What I Learned Turning Off and Tuning In

Picture of me in a hedgehog onesie on a giant teddy bear from New Years 2016, photo by Jane West.

2016 brought a lot of learning and a lot of joy.

My biggest lesson of 2016 was figuring out how to serve myself first in order to serve everyone else sustainably. People had always warned me about "burning out" but I had never hit my limit. Creating the 2nd Annual Women Grow Leadership Summit in Denver for over 1,200 women was my greatest accomplishment. It was also what broke me.

Although I could have blamed external challenges for breaking me. I realized that all my external challenges were reflections of my own inner struggles. So I went about investing everything I had into working on myself. Yoga, meditation, books, dance, music, purpose-driven leadership, cannabis, psychedelics and the School of Womanly Arts were my practices. We found a new CEO to take over my role at Women Grow on July 1st and I focused on myself full-time.

Leaving the CEO role at Women Grow was the hardest transition I've ever made. The unexpectedly tough part of aligning your personal and professional purpose is allowing them to separate when needed. It took me almost three months just to stop thinking of myself and my role as one.

I ran away to play in Spain, speak in Berlin, camp at Burning Man, and work Symbiosis. I traveled 26 weeks of 2016. I learned a lot.

I learned how to love myself unconditionally. I learned how to stop using food to solve problems that food doesn't solve (and lost 30 pounds). I learned how to stop caring about what people who don't care about me think. I learned how to put myself first every day. I learned how to process dark emotions and self-hatred. I learned to stop over-thinking the past at the expense of being present. I learned I didn't have to be afraid of my full emotional range.

I took six months off for myself. The changes I've made to my mental, physical, and emotional health have just begun to benefit me. I'll be back at the 3rd Annual Women Grow Leadership Summit in a few weeks. I invite you to join me at the summit, Feb 1-3. It’ll be an experience like you’ve never had. Click here for more info.

Scroll down to see how I learned how to be in a museum, how to Burn in Spain, new psychedelic treatments, the final Summit at Sea, winning licenses, and at the very bottom, everything else I'm up to this year.

I Learn By Teaching

I perfected the blend of education, inspiration, and community that encourages women to take huge risks. Over 1,200 women gathered in the Ellie Caulkin's Opera House in Denver to hear 32 speakers, including Melissa Etheridge.

I Learn What Burn-Out Really Is

I was wiped after this event. I couldn't think. We tried to do long-term planning but we had exhausted ourselves and the entire team. It was impossible to follow up on this momentum. I'm so grateful to the so many of you who gave me space during this sensitive period to grow and recover. I was no longer taking care of myself and I had failed to care for my team.

I Learn How to Release

I Learn How to Be in a Museum

Being featured in the Oakland Museum's exhibit on Cannabis in California was a first. You sometimes feel like you're both predicting and making history on days like this. I'm grateful we got over a dozen women featured in this exhibit.

I wrote

You have everything you need to start. Every time you are waiting for another teacher, you are wasting time. Learn in practice, not study.

I Learn to Relax in Europe

Grateful to Bar-Keep for showing me the most diverse Burning Man event in the west. 2,000 Europeans gathered on a small plane in the Spanish desert for a week in scorching July to build a humble city and party down.

Grateful for the invitation to speak at Tech Open Air in Berlin. I got to debut my talk on "Clarifying Your Calling with Cannabis" to a packed house.

Grateful to edge pushers like Cindy Gallop on "Why the Next Big Thing in Tech is Disrupting Sex" if you want to know what's up after cannabis.

I Learn About Relationship...

Excerpt from More Than Two

Grateful for the many books I read on relationship this year...including American Savage, Goddesses Never Age, The Law of Attraction, The Art of Everyday Ecstasy, and More Than Two.

Learning at the Burn

Getting the bus tuned up before we leave for the Burn.

Playa-bound!

For my fourth Burning Man, I attended for 10 days and lead a camp of 35. Friends from across the world came. I learned to run my first electrical grid (with lots of trial and error). I found a pair of exceptional Tantra Energy Teachers and became enraptured with their workshops.

I Learn About Fear & Love

John Lennon and I share a birthday in October and this thought

"There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life."~ John Lennon

I Learn About Psychedelic Treatments at Horizons

The Horizons conference presented research on MDMA & psychedelics from celebrated universities...NYU, Columbia, John Hopkins.

