Gaining reviews for your new business idea is an essential part of gaining trust and authority in your space. According to a Zendesk survey, the vast majority of participants who have seen reviews claimed that the information impacted their buying decision. 90% of participants claimed that positive reviews influenced their decision to buy, while 86% said that due to negative reviews they did not buy.
Today, your service is defined by reviews, and the more positive reviews you have, the better. Having one review is better than having zero reviews, but having 30 reviews is better than having one. When a new business is formed, you start from zero, and gaining your first 30 reviews will be challenging. The first 30 reviews require extra work, and it separates those who survive and those who quit on their businesses.
Take a look at the image above. Imagine going online and searching for a ‘pet walking service’ on Google. The above three services come up. One of them has no reviews, one has 12, and the third has only two reviews with a 3/5 rating.
Which is your first choice? Based on patterns and consumer behavior, on a typical day where all three services are open, you would choose the service with the 12 reviews. Then, depending on what the two reviews say, you would either go with the service that has two reviews or the one that has no reviews. Either way, on an average day, the business that has no reviews gets called last most of the time, which means the only time the company will receive a call is if the business is the only one open, or everyone else is already booked up.
What does that mean?
This means that starting is hard in most cases. Every customer is precious, and gaining one customer when having no reviews can take days or hundreds of dollars. A combination of having no reviews and having a poorly branded company is why most services never take off. A proper branding strategy can increase your odds of obtaining clients and reviews. If you have a combination of the two, then your company will do well in your space.
Properly branding your company from the start can also mean gaining your first 30 reviews in 4 months or 12 months. From our experience, most entrepreneurs who start, quit month 5 and month 6, usually because they do not see any results.
Those who make it to their first 30 reviews usually see a massive increase in website sales the closer they get to those 30 reviews. Start by setting up your business correctly from the beginning and do not quit until you get to 30+ reviews online. It is a game-changer for your business.