This is a high-stakes strategy for any small business owner who feels like they are on a content treadmill. In this episode of Crumbs for Giants, Matt and Gary break down a massive “Unleveraged Asset” that most businesses are sitting on: Google Reviews.

Stop just replying with text. Start turning your customer’s words into your most powerful marketing videos. We discuss the “Trust Arbitrage” play, how to create 60-second “faux testimonials” that feel authentic, and why responding to a review with a personal video might be the best word-of-mouth strategy you’ve ever tried. 

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

  • What an “Unleveraged Asset” is and why Google Reviews are at the top of the list.
  • How to turn a single 5-star review into a week’s worth of social media content.
  • The psychological “signal” you send to prospects when you record a personal video response.
  • Why putting reviews on your website might actually be wasting your customer’s time.

Watch above or read below.

Matthew Burns:
I am back again with Gary and for us it’s been about four minutes.

Gary Bernier:
No, it’s been like forever. Imagine several weeks have gone by.

Matthew Burns:
It’s been about four minutes, but for you all, it’s probably been about five or six weeks. And thank you for waiting. I mean, honestly, Gary is that good.

Gary Bernier:
You made them wait for more wisdom for me. Well, you evil genius you.

Matthew Burns:
Right. Right. But anyway, last time Gary was on, last episode, we talked about Google reviews, and we were just talking about not taking down your one-star reviews, using them to create a better experience for your customers, how to leverage them-

Gary Bernier:
How to make your reviews actually work for your business.

Matthew Burns:
Exactly. But it was looking at it internally. It wasn’t really a marketing thing. It was more, how do you make yourself better? And so it was a little bit of outward, but you said, “Well, wait a second, we have to talk about outward.” So guess what we’re going to do now? We’re going to talk about how to use Google reviews in your marketing. And is it appropriate, and what’s the best way to do it? So, Gary, this is all on you, man. You had the epiphany. Let’s go.

Gary Bernier:
Yeah. So Matt, we have the term in the Wizard of Ads called an unleveraged asset. What that means to us is something the business has that they’re not making the most of. And one of those unleveraged assets in a lot of cases is the Google reviews. They work really hard to get them, and they may or may not be responding to them. So that was the first thing: look at the last video, figure out how you want to respond to your reviews, because that improves that asset.

Matthew Burns:
Yes.

Gary Bernier:
But the biggest struggle that people have with social media content is what’s the next video? What’s the next thing that I should be putting out to the world? And you’ve seen me do this magic trick a bunch of times with people, as I’m like, okay, business owner, walk around and read out the review into your phone. Just take your phone and go, “Hey, I just want to share with you guys this five-star review I got from Maria. We were out at Maria’s. She called us up to do the job, and you talk about what the thing is.” And then you go, “And here’s what Maria had to say after the fact.” And you just read what Maria had to say.

Matthew Burns:
And then that’s it.

Gary Bernier:
That’s your one-minute reel TikTok short that you can upload to Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. And there you go. You’ve put a piece of content out into the world, and surprisingly, it works because you’re not bragging about yourself, because it’s somebody else’s words. It’s like creating a faux testimonial because it is a testimonial. It is Maria’s words. You’re just putting a voice to them and sharing it in another medium.

Matthew Burns:
Well, what I like, though, okay, wait a second. What I really like, though, is that you’re also, if you do this right, and this is just more… Again, you wanted to talk about this. I wasn’t actually even sure you were going to go there, but that makes me think of, well, if you do this properly, you’re actually giving all the credit back to the customer. You’re vamping the customer.

“Oh my God, thank you so much for reaching out, letting us know this, ma’am. I didn’t realize Stephen was … I didn’t realize that Jennifer did this awesome thing. Thank you so much for letting us know. You’re awesome. The new water heater is going to last you for 25 years.” Whatever it is, it’s all about the customer. It’s all about the client. And again, at first glance, it seems overhanded and self-serving. And it is meant to help you build more trust and loyalty and get people to know you because it can create social proof.

It creates social proof, and they can go to the Google review and back that up. It’s there. It exists. I mean, in the last episode, I gave a real example of something from Château Laurier that I didn’t like the way they responded to a review, and I wanted to show how they could have done it differently. But this is the exact same thing. The social proof is there. You’re just highlighting it, and it’s engaging authentic content versus, “Hey, come buy another X” or any gross advertising thing on social media.