Multiple studies showed patients experiencing up to 8 months of relief from symptoms with just one "magic mushroom" therapy experience. These "peak spiritual experiences" were leading to increased positive attitudes, altruism, and deeper development of social relationships.I was seeing that we had extended our physical bodies past our ability to fill our lives with meaning. Alzheimer's disease was preventable if we stayed mentally active and engaged. These patients showed how spirituality was actually a component of health, particularly at end of life.

I Learn Prototyping in November

I took Prototyping for Creative Innovation with Megan Goering, formerly of Google. We ran through prototyping techniques and tests until we could do them by habit.I wrote out dozens and dozens of business ideas and then weighted them on factors like start-up costs and market size. I began testing messaging of all the different things. The cannabis helps with ideation but didn't make narrowing down any easier.

I Learn About Sex & Sugar at Sea

On the eve of the election, I boarded a cruise ship for 3,000 "innovators" and we sailed out to the Caribbean. Marijuana was legalized in six states but we were all shocked by the Presidential election. We gathered to build new ways to a future we all want to live in. We workshop. We dance. We drink. We eat. We snuggle.

I attend panels like "Sugar is the New Tobacco" and learn from Dr. Dean Ornish that 86% of 3 trillion dollars spent in healthcare are spent on chronic care for mostly reversible conditions. We've created a food system, which externalizes all the costs of eating cheap food that causes illness.

Dr. Ornish reveals that "bad habits" are developed to deal with the isolation of modern life. He uses lifestyle as treatment by asking people to eat well, stress less, move more, and love more. He's found that fear is not a sustainable motivators for people to change bad habits. You have to fill the voids those habits leave with even more joyful and pleasurable motivators.

I Learn Good Work Pays Off in December

Grateful to the Women Grow community in the Bay Area celebrating two years.

Grateful for the dispensary license process in Maryland where two teams I had advised won licenses.

The Call for Self Regulation in the Cannabis Industry

We have an opportunity to regulate the cannabis industry from WITHIN or will be subject to others doing it TO the industry. This is the beginning of a multi-billion dollar industry that is only growing larger every year. Many legislators are now trying to regulate this industry for the first time with mixed results. Leslie Bocskor of Electrum Partners, challenged cannabis industry stalwarts and new comers to self-regulate at the NCIA's Southwest Summit today.

Regulation Needs

• Genetics: When you buy a bottle of Malbec, you never wonder if you're actually getting Malbec grapes. When you buy a strain from a dispensary, you have no guarantee that it is actually the strain its labeled with.
• Product Integrity & Safety: Ensuring that the potency of your edibles is consistent so that your customers have a safe and predictable experience.
• Advertising & Marketing: Underage use is the cannabis industry's number #1 issue that threatening legalization across the country. We cannot afford for product names (Girl Scout Cookies) or packaging (Buddafingers) to be attractive to children.

The Alcohol Industry Invented This Model

The "We ID" campaign you see in liquor stores across the country was not mandated by the federal government. The alcohol industry works to prevent underage drinking–not because it was mandated by the state but because they understand it's good for their business. Unlike the state-sponsored "lab rat" campaign in Colorado, the cannabis industry could be educating parents on how to talk to their kids about marijuana.

Self-Regulation Done Right

The cannabis industry will need to form their own regulatory bodies funded by membership dues. Yes this will be expensive but being subject to poor regulation will cost a lot more going forward. Take the hints from the alcohol industry and decide to create an industry we can all be proud of. Not only because it makes financial sense but it's also the right thing to do.

How to Name Your Cannabis Business

34 Examples of Branding Blunders for Cannabis Businesses To Head

Best, Ok, & Bad Cannabis Brand Names

Cannabis Business Edibles Freezer Case

Business names tend to fall into one the above categories. There are the best business names that lift the business and the brand. They are easy to remember and customers like them. Think JetBlue, Amazon, Twitter, Under Armor, Restoration Hardware and others. Ok business names don't help or hurt you. They tend to be family names or just unrelated but common words (Breyer's, Harvard, Apple). Bad brand names are detrimental or require explanation. They may be difficult to spell or remember–like skincare company Kinerase. Or they may be easily confused with a competitor's brand: Berkeley College and UC Berkeley.  Finally, your company name could be hard to pronounce so your customers might talk about your company less because they don't know how to say it (Hoegaarden).

