Take Control Of Your Online Reputation With Ajay Prasad

Founder of Global Marketing Resources – Ajay Prasad

A simple “Customer Review Program” that Ajay developed for his clients to get more of the 5-star reviews AND insight into business areas that need improvement. What’s the best way to start getting positive reviews if you’re a small business owner. Do you really need online reviews if you’re a coach or a business without physical location? How to take advantage of this particular trait of human nature (that we all have!), turn it on its head, and use it to get consistently better reviews. Plus, learn how a seasoned serial entrepreneur takes an idea, validates it, and then builds a whole new business around it that gets clients from the get go!

Resources Mentioned in the Podcast:

Check out GMRWebTeam.com for more info!

Thanks so much for listening!

Transcript: Download

Jaime: Welcome to "Eventual Millionaire." I'm Jaime Masters and today on the show we have Ajay Prasad back on. He runs GMR Web Team and also GMR Transcription. And he has a brand new business and company called RepuGen and I'm really excited to find out more about that. Thanks so much for coming on the show today.

Ajay: I am thrilled to be here, Jaime. You'll just have to pardon - I have a little bit of a sore throat so I hope that you can still hear me.

Jaime: Yes, I definitely can. Apparently, I have strep throat, also, by the way. And I had bronchitis and a sinus infection last week so I totally understand where you're at. I'm just so happy I have a voice so we'll do the best we can with what we've got.

Ajay: Perfect.

Jaime: So, last time on the show, you told us a lot about the digital agency side and creating that transcription company that you've been running very successfully. But this time - and we chatted a little bit about this offline, already - you're creating a new thing and I wanted to ask you a little bit more about it. So tell me a little bit about RepuGen and then why you even created it.

Ajay: So, RepuGen is a platform that we have created that, No. 1, measures customer satisfaction and creates a database so that you know where you are operationally - whether you are excelling and whether you need some help. And then it also helps add positive reviews online. You can say it's an online reputation generation tool. That's how RepuGen came so, obviously, I'm not that creative. The goal is to really generate online reviews for businesses and especially small businesses because it's a huge issue. And then, in the process, you also get the data that helps you understand what else you can do to improve your operations and get even more or better reviews.

Jaime: How the heck can you get software to help people get more reviews? Because, as a business coach, I try and get people to do and get reviews and sometimes, Yelp will not use them and there's? It's a pain the butt. You have to use different IP addresses. You can't have it be? You can't fake it - which is great and on purpose - but how do you actually use software do that?

Ajay: Yeah. So, first thing, what you said is all correct. Yelp will not let you do that and I tell all my clients for digital marketing, I always say, "Don't even try it. It's not worth trying to fake reviews." So what this software is doing is actually something that I have been using sort of manually for my clients. So back in, I would say, 2012 or so, it became very clear that online reviews were very important for a couple of reasons. Of course, as CEO, you need that because Google looks at positive signals as something that is very helpful. And the other thing is that customers started to use these online reviews in their decision to make a purchase or even contact these businesses. So I had created, back in 2012, a very elaborate customer review program and not to do anything funny.

So what we did is I created a simple questionnaire that I would ask the front desk or the owner to ask all their customers after they have used their services. And then, if the customer said, "Well, you could have improved on that," then you just take that information and you do something about it. And then the customers who said, "I am really very happy," we had created a card for the customers where it had a link of all their social media on that card. And so they'll hand over the card and say, "We would really appreciate if you could write about your experience on the internet."

So we were doing it and even this manual program, I had some customers who, when they started, had seven reviews and an average 1.2 Yelp rating. And, by the way, it's not because they were horrible ? what happens is it is just the human nature that, when you are happy, then you go out and you say everything was great and then you forget about it but, if you are upset, then you go and you vent. And so only the unhappy people are likely to write reviews, generally speaking unless you have a process in place to ask happy people to do it. So that's the reason why I said, "Ask the happy people to write a review." Now we weren't so ?

[Crosstalk]

Jaime: So are you ?

