As a marketing and sales training consultant am often asked how can we improve or overcome bad press or reviews? Here are a few strategies that I wanted to share with you, it’s an great article written by Raymund Flandez of the Wall Street Journal.

Three Best Ways to Improve Your Online Reputation

The Wall Street Journal | Small Business By RAYMUND FLANDEZ -

These days, a great danger lurks just a few clicks away: the online review. By Googling your company’s name, anyone can read and track your business’s performance – including missteps, poor service or less-than-stellar products.

Protecting your company’s reputation is now a 24-hour vigil. Negative reviews – whether they’re merited or not – can turn away potential customers and vendors, and reflect badly on your company’s brand.

The good news is that small-business owners can be proactive in securing positive reviews by asking satisifed customers to share their experiences. But what if it’s already too late?

Here are the three best ways to improve your online reputation:

1. Reach out immediately to dissatisfied reviewers. Their negative comments don’t need to be the end of the conversation. Small-business owners should attempt a dialogue, experts say, as complainers might improve the review or take down the post. Oguz Ucanlar, president of SpaForever LLC in Chicago, managed to turn around bad reviews on Yelp.com by contacting the aggrieved posters. He apologized, explained the situation and offered the reviewers discounts or a free massage. The result? One bad review was deleted, and the spa’s overall rating went up. “I take it really seriously,” he says. It also helps that Yelp now allows business owners to respond publicly to any customer comment, giving others a window into how the business treats its most finicky customers.

When a bad review surfaces, an apology goes a long way, says Lisa Barone, co-founder of Outspoken Media Inc., a Spring Hill, Fla., Internet marketing company. “Most people just want to be heard,” she says. “They just want to know you’re listening and you care, and that you’re going to try and fix it.”

Keep in mind that a negative review can sometimes be helpful. Case in point: an online customer of Nationwide Candy LLC of Albuquerque, N.M., complained after she received the wrong bubblegum product. Turns out, the candy wholesaler had posted an incorrect image on its site. “It just casted a bad image on us,” says Ken Hanson, its general manager, who immediately corrected the error.

2. Flood search engines with content you can control. Use digital media’s reach to your full advantage, says Evan Bailyn, founder of First Page Sage LLC, a New York search engine optimization company. Mr. Bailyn says he often helps clients put “good publicity on top to knock bad publicity off the first page” of search engine results. To do that, he suggests releasing press releases through prnewswire.com or pr.com and building Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts since these social-media sites show up high on search results. “The overall strategy is inundating the Google results with as much good or neutral content as possible so that the bad seems like an anomaly,” Mr. Bailyn says.

3. Appeal to bloggers to review your company or your product. Getting others to weigh in can be an effective way to generate neutral or positive reviews to counteract negative ones. Influential bloggers in your niche market can bring instant credibility to a company. If you already know bloggers in your industry, read or reach others by simply scanning their blogrolls, a handy list (typically placed in the sidebar) of potential contacts. Alert them to news about your product or service as a first step in building the relationship.

While it’s controversial, some business owners say they’ve improved their reputations through sponsored blog posts. Netfirms Inc., a Web-hosting company in Markham, Ontario, is paying $10,000 to SocialSpark.com, a marketplace for paid reviewers, and to about 60 bloggers to write 200-word reviews of its new Twitter service. “The more positive feedback that we can have, the better,” says Dan Feferman, its product specialist and community manager. Other sites to consider are PayPerPost.com, SponsoredReviews.com and ReviewMe.com, Mr. Bailyn says. Costs can range from $15 to $150 per posting. While some business owners liken sponsored posts to traditional ads, keep in mind you could turn off potential customers. To prevent that, make sure the blog post contains a disclosure that it’s a paid or sponsored review.

Write to Raymund Flandez at raymund.flandez@wsj.com

Are you a victor or victim? I’m against being a victim cause victims sound weak. Victims are avoided after a while. Victims are seldom listened to because the have lost their credibility. Victims are never respected. And in general, nobody wants to hang around with victims. Well, except for other victims, of course, because like attracts like.

Just think for a moment about what you say when something doesn’t go your way or rather the way you act it. Review the last experience when you a big sale. Think for a moment about how and what you said to yourself, the body language you used and your tonality. If any of those reactions or responses contain victim like attitude, like whining, put downs, - stop it or you’ll become a victim.

