Episode 034 – Why Negative Reviews Are Good for Business

Most hosts freak out when they get a negative review but negative reviews are good.  They are necessary, lest your guests see you as “too good to be true.”  Michelle explains how negative reviews are good in this week’s episode.  Listen and learn exactly how. 

Plus, contest details are inside this episode!  Enter to win BIG!!  Go and Grow!

Transcript of this Episode:

Hi, this is Michelle, the master of money mindset, and you are listening to BNB dash boss podcast.

And in today's podcast, we're going to be talking about reviews and why you want to have some bad reviews. I know it sounds odd, doesn't it, but stay tuned and you'll find out why our show today is brought to you by audible. Audible is where you get your audio books online and get a 30 day trial into the audible membership for free.

By going to audible trial.com forward slash S T R revenue that's audible trial.com forward slash S T R revenue. You'll get your first audio book for free and 30 days into the audible membership just for trying us out. You'll love audible. Right [email protected]. You can find our $7 courses available for you to try out, find out how to cohost, how to do rental arbitrage, or how to invest in real estate.

We're all three, by going to be in bead-boss.com and clicking on our store. And you'll find our $7 courses right there. Try us out. I love it. You'll love those courses and they're only there for a limited time. So do it. Also, don't forget our contest. We've got our contest running right now, and every week we're picking a winner.

And everyone's names are going to be put into a drawing at the end for a final prize of an Amazon DOD with a little clock on it. And your guests will love that. There'll be able to walk right in, ask Alexa to connect to their account, and they'll be able to play their favorite music, ask for the weather or whatever else they want to ask Alexa to do pretty darn awesome.

And I would really greatly appreciate it. You going to iTunes and leaving me a five star review. I appreciate it. So please do take a picture of it. Send it over to me at Michelle at BNB dash boss. Let me know that you did and we'll enter you in those drawings. So it seems rather odd that you would want to get negative reviews.

And there's actually quite a few reasons why reviews bad reviews. Are good for you. I know it sounds weird, but let's first talk about the consumer side of bad reviews. When people see an nothing, but five star reviews, they really don't believe it. They believe that's just too good to be true. How can somebody get all five star reviews somewhere in the back of their head?

Maybe it doesn't pertain to you, but these are scientific facts studies that they have done on our views. And they say that people just don't trust them as a matter of fact, and this is really strange. They are more likely to purchase from reviews between 4.2 to 4.5 than they are a 5.0. Now I was looking at that and I was like, that just doesn't seem right.

I mean, you would think that it would be 4.8 or somewhere up there because isn't that what we always strive for, because in order to keep our Superhost status, we have to have like a 4.8. So why would people buy from 4.2 and 4.5? Why view on this is a little bit different than theirs. They're saying that they trust it more.

I'm saying that they're going for the consumer side of it because maybe the five star and they're looking at all things across the board, and they're not just looking at reviews from hotels. They're probably looking at it from a consumer side on like an Amazon site or something. And when you look at those reviews, a lot of times the price of the product is a lot higher.

And so you're like, well, you know, for a few dollars less, I can get this product and it's still rated between 4.2 and 4.5. So that's kind of how I assume I've read quite a few books on this over the past several. I mean, actually I've always loved to read books about this stuff. And pricing is one of my favorite things.

When we had the prosperity process, I did a Christmas program and the Christmas program, we taught people how to shop at Christmas time, right? Because we're like, look, there's going to be leaders. There's going to be all these different tricks that they use in order to get you to purchase and buy just a bunch of stuff at Christmas time stuff, you don't need stuff you don't want and stuff that usually isn't gifts.

The majority of money that people spend at Christmas is usually for themselves. For instance, one of the big things are television sets, right? Because every year at Christmas time, the price of television sets go down, down, down and down and they will have. Those door busters sales, a Christmas where if you come in, you know, you're going to get a TV for 25 bucks, you know, 42 inches.

And you're like, what the heck? Of course we've got to go. It's going to be only 25 bucks. And obviously I'm exaggerating a little, but seriously, televisions are a hundred or $200 now for smart TVs. In the 40, 42 inch 48 inch range. And even now up into the fifties and stuff, right, you can get televisions, smart ones and really good ones, highly rated for not a lot of money, but what they do is they'll take a low price television.

