Inconsistent reviews - Should I still go for it?

Got a couple of business here, wondering whether I should contact them for ORM or not.

They have pretty bad reviews on the yellow pages (between 1-3 out of 5), but somehow they got 4 stars on their own website as well as having about 1k+ likes on their facebook page. If a customer does a Google search they'll see how many stars they have from their yellow pages ratings but nothing shows up from their FB page or own website.


EDIT: I guess while I'm at it I could add a question. I feel like I could go for some bigger sized companies like Car dealerships and such, but I've seen a lot of people recommend starting with smaller businesses. I've been doing a lot of reading (too much without any action) so I feel like I could pull it off. I'm doing the 7878 method if that makes any difference.

Are they local businesses? Is this a cold call or have you talked with them before? What type of business are they in?

In my experience, small businesses can't easily afford what it costs to actually complete an ORM campaign with big review sites like Yelp.

BHopkins said:

Are they local businesses? Is this a cold call or have you talked with them before? What type of business are they in?

In my experience, small businesses can't easily afford what it costs to actually complete an ORM campaign with big review sites like Yelp.

Click to expand...

They're in different cities. I haven't contacted them yet as I don't know if they would care about their bad reviews, while they have positive ones on facebook. They are in various ones (one is a car dealership as an example). None of them are small business though so I'm sure they can afford $500+ for ORM.

Part of me feels like just sending out the letters and see what happens. What would be a good response to "We already have good reviews on our website/facebook. Why should we care about yelp?"

You're overanalyzing basic cold calling. When you're going to cold call you need to think about the big numbers and have thick skin. If you can't handle it, you'll know very quickly.

I would be impressed if you were able to close (and get money from) 1% of your calls. You could easily have a huge business if you could close 2%.

As for the response, part of the problem is the approach, you're having to tell them they have bad reviews, explain why it's important, teach them about ORM, explain what you do and then try to get money. It's a lot of steps and a lot of things that need to fall in line before you ever discuss a dollar amount.