by: AskPat 510 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: What's up everybody? Pat Flynn here. Welcome to Episode 510 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions, five days a week.
All right. Here's today's question from Andy.
Andy: Hi Pat. Podcasters like us know how important ratings and reviews are on iTunes. Since I don't have a tribe established, I did what I thought was the next best thing and put out a request to friends colleagues but the results there were disappointing. I guess that's the subject of another discussion. I'm wondering what ideas you have to generate R and R that is honest, aboveboard, and effective like offering Starbucks gift cards or something but there's always the question of where to find people to ask. Your help would be most appreciated. Thanks.
Pat Flynn: Hey Andy. What's up? Thank you so much for the question today. I really appreciate it and this is something of big interest to me and I'm sure a lot of other people out there, not just people who are doing podcasts, but those who collect reviews for anything, whether you are selling physical products on Amazon, or maybe books, or what have you, there's some sort of public domain where there are reviews, which obviously help new consumers of whatever it is that you're doing, get involved with what you're doing.
It's really important to know what works and so I appreciate this question and it is something that I've thought about before. The first thing that you want to do is make sure that you ask on your show and it's okay to do that, especially at the end when you have provided some sort of value. That's your way of sort of redeeming that value that you've given so make sure to ask. Always ask and of course, there's a fine line there. You don't want to ask every two minutes of your show but asking in a nice genuine way at the end is really important, but also give person or people a reason why they should leave a review. Also, give them some instructions at first.
One person I know does a really good job of teaching people how to leave reviews. So he actually has a video that's really easy to access through a smart url or a pretty link that shows people really quickly, I think it's not even through a video, it's through an animated gif file, which shows people where on iTunes they can leave a review really quick because people even if they want to, maybe this is why your friends and colleagues aren't necessarily responding is because they don't know how. But if you give them some quick instructions maybe some screen shots even, to show them where to go and how to do that it could happen a lot faster whether it's your friends or colleagues or people who listen to your show or what have you, who you want to leave those reviews.
In terms of reasons to leave a review, I always mention that it helps the show. It always inspires me, motivates me to continue with doing the show and those kinds of things, even though they're kind of small, they will have a person be more likely to follow through if they've started that process.
Now Andy, there's a few more things you can do that I know specifically that work using a podcast to collect reviews. First thing is to read reviews every once in a while. Chris Ducker does this very well. He and I did this on the 1-Day Business Breakthrough podcast, which I recommend you all listen to if you have a chance, 1daybb.com. Shawn Stevenson from the Model Health Show. Actually a fun fact, I'm wearing his t-shirt right now. He does a very good job with his co-host on reading a review at the top of the show, which is really cool because it shows that you are listening, that you're reading those reviews from your audience and you're also paying attention and that you care about the audience and what they say. I think that also helps push people over the edge in terms of wanting to leave a review.
Now you had mentioned giveaways along with the reviews. I think using those strategies are okay but there's, I feel a way to do it that works better than others. For example, I wouldn't trade, “Hey I will give you five dollars of a Starbucks gift card for five dollars in exchange for a review.” That's not necessarily going to garner a genuine review. I always am somebody who wants honest genuine reviews and hopefully you do too.
There is a way, however, to use that strategy and actually save a little bit of money too in which case you would say something like, if you were to read a review at the top of every show, for example, you could also mention that that person gets a Starbucks gift card. You know it's just sort of a nice giveaway for a randomly selected reviewer, who you've read their review and they get that gift card. That would work out really well.
Similar to what I do here on AskPat. How every person whose question gets featured on the show gets an AskPat t-shirt sent to them. I'm not giving an AskPat t-shirt in exchange for the questions that come in. It's just something nice that I like to do for people who get featured and that would kind of be the strategy that you would use too.
You would save a little bit of money because you wouldn't have to do it for everybody and also it would make it kind of exciting for people to leave a review in the hopes that maybe they would get selected. I think that would allow them to or make them want to listen to the show to see if their review was actually up there. That's what I would actually recommend.
To recap, make sure you ask. While you're doing that make it easy for them to leave a review, so give them some instructions or a webpage where they can get those quick instructions and also give them some good reasons why they should be doing that. Also, you can do something in exchange for those reviews. However, you want to make sure that you do it in the right way and also make sure to read the reviews and let your audience know that you are listening and that you do pay attention to them.
So Andy, hopefully, that gives you some help. Thank you so much for the question today. I really appreciate it and like I said because your question got featured here on the show I want to hook you up with an AskPat t-shirt. We're going to send that to you free of charge. You'll hear from my assistant Jessica in the next couple of weeks and we'll collect your information so we can send you that. So awesome. Thank you so much, Andy. We really appreciate it and thank you for all of you who listened to the show and ask questions.
Multiple questions coming in every day. I really wish I could get to all of them but if you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here in the show just head on over to AskPat.com. You can ask right there on that page. I also want to thank all of you who have been giving me the good lucks and well wishes and best of lucks on my upcoming launch of my book, Will it Fly? How to Test Your Next Business Idea So You Don't Waste Your Time and Money, which is coming in less than a month. It's going to be coming out February 1st, if you want to check it out and see what that's all about and get early notice of when it comes out or if you're listening to this in the future, you can go ahead and check it out or pre-order it, head on over to Willitflybook.com. Again, that's Willitflybook.com.
Thank you so much. I appreciate all of you and as always I end the show with a quote and here's a great quote from Plato, the philosopher. He said, “The beginning is the most important part of the work.” I know a lot of you, especially those of you who are listening to this on the day it comes out Monday, January 4th, 2016. It's the beginning of a new year. You're starting new things. You've gotten a fresh start and you're in the right mindset. This is the most important part of the process so if you are trying to accomplish something this year, which I know all of you are, make those habits to help you do that. That's what I found to be the best thing to help me, is create habits that support the goals that I'm trying to reach and hopefully you can do the same thing too.
Again thank you so much. I appreciate you and I look forward to serving you again in tomorrow's episode of AskPat. Thank you so much. Take care.