You see the your goal is for you to become a victorious sales person whether or not you close the sale. Victors don’t whine. Victors learn, they overcome, they master themselves. It’s easy to up beat when life is going your way, but guess what the BIG profits are in the problems.

Two major questions that I hear all the time, what do I need to learn to succeed in sales and what do I need to do to succeed sales? Here are the realities and the strategies of sale success. But your job is to make an implementation plan for every single one of them and some of them are a little painful. Succeeding in sales is a learnable skill. Being poor in sales is a learnable skill.

Number one; grow your people skills - remember the customer buys you first. Sell yourself before you even try to sell your company or your product. The client looks to you for assurances and trust.

Number two; sell the benefits - make a list of your benefits that your competition does not have. Use questions that your competition does not ask is good strategy.

Number three; master the objections - there are no new objections so get rid of the existing ones. Make a list of the objections that you hear over and over again. Not interested. Happy with present provider. No budget. Better offer from your competition, etc. And role play the answers.

Number four; target your ideal customer - Make a list of your ideal customer’s traits, B credit, 5-10 employees, 5 plus years in business, 3 plus locations. Make a list of the prospects that match those traits, contact only those “ideal” prospects. It’s a smaller but better list.

Number five; be, do, have –BE a student of sales, never stop learning. This is how I mastered sales. After you learned a new technique, DO it – role play it with friends and associates, teaching is a great to role play it too. Then use it that day. Doing leads to HAVING and the more skills you HAVE the faster you be come a master of your craft. Remember to adapt what you’ve learn to your personality style.

Number six; how you feel is more important than what you know – you heard it before “ attitude is everything” learn how YOU keep a positive attitude, what triggers attitude changes in YOU. Study emotional strategies every morning. The secret to attaining sales success is how you feel about money, yourself, sales, and success. Rich sales people are rich because how the feel, broke sales people are broke because how the feel.

Number seven; save money – this was a big turning point for me, when I started to save just 10% of my income. The savings created peace and confidence that comes with knowing that you have thousands of dollars in the bank. I’ve met hundreds of good and broke sales people, they spend everything they make. Begin with saving 10% of your income and get to the point that you can save 20% or more.

Here’s the final answer. Succeeding in sales is a learnable skill. Losing at sales is a learnable skill. Getting ahead is a result of doing certain things over and over again. And you are in charge. You decide how much you want to succeed by remembering 6 words. “Repetition is the mother of skill.”

Let me ask you - if I blind-folded you and placed you in a dark room and asked you to tie your shoes could you do it? Why? Because you repeated the shoe-tying process a zillion times, right? Again mastering sales takes repetition to master the skills.

This might possibly be the single most important rule of business or sales. If they LIKE you, BELIEVE you, have CONFIDENCE in you and TRUST you, then they may be they will do business with you or buy from you. Now of these four things LIKE, BELIEF, CONFIDENCE AND TRUST, which one do YOU think is the most influential? Raise your hand if you thinking it BELIEF c’mon raise your hand? Raise your hand if you thinking it’s CONFIDENCE? Who thinks TRUST raise your hand? Raise your hand if you thinking it’s LIKE?

If you were thinking TRUST you’re almost right. If you were thinking LIKE you’re right. Can I give you guys and an example? Pretend you’re a single woman of the opposite sex, you go out on a date with some guy. You come back and now you’re talking about the date with mom or girlfriend or whoever, “You know Betty, I really trusted this guy, but I didn’t like him!” Oh Betty I like him a lot and I hope we go out – what? Again. I hope we go out again Liking leads to trusting. Trusting leads to confidence and confidence leads belief. Are you with me on this?

See if you’re not likable the best thing for you to do is get out of people business.

Goverment Assassin

Now everyone will tell you to do what? Become a trusted adviser. However the only way that you can become a trusted adviser is to first become a friend. The only way that you can become a friend is to be liked – cool?

Hey guys, Bert Martinez here. Time management tools are really useful, right? Or are they? They show you how to organize your things. The problem is, that these systems are only as good as you FEEL. I’ve always said how you feel is more important than what you. How you feel determines your follow through or follow up - your success.

Consider this. Have you been using time management techniques but still, you feel overwhelmed, unfocused, like you’re not accomplishing some major things? If so, your lack of emotional management may be the reason why your time management approaches may not have worked so well for you.

Stephen Covey, he summed it up best when he said time management is a misnomer. The real challenge is to manage ourselves. So take a pause for a moment. How well do you manage your self?

