Go ahead, Google the name of your company now. I’ll wait.
With direct sales continuing to move toward more of an online model, it’s never been more important to protect your company’s online reputation. However, before even looking at the results page, what words follow your brand name in the auto-suggested results? Do the words “scam” or “pyramid” or “lawsuit” appear anywhere? Now take a look at “[your company name] + reviews”. Any negatives? If all results are positive and clean, good for you! Your company is either new, uncontroversial or has taken steps to build in protection around your brand name. On the other hand, if you are seeing negatives in your results, so are your prospects, your field, press and even regulators.
Google and social media are the front doors to your business. How will you keep them clean? It’s now time to get working to remove any negatives. Competitors and disgruntled former reps, lawsuits and mistakes from the past are all easily found. In our industry, companies who aren’t taking an aggressive approach to managing their reputation online are setting themselves up for real problems. The fundamentals of managing an online reputation should be the basic knowledge of every direct selling executive. It’s no longer just the problem of the marketing team — everybody from the CEO on down must be involved in reputation management.
