for my company and send it back to me, I will send you a $50 Amazon gift card, or even a gift card to something local I say Amazon because everybody can find something on Amazon all the time but incentivize people to leave you video testimonials Do you know how huge those are on your website? Just saying it's a great opportunity. You know what? Something else I do, too, is I incentivize my technicians and actually everybody within my team. If they get a review and the person that left them the review the client, leaves a review and it states their name in it. I pay them 50 bucks. 50 bucks. My guys go to three to five jobs a day. They could make an extra $150 to $250 a day if they would get reviews from everybody. That is the best evergreen marketing dollar you will ever spend, because the more reviews show up, the more Google's looking at you too, saying, hmm, shit, people like these guys. I think I'm going to start putting them up a little bit higher in the rankings because they have great reviews In the Phoenix market for independently owned septic companies, I have the number one amount of reviews and I'm one of the youngest companies in the entire valley.
Speaker 1:I've been in business for seven years. We have over 300 google reviews and the next one, I think, coming up is about 140 from a company that's been in business for over 40 years, and I will guarantee you a vast majority of that is because of the automation that I put on this and the incentivizing that I do to my team to get them. Why not reach out a little bit more even so, as I've just talked about here, and try to get the video reviews from people. Those are huge. Oh my god, they're so massive, so, so, so massive. And then again, interacting on social media, we want to make sure that we're responding to everybody that does that. If you have a call to action which you should have for your social media stuff, even if you're not doing any paid social media advertising, and you're like maybe I'll dip my toes in it and I'll see what's going on, make it a call to action.
Speaker 1:For example, with my septic company, my call to action that I actually pay for ads on is a check, checkout our septic 411 guide so you can learn how to properly maintain your system. That's it. I'm not asking them to write in to get a quote. I'm not asking them to please consider our service. I am providing value. That's all I'm doing. It's providing value, and if you want to create something like that inside of your business and you're looking for some ideas on how to do that, hit me up. I'll be happy to send you my 411 guide and you can tailor it for your business. If you're an electrician, if you're a plumber, if you're a dog walker, if you have a babysitting service, if you have a salon, if you have housekeeping, house setting, anything like it, you can create a 411 guide that talks about the needs that you help meet throughout the services that you sell.
Speaker 1:The third thing that I would bring up when we are talking about building your service business reputation online is making sure that you are providing valuable content. A lot of times, people get confused with what content means, and they're saying so, like on our website, like just a blog post, like what is it? Content is everything that you are doing to put your brand out there. Call it marketing. Is your marketing valuable or are you just trying to sell shit If you can provide value through blog posts, through videos, through infographics. If you haven't met my BFF, canva, you need to get on and you need to explore Canva. You can create beautiful graphics yourself. If you don't have a budget to hire somebody, that you can do for free. So if you need some help with that, also reach out. We have resources for that too, throughout the community and other things that educate your audiences. This is where that Septic 411 guide comes in that I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:We have something that we're providing to everyone that visits our website, everyone that becomes a customer, everyone that looks into our website. They get this emailed to them so that they have educational piece. One, it demonstrates oh, they're professional. I've never seen a separate company do this before. Two, they must know their shit, because look at all this information that they're giving away for free. If their free stuff is this good, how amazing is their service? I want people to start thinking about that. Another thing you want to be able to do in this providing valuable content is make sure that you are promoting through social media and your website and your email newsletters maybe even the text message marketing that you are doing, that you are highlighting the customer stories and testimonials.
Speaker 1:If you had, like, this crazy story of something that had happened at a customer's house and you were able to resolve it, please tell that story. Please just turn on the camera, like I'm doing right now, and tell the story of how you helped the customer today. This is something I could do more in my business too. Sometimes I love this podcast because I get such great ideas that I can pass on to my team or that I can even start implementing as well. We started doing a video series where I just sat in my office and I just rolled like 10 different top questions. Like I went on to Google and I typed in like um questions about my septic system and it pops up with like the like auto generates or auto finishes, like what you started typing in there. So I picked like the top 10 questions that it popped up with and it was like what's the best toilet paper for my septic system? Can I use flushable wipes? Can I build a driveway on top of my septic tank? So we went through.
