Online Reputation Management Proposals: A Guide
Being a relatively new online service, reputation management proposals are not something a lot of people have experience with. However, with a change of focus on this site, reputation management proposals are exactly what I have been spending a lot of time with, either doing them myself or training others on how to do them.
To be honest, I try to keep them as simple as possible in order to not confuse the potential client and so that we don’t give too much away so they could just go and do things themselves (this has happened). I realised I was doing a lot of free work and that is what the blog is for so that had to stop.
So, proposals are normally split into three parts which I’m going to go into in more detail:
- What is Reputation Management
- Current Situation
- What we Can / Will Do
- Success with Other Clients
What is Reputation Management
This first part is very basic, although we offer four services, the most requested is our ‘general reputation management‘ offering. As the title of the section states, we basically explain the three parts of our reputation management offering: live tracking, research into previous mentions, and doing / consulting on how to deal with the negative.
To add a little quality and clarity to the service, we simply state that millions of blogs and forums are tracked, the most common types of reputation issues we are likely to find and explain that we have dealt and handled most if not all of them with previous clients.
Current Situation
Now, this is the part where I realised we were giving away far too much information and basically doing the work free for the client. In this section we simply look at the most serious negative results we find (usually these have been highlighted by the potential client) and state some brief thoughts on the issue.
We will do a search for the client / brand / product names on blogs, search engine results, video sites, bookmarking sites etc (mostly using custom tools) to then include things that the client may have not known about. We won’t tell them everything though, because that is part of the service we offer. We simply state that theres more out there and we will have to spend a lot of time really researching the field to get the majority of it covered.
What we Can / Will Do
Linked with the ‘current situation’, this is where I noticed we gave away far too much information. This section tends to look at the main negative issues we have found, explain how serious they are and how we will go about cleaning them up along with an estimated time it will take to do that.
If its negative search engine results from a high profile site, it can take as much as 6 months, if it’s a blog post that has some facts wrong then it’s usually pretty easy and quick to ‘clean’ something like that up, as long as you go about it in the correct manner.
Success with Other Clients
Now your first thought may be that this probably belongs on your website somewhere, but my thinking goes like this; if you have already told them what you think you can do, show them what you have done and that builds trust like you won’t believe.
Have you ever bought a book recommended by a blogger you’ve never heard of? Or trusted the writing of a make money online blogger who doesn’t make any money themselves? If clients see that you have successfully implemented your services before then they are much more likely to sign that proposal.
What’s your thoughts? If you have done some RM proposals, let us know.
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Thanks Glenn. This is poignant, especially your comments about giving away free advice at the proposal stage. I think your solution is right on: give them only a teaser of what’s to come.
To add to that, the key is to get your potential client thinking about the long term value of building a good online reputation vs. the quick fix of merely cleaning up bad hits. In other words, sustained, proactive reputation management instead of reactive, crisis management.
I’ve found that writing proposals can be a huge waste of time, and I aim to slim it down or avoid it as much as possible. I don’t know if this standard, but I’m trying to set up my business that way.
Too many times, I’ve spent hours researching a site and writing an elaborate documents for people, only to find out they didn’t even read it (!) at all. Some people just want to collect multiple proposals for free advice. I have found that my best clients usually read up on me and know they want me, and some of the biggest time wasters want me to fax them everything, sign NDAs, write long proposals and do research for free before they “decide” if they want to work with me or not.
I tell people that if they want to work with a commerical agency with a full sales and business developement staff (where you’ll just become an account folder in a pile on some new guy’s desk) - those people are professional proposal pro and they will be happy to write you one. I’m too busy building links for clients and researching online reputation management to spend much time on that.
Still, this is a good outline of what to say and what not to say, for when a client insists on a proposal and you really want their business. And not to give too much away!
What I like to do is create proposals using what I learned in the InfoProdCreation.com course. Instead of using it to create a product to sell, I use it to give my potential clients a snippet of what they can expect.
Providing them with a DVD that I created using audio and video technology to show them about my business and what I can do for their business has been awesome.
Fisk Gawsen
The focus of your article of what you provide. I understand that.
Just a reminder that what you want to do also is make sure the potential clients understands the benefits of what they are receiving. I focus on telling potential clients
> what reputation management is using real world examples,
> describing how it works on the Internet,
> letting them know the value of a good Internet reputation, and
> assuring them I can help by describing past experiences.
Then all research and specifics are part of the consulting engagement.