[Crosstalk]

Ajay: Yes?

Jaime: No, what's funny is I was just at a spa this past weekend over in San Francisco and, when I was looking up their Yelp reviews, they had one person that was so mad ? hated them. And I went in anyway because they have pretty good reviews, in general, when you actually read through the rest of them, and they did this exact process that you said. So they were like, "Oh, were you happy?" We were like, "Yeah. It was amazing." And the guy that she said was horrible was actually really fantastic. Apparently, she was drunk. So they were like, "So this woman came in and she was drunk and then she posted on Yelp." And so they gave us a card and they were like, "Please, please, please write a happy review?"

[Crosstalk]

Ajay: Exactly.

[Crosstalk]

Jaime: And, of course, we did. But how do you know? Are you just planning on giving out cards and just crossing your fingers and hoping that they care enough about you as a business and store to actually do it?

Ajay: So that was the original plan and, just like with this lady, it worked for the clients. But what happened was that some clients did a very good job. So I worked with this urgent care center that started with a 1.2 and literally, with this program after six months, her review average was 4 point something and she already had 75 reviews.

Jaime: Wow.

Ajay: So now, all of a sudden, everything is hunky dory. But then, there were clients who they felt it was uncomfortable asking for reviews - some got really busy - so the execution level was very spotty. And that was my big frustration because the reviews started to become more and more critical, really, for online marketing success. So, last year around, I would say, almost the same time, I said, "I have to do something." So then I took this human interaction - how good you are doing and how you are at begging or asking for reviews should not be part of the thing. "So how do I take this out and automate it so that even the shyest of the shy business people have no problem with this?" So that's where I created a platform.

So we started and, as you know, I have a team of programmer - fairly large team - so I created a scope and we created a platform. It did all the manual things but it did it automatically so all you have to do now on this platform is add the customer information which is just the name, and the email address, and also the cell number if you have it. And what it does is, instead of you asking, the system will send out a text saying, "Give us your feedback on how you would rate or would you recommend on a scale of 1 to 10." So the customer gives that number. So what we have done is we have created three, you could say, interpretations.

So, if someone gives you 9 and 10 and they are very happy - they're your potential advocates so they will talk for you. If someone gives you 7 and 8, we think that they're neutral - so they're just happy but it's like, "Everything was fine but nothing to write home about" kind of attitude. So, okay, those are the people we just say, "Thank you very much for taking the survey." And then there are people who are 1 through 6 who are unhappy in our words. So we just ask them to rate us and whatever is the rating, based on that, they get the message. So, if you rate a 3 - like anywhere from 1 to 6 - then you see a message saying, "We are really sorry that we could not satisfy you. Let us know what happened and we will get back to you and we'll address it."

So the logic is that, first thing, you get the customer feedback. And the second, I will say, the fringe benefit is that, if the customer is unhappy, they just want to vent so you have given a chance to vent to you - and not even directly so they can write now whatever they want - and they're sort of done. But I always tell my clients, "Please take care of the customers. That is the only way you are going to, ultimately, be succeeding." If you get 7 and 8 which is the neutral zone, then we'll say, "Thank you very much for taking the survey." That's it. And then if they say 9 and 10, then we say, "Thank you very much," you get message, something like, "Online reviews are really the lifeblood of our business. Do you mind writing a review?" and right there you have the links so you can touch on it on the smart phone and then you can select on the link to Yelp, and Facebook, or whatever.

So whatever you have on your phone, you can just touch and you can write the review. If you did not respond on the text message, then the next day, you get an email. Okay? And then, email, we do follow-ups on someone who did not do it but it's the same process - ask you to rate and then, based on your rating? And then, of course, for everything, we do ask them and say, "Let us know why you are giving us this number." So that's where they can vent.