Speaker 1:I recorded like little two minute videos or if you want to post them on reels, you want to keep them under 90 seconds. If you want to post it on your story like one quick tip. It's under 30 seconds, just so that you know that, but if you want to do a longer form one, you can just do it as a regular post on Facebook, instagram and LinkedIn, right, and on your YouTube channel. Don't forget about YouTube Super huge Number two place people go to search for things. Okay, google number one, youtube number two who do you think owns YouTube? Google, so definitely duplicate your stuff for Google, and it's great to put on your Google my Business page as well, because it makes you look like an authority that you're answering questions for people.
Speaker 1:Okay, so one of the most important things is like them seeing your face as the owner of the business or someone that is inside of the business, and then being able to associate a name, a face and the knowledge that you have that you're willing to give to them. So definitely put together videos of your knowledge. They can be just little, tiny clips and then you can use them as posts once a week. It's like check in with the owner this is a top tip with Tanya, like something like that. Like, make it fun, something that's engaging, but definitely just give them a quick tip about something that you do within your service and some education that will help them live better within their home. If you're in home services, or health or wellness or any of those things, these tips are so huge.
Speaker 1:And the last thing that I would like to talk about, as far as building an amazing online brand reputation, is making sure that you're maintaining this high level of service that you preach about. If you say we're going to contact you at every phase of this project, you better be contacting people. My number one goal at my business and we are not 100% at this and I would love to think that we can get there, I don't know, but that's what I'm striving for is that we never have customers calling us saying what's next? They didn't call me. Are you coming back out? When is the backfill? When are we doing this? What time are you guys going to get here? We should be communicating that before they have to reach out and ask us questions. So, if you are struggling with some of these things, I have a meeting about this tomorrow with people, because there are some areas where people aren't communicating with the customers the way that it's set up in the processes to do so.
Speaker 1:So it really is that quality assurance as the owner or high level manager in this business, that you make sure that you're delivering on the customer service standards that you advertise and that you've branded your business to be, because what you don't want to do is advertise that that's what they're drawn to you for and then you let them down. No, we don't ever want bad feedback because we didn't call people back or we didn't let them know we were on our way or we got hung up. Sometimes we're doing underground utilities. Shit happens where you get stuck out on a job. I can't leave a person's house wide open that's got a four foot hole down to the septic tank. Sometimes you're running a little bit behind. If that happens and you've given a window and you're going to be outside of that window, you better be communicating an hour or two beforehand, letting them know what is going on. Otherwise, make sure you're in that window when you show up.
Speaker 1:And last but not least, is solicit feedback, ask your customer, send out a survey every once in a while. It could literally be one question that you ask them a month. Put it in your monthly email newsletter that you send what's most important to you in a septic tank pumping company and I would highly, highly, highly recommend that maybe you don't put price in there, because I think that maybe you're going to be skewed as far as the value that you can deliver if price is one of those things that are in there. We all know that people want the best price. We don't need to ask that question. But, like, what's most important Clean trucks, professional technicians being on time, the discussion that you have with the technician slash, education that you have something like that along the lines of that could give you huge feedback.
Speaker 1:Even just reaching out as the owner of a business and shooting an email to people at the end of the week, like I'm going to have someone in my office just put together like an email list that I can go through, even if I have something I've typed up on chat, gpt that is just something really simple. That's like hey, my name is Tanya Wilson. I'm the owner of Priority Pumping. I first of all want to express my gratitude for you choosing Priority to be your septic service provider. I would love to hear any feedback that you might have on my team and if you feel it necessary to let others know how awesome our service is, please use this link here to leave us a review online. If you name your technician in here and they were really awesome for you or whoever you worked with at our business, I'll go ahead and tip them out for you, because we want to reward awesome employees here at our company.