1. Resist Green & Leaf Motifs

Listen! The first thing you must do is make your cannabis business look like just your own. Make everything you can look proprietary and custom to you. This starts with your logo not looking just like every other cannabis brand around–with lots of green and marijuana leaves. I know you live and breath your brand but customers are easily confused. Make your brand stand out by not looking like anyone else.

2. Don't Add "420"

Notice how what was "BP Petroleum" is now just "BP"? The energy business has changed since BP was originally named Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1909. In 2001 they spent tons trying to show they were more than just oil by shortening their official name to "BP" in their marketing. (Too bad their 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was the largest accidental oil release in history.) The point is! Pick a name that is not dependent on one line of products. You never know where your cannabis business product lines will be in 5 or 50 years.

3. Give Your Cannabis Business Name Room to Expand

Zappos founders chose the Spanish word for shoes instead of Shoes.com because they knew one day their brand would expand to do more than just sell shoes. By choosing a brand name that doesn't connect you to only one product or vendor, you'll be able to adapt your business over many years as the market changes.

4. Make It Short

Longer names are harder to remember. Aim for two words or less.

5. Make It Memorable

I know your brand name means a lot to you but your customer may only think about you a few times a year. Make it easy to remember, which more importantly, makes it more likely that they'll tell their friends.

6. Make It Easy To Spell

Remember that the first way most potential customers are going to look at you is online through your website. If searching for your brand name is hard (because they can't spell it) you're going to have to spend more on Google Adwords to make up the web traffic.

7. If You Pick A Local Name, Your Cannabis Business Can't Move

Denver Dispensary sounds great now but what happens when you want to open a second location in Seattle? There's a long tradition of boring, location-base company names. Avoid adding the name of your street, neighborhood or town if possible.

What Are Your Cannabis Branding Challenges?

Leave them in the comments or get in touch for a workshop designed just for your cannabis brand team in Manhattan, Denver, or Seattle.

How To Create A Responsible & Effective Cannabis Brand

The first annual Cannabis Business Summit wrapped up today with an overview of how Cannabis companies should shape their brand and marketing strategies. Taylor West, Deputy Director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, led a session with Kali & Bridget from Agent 64.

Culture Movements Are Not Marketing Gimmicks

Bridget believes that Cannabis legalization is a cultural movement, which means you are now a part of the cultural movement.

"Culture movements define an idea on the rise."

We have a huge responsibility to shape how the public perceives Cannabis going forward. Unlike traditional product marketing, which starts with the product, Bridget encouraged the audience to define their cannabis brand based on the culture movement and not on the product.

Integrated Marketing

I believe in integrated marketing, where every touch point from the front door to the website is shaped by marketing. Bridget spoke about the importance of looking at every single customer touch point and making it consistent no matter where you're interacting with your customers.

Why Market Responsibly

1. It's The Right Thing To Do: We are building a brand new cannabis industry from scratch and we have the opportunity to be the example. Let's skip the bad marketing to children from industries that came before us (Marlboro's Joe the Camel).
2. Don't Screw This Up For Everyone: This is an industry that is in a very volatile position. Your work in the cannabis industry reflects on the entire industry.
3. The Medical Credibility of Cannabis Is At Stake: Unless you are in Washington and Colorado, you are marketing a medical product. When you don't market cannabis responsibility you are hurting the chances of people discovering or having access to the medical benefits of the plant.
4. You Need New Customers: If you'd like to grow your business, you have to start thinking beyond your current customer base.

"Think about customers not in your traditional demographic."

Think about marketing to women. Think about senior citizens. Think about health care professionals. At the very least–you need to not actively repeal these groups. At the most–you need to attract these segments to your brand.

Define Your Brand Promise

This is the most important thing you can do. Living and breathing your brand promise from CEO to budtender shapes your entire company.Build Your Golden Circle: Define why you do it. Then how you do it. Then what you do. Simon Sinek's TED talk explains exactly why you need to do this.