So this is the simple process so now, once it is set up - which is very easy to go and set up - all you have to do is, after you are done with the customers - we have some doctor groups that load at the end of the day, every day, the information - and then they get the surveys and they are getting a steady number of positive reviews. When they get a negative, they know what the problem is and the best part is that, for the management, they can see which doctor is satisfying the customer because we have their data on the back end that you can see the satisfaction rating by doctors, and the comments, and everything. So it becomes a tool for your business management and, at the same time, you get steady positive reviews. And the reason I am saying positive reviews is because I'm really asking people who are very happy to write reviews.

So, before, they ask you manually like this lady asked you when you were there and say, "Were you happy?" And you said, "Yeah, it was great." And so, "Oh, could you please write a review?" It's doing the same thing except now it's automatically the system is doing it. So we created this platform and it is very simple but, at the same time, when you have to build? It took us six, seven months. In February, we did a beta launch. There were some aspects of it that was patentable so we have five patents, also, that are patent-pending technology. And about, I would say, two months back, we launched it.

We have about 70, 80 people right now that are using it and they're getting excellent results. But, at the same time, I'm constantly trying to improve. And the improvement is not on the engine - so now what I'm focused on improving is what percent of the customers, first, give you the rating, how can you get a higher percent, and how do I get a higher percent of the people to write reviews? And frankly, that's where I am also talking to your friend that you introduced me to because -

[Crosstalk]

Jaime: Oh, Matthew? Yeah.

Ajay: Yeah, Matthew because he is the expert in messaging. So all I want to do is make my message sharp so that more people will write reviews. So this is what I started and really, like I said, I basically automated a manual process and then I did it so that all my clients - and then all the businesses - get a consistent level of performance versus the ones that are very nice with asking so you get more reviews than the ones who are not. In reality, you want to look at the review as a real reflection of that business, not as how friendly this person is who ends up asking for a review.
[Crosstalk]

Jaime: Well, that's a great point, though, too, because when we're looking at moving forward? I'm thinking of all the businesses right now that are dealing with this because it's such a thing now. Do you specifically? Is it Yelp that's better? And this is specifically for physical businesses? It seems funny that we only do physical business or reviews on Amazon, physical products - those things are huge. So, for the physical type businesses, is Yelp better? Is Google better? Are we trying to do all of them all at once? For the small business owner, what's the best route to try and make the reviews better?

Ajay: Yelp, typically, for a small business is very important - for local businesses. So we always say you should do Yelp. Google, some people use it but one of the reasons you want to have Google is, when someone is searching for your business, and if you have Google ranking, then that shows up. So it is always more impressive that people see your business and, underneath is ranking whatever, 4.7, 20 people. And it also helps you with the search algorithm so you want to do Google. And then I always tell everyone, "You should have Facebook because everyone has Facebook."

Our philosophy is to ask people to write reviews on the platform they are most active on. So, if you are not active on Yelp, even if you like me enough to go and create your own account and write a review, you will be put in the sandbox - it will not show up, anyway. But if you are a real Yelper, you should do that. If you have a Gmail account, we say write it on Google, Facebook. And, depending on the business - so, for example, I have a pretty decent number of clients from the medical care industry - so, for doctors, there are sites like RateMDs, Vitals. Those are very important. So what we do is, in our set up, you have to create those profiles and, if someone does not have a profile, we offer that service, also, that we will create it for you. But then, when we ask people to rate, we just basically give them all the options - just rate on any one of them. And it also -

[Crosstalk]

Jaime: Okay, so the text message is super long with Yelp, Google, blah, blah, blah, or no?

Ajay: No, what happened is the text message is very simple. So, when you are doing text messages, it just simply says, "Rate it." Now, once you have done that, then you get a message with a link, basically, and that opens up stuff on there and says, "Please review, touch here." So, when you do that, a page pops up and now you have information so it just simply says what it is and it'll say Yelp if you're active on Yelp, G+ if you have a Gmail account. And so they give the options. They can touch on any of them and now they're out of, you could say, the text space - they are now on the internet space. So then they can go and rate it whatever they want.