Then they'll take the one that they really want to sell. The one that they've got 150 of. And then they'll put that next to it in the middle. And then they'll put a really expensive one on the end. Now the really expensive one, very few people are going to buy. What most people tend to do is buy the middle priced item.

And the reason why is. They'll make it so enticing that you will pass up the cheap one because they'll go oh, for a little bit more. I can get the 4k or the 5k or whatever. K they're on now they'll make it so that the medium one has something of benefit for just a little more than the low price one. And so people in their minds will say, oh, well for just a little more, I can do a lot better than the cheap ones.

So I'll get the next expensive one. And the expensive one is usually pretty outrageous. There's usually a huge price difference. And a lot of different qualities in the expensive items. So most people will go right to the middle item. It's literally psychology their screen with your heads. And it's the same when it comes to reviews.

Right? When you are looking at reviews, when you see all five star reviews, you don't believe it. And a lot of times people who have five star reviews, especially when they're one sentence reviews, they're not really long or detailed people will like, Ugh, this isn't a real review or are they all sound alike or they're all put in there around the same time.

So they want reviews that are less than three months old. They want newer reviews, but when it comes to our consumers, the people who are renting properties and booking on the platforms that we are on, when they look at that, they want something that is less than three months old. And you, and I both know if you see nothing but reviews from 2018, there's something wrong.

It's like, What have they not had anybody stays since 2080, like three years ago? What is going on? Where are the newer reviews? Because we also know that things can change. Like they started hosting and maybe they weren't very good when they first started out. But then as they earned more money, they may be replace their furniture or something.

And so now the place is cleaner. They've hired cleaning crews. They've changed it up and. We want to see that everything is improving. You don't have to worry about somebody leaving a bad review, a bad review every now and again is a good thing for us because people trust it. They're going to trust you more.

Now I like four star reviews and I've discussed this before in our old podcast. And I think that's the replay that we'll have this Friday will be a via original seven ways to handle a bad review. But I like getting four star reviews because I think four star reviews give you the best opportunity to grow in your business because it's not somebody really saying, Hey, your place really stunk.

And I did not like stay in there. That's a one-star review. Right? The reason four-star reviews are good is because you're almost perfect in their eyes, or like you did it really, really well, except for this thing or this one or two things, write these things and they'll tell you what those are usually, hopefully, right?

They'll tell you what those things are that you can improve on and you can improve on them. So let's say for instance, somebody says, oh, I love the place. It was decorated. Well, It was perfect, except for, you know, with the bed was a little uncomfortable. What do you know, go check out the bed. What the heck is with the bed?

Why is it uncomfortable? Is it, is the mattress getting old? Is it time to change it out? What's going on? Can I put a mattress topper in there? What can you do to change it? And those are views are great too, because how you respond to a review is always really important. There's one, one really critical thing that you have to remember when it comes to reviews and that is you have to respond to every review, respond to your reviews.

Almost half of people who look at reviews, almost 50% of them will say that they're more likely to use a business that responds to their negative reviews. So they want to see that you're responding, what you're responding and that you're fixing the challenges that come up. So if somebody said, for instance, that your mattress was uncomfortable, you're like, you know what?

We took a look at that and we're changing it out. You were totally right. We didn't realize it. And now we have a new mattress in there. Thanks so much for letting us know. If there's any other opportunity for you to come back and test out our new one, we would love to have you return, you know, just, just how you respond to that makes a big difference to the consumer.

Also about a third of the people who leave a negative review. Like a four star review or a three-star review and they say what's wrong. When someone comes back and responds to them and somebody responds to their negative review in a positive way, about a third of those will post a positive review. And another third of those will actually delete the original negative review.

So you got about a two third chance of fixing whatever was negative about that review. And that's big chance. That's a big percentage of opportunity, a big window there, and it'll make a huge difference, not just with the people who left the review, but the people who are reading the review and making sure that, you know, while they got a bad review, what did they do about it?

Like, did they just ignore them or did they blame them? What did they do? And remember that was one of our things that I said never to do. You never blame anyone else? You always take a hundred percent responsibility. I don't care if your cleaning crew didn't show up or a meteor shower hit, blew up your backyard pool.