Gary Bernier:
And Matt, there’s this subtle thing that happens is you’re sending a signal to your prospects and customers that you pay attention to the review.

Matthew Burns:
Yes, yes, yes.

Gary Bernier:
You’re on top of this stuff, that you’re paying attention to the feedback that.

Matthew Burns:
Okay. Oh, wait a second. Oh, wait a second. Wait a second. I’m going to write this down afterwards, so don’t let me forget. I’ll watch the video. Listen, how awesome would it be if you did your video and uploaded it as a response to the review on Google, as a way to show them how much you actually care about their review? Because if you’re going to be doing this anyway…

Gary Bernier:
Yeah, that’d be cool.

Matthew Burns:
And now don’t get me wrong, it’s a lot of work, right? There’s time that you have to dedicate to it, but it would be an interesting play for a small to medium-sized business that’s getting two or three reviews in a day, potentially, maybe even only one a day, maybe two.

Gary Bernier:
Or three a week. And hey, Matt, as we talked about, your volume of reviews is typically not high. If they’re all good reviews, you can batch this and do it all. You can set aside half an hour a week or whatever to do this. And yeah, the impression that you set for your business and how you interact with people becomes epic.

Matthew Burns:
So this is, there’s no, by the way, no data. So I’m talking completely out of, I just thought this up, and I think it would work from previous experiences and other things, but this I think would create awesome word of mouth because here’s what happens. People go, “Oh my gosh, they didn’t just respond. They gave me a video review or a video response, and they talked directly to me, and they made me feel special.” And now again, nobody’s going to say it that way, but that’s the feeling you get when you say, “Oh my God, I mean, I got my thing changed by these guys, and the owner came on and did this video for my review.”

Gary Bernier:
Wow.

Matthew Burns:
Wow.

Gary Bernier:
I love that because it changes the tone of the video, too. “Hey, Maria, I’ve got your five-star review here. I really love what you had to say. You said this, blah, blah, blah. “And you read it out, and I’m really happy we were able to come out and solve that problem for you and do that. And I really appreciate you giving us the five-star review,” and everyone else.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah. And you took the time, so I’m going to take the time.

Gary Bernier:
Right.

Matthew Burns:
Oh, dude, that is so good. Again, guess I’m very confident that if … We’ll find a client to do this with. Now I’m going to have to do this because I got to try it out. I think it’s going to build word of mouth, which is what we were talking about. How do we use Google reviews in our marketing? Well, this creates word-of-mouth marketing.

Gary Bernier:
Yeah. The answer to the question is that you need to take that review and use it in another place.

Matthew Burns:
Yes. And not the hokey, throw it on the website and have the scrolling. I’ve got another review. I’ve got another review. I’ve got another review.

Gary Bernier:
Everybody does that. And by the time they’ve gotten to your website, they’ve already looked at your reviews.

Matthew Burns:
Thank you. It’s not actually driving them to you. Again, it might be supporting you. And yes, maybe have it somewhere on your site, but that’s not what we’re talking about. When we’re talking about using it for marketing, we’re saying take it out of Google, place it in another place with a plan, with a thought process, with a purpose that makes sense, and do it genuinely.

Be genuine because listen, people don’t buy from companies. They buy from people. Salespeople have known this forever. That’s why they get in, and they get really personal and chummy, chummy. Hey, I see you, fish. I also fished once when I was aboard. They get to know you. So people buy from people. So let them buy from you. Let them buy from the company message, which is from you, the business owner. Anyway, sorry, I’m ranting.

Gary Bernier:
Take the reviews that came. If you send a weekly newsletter out, take the reviews that came in this week and put them in the newsletter. Sure. Say, hey, there you go. “Just want to share with you the reviews we got this week.” Great. Yeah. It’s just a block of content that people can either look at, skip over, or whatever. But if you’re the person who wrote the review and you got the newsletter and you see your review, again, it’s a signal, you saw my review, you paid attention, you truly appreciate it, appreciate me, all of that sort of stuff. Exactly. So yes, please take your reviews. But as Matt said, strategically put them somewhere else. Don’t just throw them somewhere they don’t belong because that doesn’t-

Matthew Burns:
You get a review. You get a review.