Jaime: How important do you think this is for non-physical businesses? What's interesting is that digital agencies or coaching companies, or service more based companies that don't have a local presence, it's just not as common. Although I interviewed Jay Behr - "Hug your Haters" is his new book and it's all about reputation management - and what's so interesting is that it's still talked about. It might be on Twitter or something like that but they're not used in these platforms. So what do you think for reputation management that people in the service-based or people that don't have that side?

Ajay: In fact, to give you a very interesting stat, 92 percent of the consumers read online reviews before they contact a business. 92 percent.

Jaime: A lot. I do.

Ajay: Yeah, exactly. So the thing is that, no matter what business you are in, you should be doing that. You already know that I have two businesses - one is the digital marketing agency and the other is the transcription company - and whenever someone contacts us, we always ask them, "How did you find us?" And it is surprising how often I hear, "Yelp. I found you on Yelp."

Jaime: Wow.

Ajay: It's really interesting. Once in a while, we get the G+ and, most of the time, it's Google search. But it's not unusual and for people to look for you for Yelp now in the medical and the service industry - in the medical profession. Typical urgent cares that I have, they get 35 to 40 new patients every month from Yelp.

Jaime: Wow.
Ajay: Because it's not that people go on Yelp, per se, but, if you have a really good review on Yelp - especially local business - your Yelp account will pop up when someone is searching for their service if it is optimized. So then you get intrigued. You are looking for an urgent care center and you see, "Oh, this place has a Yelp for 4.7, 89 reviews." So you click and you see that and you contact them. So, for digital agencies, we get calls so I don't think that there is any business, now, that does not need online reviews.

And remember, Google has a signal for ranking, also, so if you don't have online reviews; it also hurts with your ranking at Google. So you have to have that, anyway. So I really don't think that there's any business that should not have it. The only business that can do without it is if you are a big brand - say if you're a Nike or all that. Although, even then, if you want to be active on social media and this platform, how involved people get on social media. Like, on Facebook, you just click on "Like" and, all of a sudden, you are part of that group. But really large companies, they don't care about Yelp and they should not because it's not relevant. You're not going to go on Yelp to look for Nike reviews.

Jaime: That's funny.

[Crosstalk]

But the cool thing is that, if you go on Amazon, we still have Nike shoes and what their reviews are per thing.

Ajay: Exactly right.

Jaime: So, yeah.

Ajay: And then the beauty of this platform is, suppose you are selling something on Amazon and you want people to write a review on Amazon. So you can give that link, also, on this platform so that, when people see, it says, "Click and write a review on Amazon," and they can click, and they go, and they can write reviews.

[Crosstalk]

Jaime: Oh, that's awesome.

[Crosstalk]

Ajay: So the thing is to encourage people to write reviews wherever they can. We were very surprised. I'll tell you, sometimes, it tells you how little that people think, "I know everything," and no. We thought that we knew everything about marketing and for these doctors that we were marketing. And I'm like, "Yeah, I know," before I see it would make sense to have RateMDs and Vitals and all those things. So I created it. I don't think people are going to go and check them on Vitals and RateMDs but, of course, for review, also, we just added it. And, as they have started getting reviews on those sites, the first thing, I was surprised by how many people go and write it on RateMDs. And part of the reason is that, if you have to write on RateMDs, then you don't have to register and all that - you can just go and write - or Vitals - on these specialized sites.

Jaime: Right.

Ajay: But, one, I'm surprised - because they track and these are my clients and so they also track people, where they came from - I'm just surprised how many people are calling them after checking their profile on RateMDs.

Jaime: Yeah.

Ajay: And it's like, "Wow." I had never imagined that that would happen. And so, again, you don't know where your customers are going so you are better off getting all the places where your potential customer can go to write a review. And, because it's an ongoing process, it just builds. Gradually, it will start building and then, very soon, you have five reviews, ten reviews.

