Get Found Locally
Reputation: Turn Reviews Into Your Best Salesperson
Build a compliant, always-on review system that earns steady reviews, answers every one the right way, and turns your best reviews into marketing.
- 6 lessons
- 51 min
- Self-paced
- Free
Local business owners and office managers who want more reviews, better replies, and a calm plan for the bad ones — without breaking FTC or Google rules.
What you'll be able to do
- Score your profile against competitors on the four signals buyers check: rating, count, recency, and replies
- Run a compliant review ask — peak-moment timing, one-tap link, everyone asked — with no gating, incentives, or fakes
- Write replies to 5-star and mixed reviews that sell to the next reader
- Handle a bad review with a calm protocol, know what is worth flagging, and take it offline to fix
- Mine reviews for customer language and deploy it on your website, social posts, quotes, and ads
- Set up the Ask / Watch / Respond loops and a weekly rhythm with a named owner for each
Lessons
Your next customer has already interviewed you — they read your reviews, compared you to the other names on the map, and mostly made up their mind before your phone rang. Your reviews are doing sales work right now whether you manage them or not.
This six-lesson course turns that into an advantage. You’ll learn the four signals buyers actually score (rating, count, recency, and owner replies), how to ask for reviews at the peak moment without begging, bribing, or breaking FTC and Google rules, and a reply playbook that treats every response as an ad read by hundreds of future customers. A full lesson covers the bad review: the calm protocol that wins readers, what to flag and what not to, and the three fatal mistakes owners make in public.
Then it goes on offense — mining your reviews for the customer language that belongs on your website, social posts, quote follow-ups, and ads — and finishes with the always-on engine: three loops (Ask, Watch, Respond) and a weekly rhythm that keeps running through busy season. Written in plain language for HVAC, plumbing, contractors, med spas, law firms, restaurants, and any local business that lives and dies by its Google profile.
Questions people ask
Can I offer a discount for leaving a review?
No. Paying for positive reviews is illegal under the FTC rule, and even neutral incentives violate Google policy and can get reviews filtered or your profile penalized. Skip incentives entirely — a genuine ask works better.
Is it OK to only send happy customers to Google?
No. That is "review gating," which the FTC treats as deceptive and Google bans. Ask every customer with the same link. Unhappy customers who hear from you first often tell you instead of Google.
Should I reply to every review, even short ones?
Yes. Replies are visible effort, free marketing space, and they encourage more reviews. Every reply should mention something only that review contains — never copy-paste.
Can I get a bad review removed?
Only if it violates platform policy (fake, competitor, hate speech, extortion). Honest negative opinions are not removable, and anyone who promises removal for a fee is lying. Reply calmly and take it offline.
Do I need software to do this?
No. The course teaches the manual version first. Automation like the MCM360 Marketing Portal helps the system survive busy season, but the strategy works by hand with a named owner.