Speaker 1:One. You're demonstrating that you one are a badass boss, that you are reaching out to individuals as the owner of the business. When was the last time you ever saw an email come from the owner of a business when you paid for a service? I'll wait, because you probably never have. Be that person. Always look for opportunities for you to stand out with people.
Speaker 1:If people leave us reviews, we send them little review goodie packets and it's like a couple of koozies and a pen and like an air freshener or something like that, and a handwritten letter that says thank you so much for leaving us review online. People have posted that on their stories. They've posted it on their social. They're like who does this? No one ever does stuff like this. Find the little things that make you the value that you are trying to express to people. So we send this email out. People respond.
Speaker 1:I really want to start. I'm going to be more consistent with this. I'm taking this challenge on myself, I'm giving it to you. I want to be more diligent with this and see what it does for the numbers, for our reviews, see what it does for referrals that we get from other people. Could be really, really awesome. Maybe it won't help at all I doubt that but maybe, just maybe, you could get one or two more customers a week out of this. One or two more customers a week over 52 weeks 52 to whatever 104 extra customers, four extra customers. I'd be willing to take the chance of doing that by sending out, having one hour on a Friday afternoon to sit down and send out emails to the customers that you've had. Now I understand if you've got a ton of customers. That might be a lot. Set it on an automation where it goes out, where it's still a letter from you thanking them for choosing priority pumping. It's still going to be a hell of a lot more, even though it's not super personalized to whatever the job was, but it's a hell of a lot better than what anybody else is doing and that is nothing and it really doesn't cost anything. It might cost you an hour of your time. You're already paying for email. Just send it out. See what you get. Time You're paying for email, just send it out. See what you get.
Speaker 1:I truly, truly believe that if you will be consistent and authentic in your branding, you engage with your audience, you respond to those reviews, you interact on social media, you show up who you really are, you provide valuable content, there's education inside of your content and you're promoting customer stories and testimonials on how you helped their home or helped change their lives. You are maintaining a high standard of service. You have quality assurance within that and accountability, and you're also soliciting feedback and getting feedback and praise for them becoming clients of yours. I don't know how you can't win if you're doing all of these things, because what I will tell you is, if you've been in a service industry for any period of time, you know that none of this shit is happening out in the world.
Speaker 1:You know how much the world is hurting right now, and if you can be a beacon of light, even as a septic company or as a plumbing company, or as an HVAC company or as whatever your service is, and you can be the kind person, you can be the nice person, you can be the great person. That just wishes them a great week and thank you for their business and that you truly, truly appreciate them. Do you know how many times people just need somebody to say I appreciate you, even though they paid you, I appreciate you. Thank you for helping me, as a small business owner, continue to build my dream. It's a connection. It's a human connection, and we need more human connection than ever before in this world. So, please, please, if you have any questions about this, ladies, please, don't hesitate to reach out. Also, make sure that you sign up in the show note links to get on the wait list to learn more about Badass Inner Circle. That is going to be our membership and coaching forum, where you're going to get tons of information like this and even some really great cool discounted or free resources and mentors that are professionals in these areas to be able to coach you to build the business of your dreams.
Speaker 1:So until next time, ladies, keep kicking ass out there. Thanks for being part of the ladies kick and ask community Cheers to all you badass women out there. Keep rocking your power, igniting your fire and making waves in the service industry. If you loved today's episode, please do me a quick favor. Take a screenshot, post it and tag us at Ladies Kickin' Ass. Be sure to include the link to your favorite episode. Your support in spreading the word means the world to us as we aim to empower even more women. Hit that subscribe button to stay tuned for more kick-ass episodes. And don't forget a five-star review is the ultimate high five. Connect with us on social media. All the links are in the show notes. Thank you for being part of our tribe. Now go kick some serious ass, lady.