And, by the way, just to let you know, if you have ten or more reviews, your trustworthiness is already over 90 percent. So 90 percent of the people don't care if you have 10 or if you have 100. Another reason you want something like RepuGen to keep on adding reviews is because Yelp and Google+, they have already announced that they will start removing older reviews. So right now, you can go on Yelp and someone who wrote a review five years back is still showing up. But, in reality, as a business owner, yourself and myself, who cares what was five years ago? It doesn't matter.

Jaime: Different employees, it could be different management. You have no idea.

[Crosstalk]
Ajay: Exactly.

Jaime: Yeah.

Ajay: So that's why they have started to remove the older reviews which means that you have to keep on refreshing and adding new reviews. And this is the kind of software that makes it very easy for you to just keep on adding.

Jaime: So what made you even create this because you have two other businesses? So what I would love to do is sort of shift a little bit and find out how you created it. I know you have a team. A lot of people are going to be like, "Well, of course, he had a team. That's way easier." But it also took your focus away from the other two businesses.

[Crosstalk]

Ajay: Exactly.

[Crosstalk]

Jaime: So tell me about that and then tell me about the marketing plan to get those first 80 customers that you've got.

Ajay: So, first thing, just so that you know, I was not even thinking that I would make it a product. This is no different than GMR Transcription where I just wanted to create a business to test my marketing. So I really created it because the level of execution of this reputation program that I said - the manual process - was so spotty for my customers. And I was so frustrated because the digital marketing effort was hurting, the conversion was hurting because they could do that and they were like, "Yes, yes, we'll do it," and all that. So I really needed to do something so that I can take the subjectivity out of how well they can execute this manual program so I wanted to automate it. So that was the big reason because, if I didn't have a program to continuously add reviews, the digital marketing effort would start failing.

So I just did it for my customers, to start with. And that's why this thing was launched in, actually, late January - this product. And then I offered it to my customers and we added it. And this was like an engine? Think of it like an engine and I was the only one who could start it. So we went to the customer and we said, "You need that and we are offering this. How about I'll give you a discount and you really need more reviews." And almost all my customers said, "Oh my god." Even the ones who were doing a brilliant job of adding reviews were like, "Oh my god, this is such a relief."

So we added that to my own customers. We added it in February and, literally, by March, we could see the improvement. Not just on the review, but, as I expected, improvement in the search ranking, improvement in the conversion because people, after they find them, they started to find them more credible because of all of these reviews. So, in March or so, just like on transcription, once I realized there is a market, I said, "Okay, let's plan a business around it."

So, in March, I decided what I wanted to do is put a skin on it. So this is the engine that I wanted to do it so anyone can buy a car and put the keys in, and start driving. So that was it and so I started to put the body, and use interface, and all the things that you need to have for someone to just go sign in and start using this. Because I could see that, if one of these is a talented customer, I would be thrilled but this is such a stand-alone business. And, frankly, even the name was not there - this was the engine that I was using for my clients. So then we looked at the name. We did some naming brainstorming. We said, "Okay, name this and then -"

[Crosstalk]

Jaime: How did you pick the name? Yeah, how did you actually? Because that's a hard people for people. It's a cool name so how did you actually make the decision? Are any of the domains of available or anything like that? How'd you go about that process?

Ajay: Exactly. So this is what we did. Being a digital marketing agency so you always have very young employees. So my oldest employee is three years out of school in my U.S. office.

Jaime: Wow.

Ajay: So five of the marketing people, we sat down and I explained to them, "This is the product. This is what we are trying to do so let's just start thinking about some names." And these are the kids - they are throwing things on the wall - so when they started doing that and something like 60,70 names were thrown and someone said RepuGen. I'm like, "Oh, this is very interesting." So then we short-listed five or six out of that. And then, in my office, of course, we have one of those screens that you can see on the wall - so I just asked one of the guys to start typing those in my account in GoDaddy to start checking those names. So, first name, not available and she typed RepuGen and, lo and behold, it's available. So I'm like, "Oh, okay."

Jaime: That's insane that that's available. Great.

Ajay: So that's how I? Although, I did some testing and there are platforms on which you can test the name and some people said, Ready to Learn makes sense but then there were people who said, "Really bad."

