This blog posts looks at how to get reviews from customers and where to put them!

1. Set up a Google account if you’ve not got one already.

Add your business details to Google Local (the video explains it nicely). Then, ask customers you know are happy to add a review. The more places you are found online, the more likely you will be found by those conducting random Google searches. This result will appear high in the rankings for people looking for your business, even if your website is not quite perfect yet!

2. Set up a Profile on Lookaly.

This is a reviews site for businesses in Northern Ireland. Review other businesses regularly, in order to keep your Profile and Business name in people’s minds. This will encourage new visitors to your website and hopefully customers to add in a review. The more reviews you have, the higher up your business appears in category listings.

3. Email customers and ask for reviews, including the permission to use them online and offline.

A client did this recently, and has now three very happy customers with delightfully-written reviews to share with the world.  Satisfied customers are usually only too happy to supply a testimonial. Add them to your website and other offline promotional literature.

4. Ask for recommendations on LinkedIn.

One of my previous bosses was so amenable, he supplied two reviews on LinkedIn!  From the Profile drop-down menu, click Recommendations. Specifically, these are linked to you, not your business, and can come from previous colleagues and employers.

5. Add the Facebook Reviews application.

If you are a Facebook user, add this application, then encourage business colleagues on Facebook to add something to it.  Regularly remind Friends that it’s there!

6. Collect testimonials on your own version of happy sheets or customer satisfaction forms.

Ensure that you ask people to indicate that they are happy for you to use the testimonial on online and offline marketing.  These can then be added to your website or other profiles online, or slipped into other promotional material.  One word of caution, keep them up to date; avoid using customer reviews that are years old.

We hope you found this information useful. Please comment to add any thoughts or questions or email info@sensei-winbeforehand.co.uk.

Having heard about women’s networks in NI and looked up a few online, I soon began to feel a little confused (like some others I spoke to), due to the similarities in names.  Below, I have set out each organisation I am aware of and a little of their flavour.

Business Women’s Network

Area:  This is a joint venture, including Antrim, Londonderry, Tyrone and Down.  Individual networks are listed in order below.

Website:  www.bwnni.com

Contact:  Each individual organisation’s contact details are available by clicking a link to their website.  For full contact details, visit individual websites, or InvestNI.

Women on the Move

Area:  Ballymena

Website:  www.womenonthemove.org.uk

Contact:  Joanne Brown-Kerr

Membership: £30 (annual)

• They run monthly networking events, with invited speakers, some of whom are from among the membership.

Women in Enterprise

Area:  Londonderry

Website:  www.womeninenterprise.org.uk

Contact:  Toni Forrester

• They run networking events and supply business information.
• At the time of posting this blog, many of the menu links were not working, so it was impossible to investigate the membership, events or other information further.

Network for Enterprising Women

Area:  Fermanagh and Tyrone.

Website:  www.networkforenterprisingwomen.net

Contact:  Ruth Daly

Membership: £50 (annual)

• They run joint networking events with other NI women’s networks and deliver both training and business news, including an e-zine.
• They’ve had a nice idea of highlighting one particular business by adding a Role Models page.
• A Business Information page lists some useful business websites, together with a full listing of network members’ websites.

Enterprising Women’s Network

Area:  Armagh, Banbridge, Craigavon, Down, Newry and Mourne.

Website:  www.enterprising-women.net

Contact:  Margaret Andrews

Membership: £40 (annual)

• They meet monthly and offer information sessions and training events.
• Inter-trading, Mentoring, and Confidence Building are some of their more unique services.
• They emphasize that they are men-friendly!

Women in Business

Area:  Belfast

Website:  www.womeninbusinessni.com

Contact:  Nicki Bayes

Membership: £100 (annual)

• This organisation is independent of the Business Womens Network.
• Unique features include a News and Podcasts page and online booking for events.
• Small, invitation-only lunches are held on a regular basis, to assist women to network more effectively, and to allow interested parties to find out more about the network.  I attended one recently held at the Ramada Encore.
• They also run Women Into Business, an organisation dedicated to those women who’re thinking of starting a business, but not quite there yet.

Finally, if anyone’s interested in meeting other Twitter business users, we’re having a TweetUp in Belfast, next Thursday!  Let us know you’re coming.

You know how I believe that comics are smart.  Well it seems that children’s films are too.  I happened across an article recently that asked the question of how you make a kids flick engaging for an adult audience too.  The answer?  You place ideas in it.  (Are you listening Hollywood?)

For instance, the excellent 2004 film The Incredibles. It ’satirises the litigiousness of US society, as those saved by superheroes take legal action against them, forcing their saviours into an equivalent of the witness protection programme.’  Good so far.  But here’s the bit that grabbed my attention.

‘Adherents of the individualist thinker Ayn Rand analysed the movie through the prism of her philosophy, noting that the film appears to attack the oppressive egalitarianism that forces superheroes to disguise their powers.

‘In The Incredibles, the superhero mother tells her son: “Everyone’s special.”  He replies sotto voce: “Which is another way of saying no one is.”‘

Too true!  I’ve blogged about Ayn Rand before in an attempt to raise some interest in her work in Northern Ireland.  We’re a victim-orientated society in which the only race people want to win is the “I hurt more than you (therefore give me loads of cash)” sprint finals.

Truthfully, though, there’s always been a bit of a tension in my own worldview between two beliefs.  (1) Everyone has the potential for personal development and the right to claim respect.  (2)  Only some people put forth the effort to succeed in life, and therefore deserve to reap the rewards.  The rest (perhaps the majority) will content themselves with a existence of TV and tedium or ‘wine and whineing’.  Especially if they’re guys.

The first of these is egalitarian, socialist, lowest-common-denominator; the second, meritocratic, capitalist, elitist.  Question is, which is the more heroic?  I’ve argued before that everyone is born with a set of intelligences but how you develop them is your responsibility and no-one else.

So heroes aren’t born out of wealth, education or any other privilege.  They are those who have raised themselves above the ordinary by their own persistence and resilience.  That is what makes them incredible, invincible, heroic.  As the lady said:

“Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours.”

Image credit: audi_insperation.