Gary Bernier:
There’s a review. Sorry. And definitely do not put your rating into your marketing materials. Hey, we’ve got a 4.8. We got a 4.7 on Google. That’s not going to buy anything. Again, that’s- Honestly, it’s expected. If somebody’s looking at reviews, Matt, what phase of the buying cycle are they in?

Matthew Burns:
They’re shopping.

Gary Bernier:
They’re shopping. Exactly.

Matthew Burns:
They’re at the beginning. They’re right at the beginning.

Gary Bernier:
So they’re pre-decision to work with you.

Matthew Burns:
That’s right. They’re hoping they can work with you. We’ve talked about this a lot.

Gary Bernier:
Yeah. They’re hoping you’re the right business to do business with. They’re trying to find all the reasons to say yes to your business.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah. Time is valuable, and a trip to your website takes time. So, understand that if they’ve already made it to your website, they’ve made two or three decisions. They’ve gone through two or three gates of decision-making to get to your website. If you’ve done everything absolutely well, even if it’s a neighbor referral, they’ve still gotten to your website. They had to take some sort of action to get to you.

So they’ve gone through hoops to get there. They spent the time. You don’t need to waste their time with the review section there. But if they’re still in that early stages of thinking that… I love it. This is a truly… So Gary Bernier is a digital marketing guy. He’s been doing it since… I always say this since Apple started, because he was in some of those early rooms, which I’m still in la la land.

He’s a hero to me. But this is a digital play. We’re not talking about doing this. I mean, now you can use it in offline media. You can use it in radio ads. You shouldn’t lean into it very heavily. You can do it every once in a while. It’s okay. But as a social media play, as a newsletter play, as a… I think this is brilliant. I think it’s a fantastic idea.

Gary Bernier:
Yeah. Again, I liked what you said. It’s a sprinkle. It can’t be every social media post.

Matthew Burns:
Exactly.

Gary Bernier:
It becomes too much. Once a week, great. On social media, it’d be awesome.

Matthew Burns:
Yes. Yes.

Gary Bernier:
But you’ve taken something that somebody took time to give you, and you’ve now leveraged it somewhere else,

Matthew Burns:
Right? Exactly. Okay. So I’m going to risk going a little long here. Gary’s right. If you’re doing it outward to the world and you’re talking about somebody’s review, you should be doing that with elegance and grace, and it’s not every time. It’s a sprinkle. If you really … Guys, again, I’m doubling down. This is just the thought, and I’m going to find somebody to do this with. If you can take the time to respond to every single review as a video review directly back to that person, not just a… I mean, now if you can’t and you’re just writing, make sure it’s personal. And we talked about watching the last episode with Gary. Should I remove my one-star reviews? But if you can do a video review, I believe that is going to create much better word of mouth because that is only to one… That video’s for one person.

You’re talking to one individual.

Gary Bernier:
I have a challenge for our watchers. Don’t give us a comment. Why don’t you practice and do a Loom or a quick video and put it up on the net somewhere, and put a link to that in the comments that Matt and I got to watch?

Matthew Burns:
Oh, that’s brilliant. Yes, absolutely. Give us our review as a video.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah, review this, view this podcast. Tell us what you think of this as a video and put it up.

Gary Bernier:
We’d love to watch it and we…

Matthew Burns:
I think that’s great. And we’ll comment. This one, we’ll give you feedback.

Gary Bernier:
Oh yeah, we’ll get back to you.

Matthew Burns:
For sure. We love anybody that puts up a video, you’re definitely going to get a response from us, for sure. You can get a response. Okay. Whether it’s Gary or I or both, probably be both because we love to get involved in this. Okay. Well, listen, this is what we think. You can use your Google reviews past Google, get it into your marketing, use it in social media specifically.

You can sprinkle it very rarely into offline media, because again, it seems kind of self-serving in that point, but those direct back to the individual video reviews or video responses to the reviews, let us know if it works for you. Tell us if you try it as well. So review us, give us the link of where you reviewed us and tell us if anything worked. Gary, I think this has been long and I want everybody to be able to go and digest. So thank you for coming back. And this was your idea, and then I got all inspired.

So beautiful. My God. Okay. We’ll talk at the next Crumbs for Giants. Thanks, guys.

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