[Crosstalk]

Jaime: Really? What were the platforms that you can test that? Because I don't know this.

Ajay: There's a platform called Fibre. I will send that to you.

Jaime: Okay.

Ajay: So there, you can literally? They charge people. So they have a very interesting platform. They have all these people who have agreed to review. I don't know how much they pay or if they pay anything to these people and then they charge you money to get the reviews. So you put it down and then all these people review and then they send you the comments. So one of the comments that I got was, "I start typing in the Google bar and the first word that was came up was repugnant." And I'm like, "Okay. I get it." But I basically said, "Okay. Yeah, I understand. I think the name is sort of a good reflection of what we are trying to do."

And so this is very typical, by the way, of the naming procedure that I used before in my corporate work. That's how we used to do it - just start throwing names continuously what comes into the mind with this product and start writing on the white board. And then we short-list and then discuss about it for the short-list. And now, of course, after you short-list, you have to see if it's even available - that domain.

Jaime: Definitely. It's such a huge deal right now.

[Crosstalk]

Ajay: Yes.

Jaime: Okay. So you go the reviews and the reviews were like, "Eh." Some were great and some weren't. How do you make the decision to go, "You know what? I'm using it anyway. I don't care if people don't like it."

Ajay: I started to look at the overall and I saw why Google is doing it now. You see, repugnant is because very few people are typing out "R-E-P-U-G" type of things, so it pops up but I know that, if I have even traffic of 5,000 per month on the website, if you type "R-E-P-U," RepuGen will come up on top. So I understand the Google algorithm and so I said, "I know what they are saying." Many people don't necessarily just, on Google, RepuGen - you just go and say RepuGen.com and then you don't see any of those kinds of things. So I think that is a temporary problem and it will go away. So that's how that -

[Crosstalk]

Jaime: So, firstly, how many people are searching for repugnant?

[Crosstalk]

Ajay: Yeah.

[Crosstalk]

Jaime: So maybe you can overtake them and have yours come up first. But that's amazing that you made the decision because I have a lot of people who are in the naming spots and they tell people and they get bad feedback and they're like, "Eh, I don't want to change it." But, for you, you're like, "Okay. Let me think about this logically and let me see what the detriment is before I make the decision."

Ajay: Yeah, and you see the reason for why. And, like I said, no one said, "This is very bad." The biggest complaint was there were two people who said, "When I started to Google it, repugnant came first." And it's like, "Okay."

Jaime: I love that. Okay. So I'm going to ask you for the link later for the reviews because I think that's extremely important. But tell me about the marketing plan. How did you get the first 80 people?

Ajay: It was very simple, frankly, for me. So I started with my own customers and I started to offer it to them. I gave them a discount and said, "This is the product that I've created that will replace your manual process." So we signed 30, 40 of them immediately - my clients - and they started using it because I wanted to see how it works. And I even gave them three months free - it's like, "First three months no charge and, after that, I will ask you if you are happy and, if you say yes, then I will charge you this much." So 100 percent of them said, "Sure, we'll do that." And, by the way, all of them are paying so no one dropped out so that is -

[Crosstalk]

Jaime: That is validation, isn't it?

Ajay: Exactly.

Jaime: You're like, "Oh, it worked. Okay, great."

Ajay: And then the other thing that I started doing is started offering this as part of the bundle. So anyone who came for digital marketing since January - after we launched the engine part of it - then we'll say, "Okay, we will also give you this, at this cost, but it also will build online reviews." And everyone who is coming for digital marketing basically knows how important it is to have online reviews so I've never had any problems. But then, also, what has happened is that several of those prospects that came to us and asked for a proposal came back and said, "Right now we decided not to go with the whole program but we want to do this reputation program, RepuGen."

Jaime: How perfect. Yeah.