You're going to take a hundred percent responsibility for it. Okay. And responding to reviews actually builds your SEO, which is your search engine optimization. So Google looks at the people who respond to it, the reviews, you get more pings on that, and therefore it improves your listing ability. And a lot of people believe that when your SEO is higher Google or something, then it's literally higher on the platform as well.

That means that you'll get more views. Because you're responding, they're responding and there's a lot of changes going on. And when there's change going on, it puts you higher up. So that's the reason why we shuffle pictures and we do things like that because we believe that helps us keep our listings fresh.

And Airbnb keeps pushing them in front of new guests. You want to be in those first few pages, right? Of a search for your location in order to do that, you want to have the best key words you want to have the best SEO. You want to have responses to your reviews. Every single time respond to your reviews.

When someone leaves you a good review, bad review, doesn't matter, respond to your reviews. Thanks so much. We look forward to hosting you again. You know, two or three sentences, it doesn't have to be long, but it definitely does have to be a response. So make sure you're doing that. And just a reminder, 68% of people trust, reviews more when they see both good and bad reviews.

That's pretty cool. So that's a huge percentage. Again, we're talking about 68%. That means that more than two thirds again. You're building up the number of views you're building up, the trust that you have with people, not just the consumers that you have had and the guests that you've had come stay with you before.

But the ones who are reading and looking at your reviews and looking at the way you run your business, that's a really big thing. Also, you and I both know that Airbnb, any platform really can have fake reviews on there. I don't know how people do them. Maybe they charge somebody $10 a night and have their friends stay for 10 bucks a night and then leave them a big review.

So people have been able to get fake reviews on platform, but people trust reviews that are left by verified buyers a lot more. The majority of time, they look at the reviews left on platform. So for instance, if you're on Airbnb, the reviews left by an Airbnb person. They'll trust that more than fake reviews or reviews that they're like, you know what?

This could be anybody. I don't believe that they bought it. When you go to. Amazon, for instance, when you go there, you'll see that there are verified buyers. That means they will verify. Amazon will verify that the person actually did purchase that product. And therefore their review left by them is probably going to be a legitimate review because they bought the product through Amazon.

Amazon is willing to back that up and say, Hey, we verify they bought it through us. And then when they leave a review, you're like, well, I believe because they're a verified buyer that they bought the product, used it, and then they're giving me their real truthful reaction to that product. So that makes a big difference.

That makes a big difference too. So just a few days ago, we did an interview with sink BNB. They are one of the coolest platforms that you can sync all your properties and your calendars to. Super innovative. They're going to be at our summit and you'll love it. Alex gave us one of the best interviews that we had and just a really great guy.

And he had directed me to a couple of videos that he did about helping people to build their own booking websites. And I thought that direct booking is like the way to go. It's definitely the thing you want to have. And most people complain about it. So he was like, oh no, go to. You too. We posted it. We paid money to get an high SEO and we're right there when you Google it.

And you'll see our YouTube video on how to build your booking website. So we're all excited about that. And aren't there. I was like, here's this interview that you did with Christoph? And he goes, oh yeah, Christoph and I are working together because that's where our reviews come from. His business does all reviews and it's a great business because reviews are super important.

Obviously in our business, they're going to look at the reviews. They're going to look at the pictures of your property. Those are going to be the two main things that help them decide whether or not to stay with you. Right. The next would be the price and making sure that you're within their budget. But at the same time, when you're looking at the reviews, I watched this long interview that Christophe and Alex did, and it was super cool because Christoph had said you need to create a special SEO optimize page to help with your search engines.

For instance, one of our companies is island BnBs. So you would take island, bnbs.com and then do a forward slash reviews. And that would it be your review page that would help people when they are looking up reviews for your business specifically, they would be able to find them. What's really cool is if you're using sync BNB, Alex has partnered with Christoph and his company and.

The reviews all come on there, every review from all the pages that you're linked on. So for instance, if you have your listings on Airbnb booking.com VRVO, which is verbal now, but it's always been VRVO for me. So I apologize for that because it's been around for a long time, but you could have your gains on all these different platforms.

And when you use sync BNB, It gives you an average rating on all of them. So you'll get this really cool review this as here's the name of your Villa? Let's say it's key west retreat and key west retreats. Average booking is 4.7. And right below it, it will have the reviews from Airbnb. And that might be 4.78.