Marketing Strategies

This is no different than the marketing strategy process for most industries. If you haven't been through this process before, find someone who has to guide you.

1. Define your customer segments: Who are you going to talk to and what do they want?
2. Find the white space: Where is there opportunity in the market that isn't currently saturated?
3. Figure out what unique about your brand: What do you stand for that other's don't? What is truly important to you?
4. Define your brand promise: Notice all that research and thought you need to do before you could define this?
5. Pick your target profile: What is the age, income, gender, location, etc. of your target customer?

Customer Retention

• Customer surveys: Ask you customers how they heard about you. Why they choose you. Make sure you know what makes you different from your customer's perspective.
• Brand design: What does the design of your brand tell customers about you?
• Customer database management: Do you know who your customers are and what they're buying? Personalize your marketing to your customers exact needs whenever possible. Many companies wait until they are quite large to setup robust customer analytics, missing years of data that could reveal where and how they should have grown.
• Online/social media: This is an industry that was used to darker corners. Today you need to take control of social media and your public perception actively. Options for paid social media are limited but that may not last forever. You need to build community now.

Responsible Marketing 101

• Don't Market to Children: Perhaps the most important thing to remember.
• Don't Market Like Children: Put forth a face that is professional and polished. If you take beer as an analog to cannabis, remember that no one is ever drunk in a beer commercial. Sell your experience. Your experience goes far beyond "getting high".
• Don't Alienate 50% of the Population: You can segment your marketing without actively offending women. Women are actually more likely to have a chronic illness, more likely to try alternative medicines, and more likely to control a family's medical decisions. Women aren't decoration for your ads.

What They See is What You Are

No matter what you think your mission–what your customers see is what they will define you as. This extends to your logo, signage, employees, and more. You need everything that makes up your company to be true to your brand.

What They See is What WE Are

As an industry. All Cannabis companies are affected by the images being put out by the Cannabis industry. From legislation nationally to your home district, the marketing being done in this industry will affect how the Cannabis industry proceeds (or doesn't). You have the power to shape our collective future so we hope you take it very seriously.Photo from Barbary Coast MMJ Dispensary, San Francisco

Prioritizing Product Features for Cannabis Companies

Maybe you're designing the next Vape sensation or the next killer weed app. Whether you're starting a MMJ dispensary or working on your next edibles brand, product feature strategy will be vital to your success. (If you're opening a marijuana retailer, just replace the word "product" with "store" features.) You can always add more features but which ones matter most to your customers and which can you execute?

Picking Your Target Audience

Everyone wants to sell their products to everyone. But the truth is, you need to narrow down on who your most profitable customers will be. Even though lots of different types of people shop at Trader Joe's, the company makes many decisions by targeting a specific customer: “An unemployed college professor who drives a very, very, very used Volvo." You'd have no idea that their clear target customer is what helps make the South Pacific theme with matching specialty food at low prices so cohesive (and profitable).A clear target audience will allow you to make core strategy calls like:

• Product Line Decisions - "What products do my customer need?"
• Product Feature Decisions - "What does my target customer want most?"
• Location Decisions - "Where does my target customer shop?"
• Pricing Decisions - "How much does my target customer have to spend?"
• Advertising Decisions - "What would influence my target customer to try my brand?"

If you keep a target customer group in mind when making strategic decisions, the end result will be a cohesive product that has the potential to sell.

Picking Product Features

Let's say I'm designing a bud vaporizer targeted at glaucoma patients over 50. You can brainstorm a hundred features that you could add to this vaporizer but how do you choose which ones you should focus on? You have competitors that are developing new vaporizers with larger staffs than you, so you better move fast to keep up. Luckily you only have too weight two factors:

1. What features will differentiate my product from the competition? (In a way that won't be instantly copied.) AND
2. What features will my customers PAY for? (Extra features are nice but if it won't lead to more sales, skip it.)

Number two is a little deceiving. This includes features you can and can not advertise. Features that your customers love and tell their friends about ("looks like a USB stick so it's easy to get passed airport security") are just as important as features you can put in a big headline ("lightest vape on the market").