Ajay: So that's how I got it. And, like, I said, because the site was not ready to send it to people who can just go and sign up, and set up the account, and start using it, we were doing it through the manual process. And now that it is there, and we have some numbers, and we have some stats so now we are chalking out a plan to do a broader marketing -

[Crosstalk]

Jaime: So that's why you contacted me. So this is what I loved - and maybe we can talk about this, in general. So I loved that you are the owner of the company - you have a big team but you're the one who was like, "Hey Jaime, I'm putting out this new thing. Can I come back on the show?" And I'm like, "Awesome. I love talking about ?especially from serial entrepreneurs - talking about their new thing because I feel like you've done this before. You have a specific plan." So what is your plan, then, to get your first 1,000 customers?

Ajay: So there are two approaches that I'm trying. And the one is, of course, we have a list and we have eBuzz that we send out - it goes to something like 3,000 business owners - so we will be promoting through our newsletter program. And the other program that I am very high on - because this is so important that almost no business coach will say, "Oh, you don't need this online reputation," - so I have created an affiliate program and we will be launching it to the business coaches and see if they're interested in doing an affiliate program. And I know that you do some business coaching, yourself.

Jaime: Oh, man, he's like, "Oh, this is great." That's awesome.

Ajay: So that is a program. Again, since this thing is so needed and this makes life so much easier for the business owners in terms of getting online reviews, that is another approach that we are trying. Once you have, like you said, the first 1,000, then you are moving and people start to come and sign on their own.

Jaime: Well, what's so amazing and this is what I highlight to every brand new business owner - because a lot of people who are listening that don't have a business yet - the validation that you've done is insane. It's a product that people are like, "Oh my gosh, I want that really, really, really bad," in advance so it's not like you have to convince people.

Ajay: Correct.

Jaime: Because that's where people sort of get stuck in their business validation - they have to convince people and maybe they have 10 but they're really trying to get those 10. Whereas, for you, you just offered it and they were like, "Yes, I definitely want this." That makes all of your marketing efforts so much easier.

Ajay: Yeah.

Jaime: And, of course, you have to deliver what you say you're going to deliver because, otherwise, they're not going to care."
[Crosstalk]

Ajay: Correct. And, frankly, before I even started to build the platform, there are some of my clients that I'm very close to like I'm their advisor. So, for example, one of my clients - I think that I have six more clients because of her - she's a dentist, she runs a dental office, and she's also a dental marketing expert in Des Moines, Iowa. And so I called her and I said, "This is so spotty right now. What is happening? Can you tell me?" And she was like, "Yeah, one of my front desk persons is very shy. She is afraid of asking. So you can see on Tuesday that you get a lot of cards we give out."

So then I bounced this idea off of them and she's like, "God, I love it for two things. First, I don't have to worry about whether someone is shy or not shy and so it is taken care of." And, secondly, she also employs, I think, 22 dentists or something that work in her office and she said, "I would love to because now I can rate the customer satisfaction by dentist. What I can do is I can do some contests there and who gets the highest satisfaction..." So her idea is that even, operationally, I can help it.

Similarly, I have a hospital that is a client. Doctors are excited about getting more reviews but their vice-president - who was my original contact through which we started it - she's more intrigued about the results that she's getting the ratings by doctors and everything because it gives her a good idea? So everyone is getting something. And, again, this is not just asking people for reviews like this lady who asked you about the review if you wrote, "It is great."

If you were not happy, then she would not give you a card and you would leave but she would never be able to reach back to you and say, "Jaime, this is what I can do to take care of my sin last time and I'm sure that you'll be happy." This is a tool now that, all of a sudden, first, if you're a business owner, you can see a trend and see customers are always complaining about this issue so you can address your business. So this is much more. People can use it to improve their business and, like I tell my clients, "Remember, when you improve your business, you also get more reviews, better reviews."

Jaime: Well, and like you were saying too, it's the people who are really, really unhappy that post on Yelp or whatever. And so sometimes business owners are like, "Well, that was just one incident." But if you're doing it a bunch and you're getting a bunch of people that say 5 - it's not like they hate you - but that feedback, especially the data if you have a bunch of them all saying the same thing, that's huge for us as business owners to know which place to focus on and which not because we only have so much time. It's insane. That's a lot of feedback.