Let me give you three examples. Let’s say you have an exciting message and you really want to get it out to the media. So you schedule a block of time from 3:00 to 4:00 this afternoon. This is a typical time management technique. But here’s what might take place. Three o’clock rolls around, you sit down at your desk and you start thinking to your self, “What if I send this out and nobody responds? I’m really going to feel dumb,” or, “Oh worst, what if they think this is a stupid idea?” or, “Who am I to write about this subject. I should do some research before I send the message.” Four o’clock rolls around. What do you think is going to determine whether you send that email or not? Was it whether you scheduled it in your calendar or how you feel about you?

Example #2. Let’s say that you decided to lose weight. So you schedule yourself in the gym 3 times a week at 6 am. But what if on the first day it’s really cold and raining. Okay. What’s your reaction? Do you go back to bed? Your level of commitment (feelings) will now take over and decide your actions.

Example #3. Here’s another example. Let’s say that you had an interaction one morning with your spouse and it ended on a pretty tense note. Okay. So as you’re going throughout your day, you’re kind of thinking about it. It’s nawing at you in the back of your mind. Later taht day you scheduled planning meeting. Again that’s an excellent time management technique, right? Making time for the things that are most important to you, being proactive. But during that meeting, what do you do? You obsess and you replay what happened that morning. What is that interaction going to mean for my our future?

You’ve scheduled your time for meeting. But were you really present? And also, did you schedule in the time you probably lost thinking about it? Real “time management” is a two-part process. It’s how you schedule your time on the outside but it’s also about how you manage your emotions, the self on the inside. And one without the other is not going to get you the results that you need.

So consider this, instead of focusing on managing your time, start by managing how you feel, developing emotional skills like determination and confidence. Emotional skills will serve your time and your life better.

To summed it up “How You Feel is more Important that What You Know.”

Underestimating your competition is a huge mistake and it’s a common mistake that most new companies make. No matter what business we’re in, we think of our competitor as less-than. We shouldn’t be thinking about our competitor that much, you see that’s where the mistake is - thinking about our competitor so much.

Our fight isn’t against our competitor. Our real fight is for the customer, not against our competitor. We don’t win by damaging the competitor. We only win by having more customers. So quit thinking about the competitor and start thinking about your competitor’s customers. Who goes to your competitor’s store? Who is buying your competitor’s products? Who’s using you competitor’s service? Then ask yourself, “Why is that customer doing that?” Don’t worry about the competitor. Don’t worry about why the competitor does what the competitor does or any of that stuff about him because he’s not the enemy. We’re after the customer. Ask yourself, why do people shop there instead of with you? Why do people buy his instead of yours? And when you can answer that question, you’ll realize when you start thinking about it, it has nothing to do with the competitor. It has everything to do with the customer. And when you figure that part out about your customer and this person that is your competitor, your sales are going to skyrocket because for the first time maybe, you’re focused on the right thing.

Don’t ever underestimate your competition - don’t do that. But don’t focus on your competition either. Focus on the customer. How do you get those people who are doing trade and business and service with them to try you. And when you make it about the customer and not about the competitor, you’ll open the door for those people to find you.

Why I think customer is number two. And your employees are number one. Your Employees are the people who work for you and control your future. Now think about your business and it doesn’t matter what business you’re in, it really depends on the qualities, your service, your delivery. These are things that all products and services have in common and they’re crucial.

Well guess who controls quality and service and delivery? Your employees do. Well if you haven’t taken care of your employees, they’re probably not going to take care of your customers. It’s just that simple.

Happy Productive Employees

So it doesn’t matter that you have the best product or service in the world. Your employees are the buffer between your product and the customer. And if your employees aren’t on the same page as you, it’s going to be really difficult for you to succeed. I have never met a successful business that didn’t take care of it’s employees. Period!

If you’re an organization that takes care of your customers, your customers will take care of your employees. So you don’t have to worry about the customers. Let your employees worry about the customers. And your job, your job number 1 will be making sure that your employees always feel good about the relationship you’ve created with them.

Because how you feel is more important then what you know. So employees who feel good about where they work then to do more at work.

Americans love that the administration is rushing into healthcare because important life changing legislation shouldn’t be thoroughly thought out. An impact study shouldn’t be completed to ascertain the facts – quick decision is always best.

Americans love the fact that our government can ignore the results of other government manage health care programs like Canada.