Prioritizing Product Features By Execution

Business success thought-leader John Spence, boils his Wharton School of Business class into one sentence:Successful Strategy = Valued Differentiation x Effective ExecutionIf you're chosen product features that differentiate you, then the most important factor to your success is which features can you effectively execute? In his book, Letters to a CEO, John Spence breaks this down:

• Highly differentiated but not valued by your target customer = bankruptcy
• Highly valued but easy to copy = price war (and there is always someone willing to drop their prices and go into bankruptcy faster than you)
• Highly valued and defensibly differentiated but not executable = bankruptcy
• Highly valued, defensibly differentiated, well executed = business success

If you can pick the features that you can effectively deliver to an audience primed for your product, your cannabis brand will be in great shape. Making the plans is often a lot easier than actually executing on them. John reminds us that "Great creative ideas abound; flawless execution of those ideas is exceedingly rare."

Even NPR Is Telling You How Important Marketing Is For Cannabis Companies

Their understand of marketing fundamentals is impressive. Popular Marijuana store, The Farm, has a specific target customer:

the tote-bag carrying, socially conscious, natural-food crowd. She advertises her cannabis as pesticide-free, organic and, of course, locally grown.

To stand out amongst 200 competitors, Jan Cole used her background in spa management to create a shop that customers love. The Farm transitioned from Medical to a Recreational & Medical because the City of Boulder regulations prohibit any company from owning more than one medical dispensary and one retail dispensary. They have a second store, Root Organic, that will stay medical.

Luke Runyon reports on the importance of rebranding pot away from a "stoner image". Businesses need to get ready for a huge wave of customers to try cannabis for the first time. If you can't imagine a future in which cannabis is as acceptable as alcohol, you're not dreaming big enough. Listen to or Read the Full Article on NPR>>

The Farm was also profiled in Rolling Stone Magazine:

Everything in the dispensary is upscale and female-friendly: polished wood floors, antique display cases and no bro-culture swag.

4 Unique Retail Signage Examples to Increase Sales

StoreSignageOnStairs

Stair Signage Attracts And Informs

Videotron-flagship-store-Sid-Lee-Architecture-RCAA-Montreal-06

Unimax Tattoo Supply on crowded Canal Street in NYC, uses stair signage to attract people to walk up to their second story location. Once customers are walking up, the signs inform you of all the different items you can expect inside. Since most of their merchandise is hidden behind counters, seeing a category of items you'd like to buy on the stairs encourages you to ask a staff member to show them to you.If you have the big bucks, get an animated stair case. Videotron in Montreal claims to have installed the first one in North America at their flagship store. 

Digital Signage That is as Functional as it is Beautiful

MicrosoftStoreDigitalSignage

When Microsoft opened a store across the hallway from Apple in the Mall of America, I wondered how they would counter Apple's award winning store designs. A wrap-around digital wall slightly above eye-level allows promotions to flow effortlessly across the entire store. But the gorgeous displays aren't even the best part. The Xboxes throughout the store activate a window in the displays that allows you to play on the big screens. The prominence of the xBox displays encourages other customers to investigate. 

Tell Your Customers How Much Your Values Are Theirs And How To Uphold Them

Pine State Biscuits Table Topper

Part confirmation and part guilt-trip this table top signage from ultra-popular Pine State Biscuits in Portland, Oregon does it all. By phrasing all their information as a thank you to their customers they increase compliance without nasty "bus your own table, your Mom doesn't work here" type signage. They open the card by affirming their customer base for shopping local, which increases loyalty to their brand. Following up the affirmation are the house-keeping reminders for this busy counter-service restaurant. Although I'd recommend a more comprehensive customer feedback program, putting your email address out their is a great start. 

Unique Coffee Cup Stickers Increase Revenue for Coffee Stand

Straw Signage

I thought I'd seen every way to advertise on a coffee cup until Cowgirl Coffee in Whitefish, Montana served me an ad on my straw. Typically placed on the lid of hot drinks to keep liquid sealed in while you're driving, this ad placement is ultra-local and very noticeable. According to their website, they feature an advertiser for 2-3 weeks exclusively, serving about 4,500 customers. Stickers have included coupons, events, and classic branding ads. I'm just glad this women-owned business hasn't had to stoop to the lows of the competitive northwest coffee stand scene. Bikini and lingerie wearing baristas compete for your dollar at chains like Baristas Gone Wild and Lace n' Lattes throughout the northwest.  

