Do you research a product or service before you make the purchase? Most Americans do and a bad review of the product or service will cause most of us to find a different product or different provider of a service.
As a remodeler you know homeowners have a plethora of opportunities to check your bonafides on the internet. So let’s say some local self-appointed genius blogger happens to not like you and pumps out a litany to wit: you’re a liar, scoundrel, cheat, and totally without any moral character or redeeming values. What are your options? Without getting in the way of anyone’s 2nd Amendment rights . . . murder’s out, you could try to sue him, or wait for him in the bushes after dark with a 22 ounce framing hammer.
Odds are the genius blogger is little more than an Internet bully, but there is the chance he is being paid to spew negativity and suspicion about you and as the opportunity presents itself, other competitors as well. Unfortunately there is little you can do about that.
Let’s say genius blogger expounds endlessly about the virtues and excellent character, as he views it, of your competitor. Let’s say this competitor is an unlicensed, uninsured, miscreant of disrepute. Let’s also say genius blogger has received some form of compensation from your competitor. Now you’ve got him! According to the Associated Press, The Federal Trade Commission is in the process of creating new guidelines that would allow the agency to go after bloggers (and the companies that compensate them) for any false claims or failure to disclose conflicts of interest. We can write little more about this topic as the FTC has not released any specifics.
The moral of this story is simple, don’t run down your competition or have someone do it for you. Always refer to them as worthy, but certainly differentiate your services from the competitions.