Americans love Nebraska’s Senator Ben Nelson and the fact our government is openly as corrupt as any government.

Americans love the fact that our government utilizes fear, secret deals and mob like tactics to pass this health care bill.

We love that President Obama and his staff has fundamentally been untruthful when it comes to the health care issues. Americans love that the Administration has been arguing that this agenda would lower cost and expanded coverage, but everyone knows it’s a lie.

Americans love our government history of always balancing budgets and manage money wisely - NOT!

Americans love that our government already provides healthcare to our fighting men and women and the Veteran’s Affairs office doesn’t have the money or the man power to their job effectively. In fact in a recent 60 minutes segment Byron Pitts reported his finding -Veterans are waiting months and or years to see a doctor.

Americans love knowing our fighting men and women can’t get help from government healthcare now, but Americans should expect something better later - because you know more government is always better?

Americans love the fact that the President is basically punishing those who have healthcare (over 78% have healthcare ) with those who don’t.

Americans love Martin Feldstein’s remarks, Martin Feldstein is an advisor to the President and stated “the higher taxes, debt payments and interest rates needed to pay for health reform means lower living standards.” Don’t we all just lower living standards?

Americans love the fact you have shifted your energy away from our economy because who wants a good job with benefits when they can just have health care.

Americans love the fact you doing next to nothing for the jobless and those families losing their homes.

Americans love the massive deficits and growing debt.

Americans love that President Obama and Congress swore to defend the Constitution yet appears that they don’t.

Americans love the fact you be can’t sued or many Americans probably would.

Mr. President Americans love the fact you won’t be re-elected.

The new holiday season has arrived, and you still don’t have a marketing plan to reach out to new or existing customers. Wondering why the same holidays seem to sneak up on us every single year? As we try to prepare ourselves for own family, shopping, gift giving and travel, it’s no wonder we often forget about our businesses marketing during all the holiday chaos.

It’s quite common for business owners to freeze their marketing efforts over the holiday season with the notion that they’re going to start strong in the new year; little do they know, however, just how many opportunities have passed them by.

The holidays can be the best time to bring in new business and reconnect with current clients and customers. The holidays are not just for brick-and-mortar stores; it can also help your business by boosting revenue and customer loyalty before the end of the year.

Here are the top five holiday marketing mistakes businesses make:

1. No Plans. Your holiday marketing plan should have been planned at the beginning of the year, but now it’s the holiday season, so what do you do? Take some time today to decide what you are going to do and offer for the rest of the holiday season. If it’s just too late, then start planning now for the next holiday. Also establish the habit in 2010 to set a marketing calendar at the beginning of the year that can serve as a blueprint for your marketing plans year round.

2. No Communications. Although the Christmas holiday season is frantic for most, for some businesses it’s actually the slowest and the best time to pick up the phone and make a call for their business. Many business owners mistakenly think that offices are closed or people are too distracted or busy to be bothered. If you choose not to follow up with leads or customers because it’s a busy time of year, you’re making excuses. If it’s not this holiday, it’ll be the New Year, or Valentine’s Day or Spring break, then summer. Now is the best time to market precisely because so many of your competitors don’t.

3. Zero Holiday Offers. Remember any product or service can be repackaged with a holiday offer or theme. Search online to see what other companies are offering; it might spark an idea or two for your business. People, for the most part, love the holiday season; they like to focus on gift giving, vacations and family time. So if you don’t provide a holiday special or offer that helps them with their needs, you are missing a great opportunity.

4. Not Sending Holiday Greetings. Take a few hours out of your day and hand write a holiday greeting card. There are automated systems such as SendOutCards.com where you can design your own card (to add a personal touch) and you can even send a gift with the card, this service will put the postage on the card and send it for you, saving you a trip to the post office. AT the very least send out an email card. Your customers have been loyal, bought from you and supported your business year round; you need to let them know that you are not only thinking about them over the holidays but that you are grateful for their business.

5. Customer Surveys. How are you going to know what worked and didn’t if you don’t ask? Find out what worked and what didn’t, look at your systems and your marketing, and then make improvements and enhance your current offerings. Aweber.com has great online survey templates. Offer a free gifts or discounts to customers who take the time to complete your survey. If you keep doing what you have always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always gotten.

Bert Martinez is an International Sales and Business trainer. Martinez specializes in building businesses worldwide using the power of proven marketing and business strategies.