New Trend: Video Holiday Cards - Bergdorf Goodman Goes to the Dogs

I received more video holiday cards than physical cards from businesses this year for the first time. Whether your business is trying to save trees or just preparing for the Postal Service to go out of business, a video holiday card might be right for you.

Tips For Spreading Your Business Message with a Video Card

• Set a budget: Although a video card is cheap to send out through email, you can spend much more producing a video than printing paper cards. Make sure to set a budget and find a video director that can work within it.
• What's the payoff?: The best holiday videos have a plot payoff for watching them. You know how the best commercials can make you want to cry in 30 seconds? Can you make your story pay off at the end? Watch Bergdorf Goodman's longer holiday video for their heartfelt ending. Or check out LivePerson's charity donation at the bottom of this entry.
• Keep it short: 30 seconds to 2 minutes is optimal
• Keep it agnostic: Unless you're sure all your customers celebrate Christmas, it's better to go for general Happy Holidays.
• Make it fun(ny) or unusual: If you want the video to be shared, make it fun or funny. On the unusual side, Tekserve's most successful viral video featured $60,00 worth of recycled iPods.
• The delivery method is the most important part (and often overlooked): Once you have the perfect holiday video card, the most important part is getting it watched. Make sure you consider the timing of sending your video to recipients, the holidays get busy and any non-essential message gets trashed. Can you create a great email message that will make them want to click-through? Will your recipients be able to view it from their mobile phones?
• Seed the sharing: If your holiday message is meant to reach potential customers as well as existing customers, reach out to target blogs and ask them to embed the video. Don't forget to upload it to your Facebook page and YouTube.

Bergdorf Goodman's Holiday Card

Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury department store in Manhattan, created a great holiday promotional video card by letting famous New York dogs lose in the store. Not only are cute pet videos more likely to be shared, but also I would argue that BG's target customers are dog owners. Because having a dog in Manhattan is a luxury, their shoppers are more likely to be pet owners. The fun footage of dogs running through the store gave them a great excuse to show off a lot more products than a typical commercial. Although I would have made the video shorter, the ending is the perfect heartfelt payoff that their target customers will love. If you check the audience analytics on YouTube, you'll see this video is most popular with women age 35-54 (their target customers).

Offering to Donate To Charity

With more businesses limiting gifts to employees, donating to charity on their behalf has become popular. LivePerson sent their customers an email asking them to visit the page screen-shot below and choose from one of twelve charities for a donation. This method aligns your organization with doing good while making your customers feel good. You'll notice LivePerson doesn't mention how much they will be donating so the bottom-line impact was totally up to them.

6 Trends in Web Design Coming To A Website Near You

Web design shifts and changes every season just like the fashion world. Instead of watching a runway on Fashion Week, here's a few sites I use to preview what's likely to take off next:

• Behance Network - Creative Professional Platform to share what designers are working on now. Filter results by Blogging, Web Design, or Web Development for a peak. Behance is a NYC-based startup.
• Dribble - A nicely designed portfolio site, check out what's been posted in web design lately. Allows you to search by color if you have one in mind.
• DeviantArt - Less curated than Behance but still relevant, click my link for an overview of popular web interfaces submitted in the last week.

Huge F'ing Background ImagesPopularized into the mainstream by Bing, this has spread to tons of tech startups and newer page designs. Go Right Not DownWhen web designers found out that folks didn't want to scroll down for more than a few page views, they started asking viewers to navigate to the right.Arranging Images In Tag Cloud StyleJust like a word tag cloud makes more frequent words appear larger, some sites are now organizing their images using this principle to make more important images larger. Notification AlertsUsing smart icons with red badges has become prevalent from iPhone Apps to Facebook.

 

Grey GradientsBlack is too hard to read and white is so 1996, so we've settled on grey gradients as the cool kids color.Better TypographyWe finally got bored with half a dozen font choices and the following companies are driving better typography coming to the world wide web.