[Crosstalk]

Ajay: Exactly. And, by the way, next level of development that I'm doing on RepuGen is putting more analytics behind so that business owners can get feedback and see the areas of improvements - the rating and so on. So right now, with my clients, I'm asking them what pieces they are using a lot. And, actually, I'm talking from India, right now. I came here two days back and then, on Wednesday, I'm coming back to the U.S.

Jaime: Oh, wow, I didn't realize.

Ajay: So I'm spending time with my team here to really go over the features and see what the features are that we can add and set up some priorities. So now I am getting customer feedback and, say, my friend and my client in the healthcare business where we are rating all the doctors. She asked for, "Should it say that you added because I also want to show my current data, right?" So every week, in the beginning, she was saying, "Can you, from RepuGen pull this data and send me a report?" So, after seeing it six times and then I realized that Stephanie, my dentist client, she seems to be asking for the same thing, I'm like, "Guess what? For healthcare people, it looks like this report is important because it's solid in the data." So we can just write a program where, instead of her asking, all she has to do is do a couple of clicks on her RepuGen account and she can see that information.

Jaime: Yeah. What's so amazing, though, is that you did the MVP first and then we add the extra bells and whistles which will make it better for everybody in general to make them stay on, anyway.

[Crosstalk]

Ajay: Exactly right.

Jaime: I love this. I know we have to start wrapping up, though, unfortunately, but I really appreciate you coming on again and explaining the whole process. The last question - and I don't know if you remember it from last time - but it's what's one action listeners can take this week to help move them forward toward their goal of a million?

Ajay: Since we are talking about RepuGen, I will, again, emphasize the fact that, no matter what platform you use, online reviews, especially for small businesses, like I said, is the lifeblood now. In all the research services that polled, 90 percent of the people actually will go and check out a business before they contact them and what are they checking? They are checking your website and they are checking your reviews. So you have to make sure that you have a website that reflects who you are and then that you have stellar reviews. Because you cannot avoid that.

There are some people who have a very? Like my real doctor that I go to - he has horrible reviews and the biggest reason is that the waiting time is always very long. And I told him, I said, "Have you checked the reviews - how bad it is?" and he's like, "Oh, people are going to write whatever they're going to write." He can afford to do that because he is just packed so it doesn't matter - he doesn't care about new patients, anyway - but most other businesses are not in that situation so you have to make sure that you have stellar online reviews on social media and, of course, on the website. And that's one of the biggest ways you are going to get new customers.

Jaime: I love it. Okay, so everybody listening, ask for five reviews this week. He already told us how to do it manually so five reviews. It's amazing how much just a few of them - especially on the positive side - will actually impact you. Thank you so much, Ajay, for coming on the show. Where can we find out more about you and RepuGen and all that fun stuff online?

Ajay: So, RepuGen, the website is repugen.com - R-E-P-U-G-E-N.com. And, right now, actually, your listeners can go and sign up. It's all set to go. So I've already put the body, and the sharing, and everything on the engine so someone can start riding it. And it was launched very recently, this new thing, and then, of course, my digital marketing agency is GMR Web Team and you can go there and check out some of the case studies that we have done and what you will find is you need to do digital marketing and then, to be successful in digital marketing, you need to have a good reputation.

Jaime: Definitely. Thanks so much for coming on the show today, Ajay. I really appreciate it.

Ajay: Thank you, Jaime. It was my pleasure.

Video Transcription provided by GMR Transcription Services

Tags: Ajay Prasad, Business Review, Customer Review, Customer Satisfaction, millionaire interview, Online Reputation, RepuGen

Categories: All, Business, Business Model, Entrepreneurship, Goals, Marketing, Millionaire Interviews

One response

Josh Paiva July 31, 2016
Great interview. Definitely took some notes on this one!

Reply

Millionaire Interviews

One response

Leave a Reply Cancel reply