• Google Web Fonts
• Fonts.com
• WebINK
• Fontdeck
• Typekit

Creating Negative-Cost Marketing

Would you rather be the ad next to an article in the New York Times or the topic of the article? Would you rather buy ad spots on TV or be the TV show? These are the questions that Tom Szaky, CEO of TerraCycle, asks business owners to consider. TerraCycle recycles traditional trash into a large variety of consumer products. They make thousands from a self-published book, average 17 articles a day in various publications, and were the focus of a short-lived National Geographic Channel series.Mr. Szaky contends that creating the content, instead of marketing next to other people's content has saved him thousands and had a much larger impact than traditional marketing. My experience a previous supports his theories. I publish an eighty-page pocket guide to using your computer, which costs us fifty cents per piece to print but is more valued by our customers than any other promotional piece we've created. It saves our employees & customers time by being a great reference for common questions while advertising our expertise to the world.In the new age of marketing, trustworthy content will bring you more customers at a lower price than traditional ads ever could.Read TerraCycle's Quest to Create 'Negative-Cost' Marketing on the New York Times website.

Best Practices for Responding to Yelp Reviews for Business Owners

Here’s the top tips you should know from Yelp’s Join the Conversation About Your Business webinar on June 22, 2011, along with my insights from managing client customer reviews.

YELP MYTHS

The Majority of Reviews are Negative83% of reviews on Yelp are positive. From my work on CitySearch and Google Reviews, overall our Yelp audience is more fair.Yelp Doesn’t Do Anything To Protect Businesses from Questionable Reviews

• Consumers can remove review themselves, if the situation was corrected by the business owner
• Reviews that violate Yelp guidelines will get removed by the customer support team.
• Reviews can’t represent a conflict of interest. If a competitor is writing a review it will be removed.
• Reviews must be a first-hand experience. Something that a friend told you about a business will be removed.
• Lewd and offensive language gets removed.

About the Review FilterAn automated filter suppresses some reviews. Typically short or intelligible reviews. You cannot manually add or delete reviews from the suppression filter. Yelp is tight lipped about how this works so that no business can abuse or benefit from it. 

CONTESTING A REVIEW

There are two methods to contest a review.

• Go to yelp.com/contact and select “Questionable Content”. This may take longer but you’ll get an email response back from customer support.
• Flag the review on the business page. This will be reviewed faster but you will not get an emailed response about the resolution.

TALKING TO YOUR CUSTOMERS

There are two methods to respond to reviews posted on your business page: Private & Public. Once you are logged into your http://biz.yelp.com account and uploaded a human photo to your account you can:Private Messages

• A private message is typically the best first step when you receive a negative review.
• Thank the customer for the review.
• Recognize any positive aspects of the review.
• Apologize for the issue.
• Let the customer know how you’ve followed up on the issue to resolve their concerns.
• Welcome them back to give the business another try

Public Review Comment

• Thank them for the feedback.
• Address the issue and let them know how you’re fixing it.
• Let the world know that you always endeavor to resolve problems like that your business. “Your experience wasn’t our intention.”
• Call out anything that might have changed in your business since

RESPONSE TIPS

Don’t Freak Out

• Consumers look at the big picture. No business is made or broken in one review, they’re looking at the overall rating.
• Potential customers will see you lashing out against your customers which will do more harm than good. The Yelp community may punish you for abusing Yelp users.
• Don’t encourage a back-and-forth. Take the high road. Something like: “We’d love to work with you to resolve this situation. If that’s not possible, we respect your opinion and wish you well.”

Should You Respond to Positive Reviews?If you have time, it’s great to compliment positive reviews as well. Thank the customer for their positive review and let them know you appreciate it. 

GETTING MORE REVIEWS

Don’t Ask for ReviewsYelp recommends letting reviews accumulate organically. This is why companies like Review Boost don’t deal with Yelp, I believe the automatic filter will suppress obviously solicited reviews. Tell customers you’re on Yelp without telling them to give you a 5 star review.Tell People Your Business Is On Yelp

• Post a “Find Us On Yelp” Badge on your website. Check out Yelp’s Flickr page for badges and logos.
• Place Yelp a check-in table topper or check-in card at your business (download from Yelp’s Flickr page).
• Add your Yelp page URL to your email signature.
• Yelp mails out "People Love Us On Yelp" window clings a few times a years to top reviewed businesses but they are scarce.

MORE RESOURCES

• Yelp’s Responding to Reviews Best Practices
• Yelp’s Business Owners Blog