And then it'll have your booking.com, which might be 4.6 and it'll have your VRBO. And it might be 4.3, but it's going to take all of your reviews from all your different sites and put them right there and then give an average review of all of those. And put them up at the top. What's cool is they'll not only be able to see what your reviews are.

They'll be able to see where your reviews came from so they can see that you had a lot of bookings through Airbnb, not so many through bookings.com and a handful from VRBO. There'll be able to see how many reviews you've had from each of them and what those reviews are. And that's pretty darn cool. So I love using sync BNB for that reason.

And Kristoff's products about the reviews bar. None. You really need those widgets inside your own website in order to show gas, potential guests, those fresh bookings and your current review percentage. So remember they trust the last three months more than anything. That's what you really want to do is have fresh reviews.

So widgets inside your own website. Are super, super important. And if you are using sink, BNB sink, BNB is going to take all of those and do that for you. So you don't even have to worry about that. That will automatically be done and they do it for you. It's super awesome. I love, love, love that. Now Christophe also suggested that you optimize your title and your description with key words, key words for your area.

So if somebody is looking for a pool, you want pool in there. If somebody is looking for a getaway, you want getaway, private, secluded words like that. Those are great words to have in your title. As long as they are the keywords that somebody would look for when it came to those listings. Especially if they were Google searching it.

So you really want optimize your title. Your title is crucial. If somebody is looking for a discount. They might put discounts in there. If somebody is looking for air conditioning, they might put AC in there. And this stat from Kristoff was like amazing to me. He said that by displaying, genuine verified reviews, it can change your conversion rates.

Meaning the rates of people actually booking with you by 270%, it will increase them by 270%. That means you are almost three times more likely to get a booking because you have genuine verified reviews placed on your website than anything else. So it is huge. It's huge to have reviews. It makes a huge difference to have your reviews there.

You know, you need reviews, you know what to do when you get like a four-star review, right? You're going to work on it. But what happens when you get a bad review? Well, bad reviews stink. Obviously getting them, nobody likes getting a bad review, but everyone gets them every so often. Now I'm going to replay our original podcast for the seven things to do.

When you get a bad review. I just want you to know that it all times you need to be professional. You need to take a breath. You need to take things slow. And you need to not have knee jerk reactions to everything. We take things. So, so personally, and we recently had a cancellation, it was a very tough cancellation.

And it's hard when you have a business to do the right thing for your business and to be professional about it. And still at the same time, not feel guilty. So we have a strict cancellation policy. Now, why do we have a strict cancellation policy? The majority of people, and especially Airbnb. If you are on that platform, they're constantly asking you to loosen your.

Refund policy, you know, to make it the least stringent, you can possibly have it. And they have good reasoning for that because more people will book with you if you have a less stringent refund policy, but you're going to get a lot more cancellations, a lot more cancellations. If there's no penalty, people will cancel.

They don't mind canceling. They think there's nothing to it now. That's well and good for hotels and airlines and stuff because they overbook. All the time, hotels and airlines. I don't know if you know this, but they overbook by a certain percentage. They've worked out the percentage based on the area where the hotel is.

Every single airline, you know, has overbooked a flight because they get so many cancellations. Unfortunately, you and I, when we have our properties, we don't have other rooms that we can make up. The difference on. When our rooms get canceled, there's no reservation. They're waiting in the wings to take it over.

We're not double booking our properties. We can't, we can't double book like most hotels can, and we will suffer if we lose our reservations too close to our lead times. What is your lead time? You really need to know that in your industry, your lead time for your reservations depends a lot on where you are located.

And it has also changed a lot with COVID prior to COVID or Tucson property is we're about three months out minimum. So imagine if you are in that three month timeframe, especially if it's a week before or something, and somebody just cancels a reservation, your average lead time is three months. You will not be able to replace that booking.

You will lose that money. So if you have a property where your lead time is 30 days out or 60 or 90 days out or more, you need to have a strict cancellation policy and your strict cancellation policy will protect your income. That's what it's there for. Now we have that policy. And we tell everybody when they book, we send them the house rules, which has our cancellation policy in there.

They also know the cancellation policy because it's clicked on their like strict policy inside the platform. And then we send them again, a separate message that talks about the strict cancellation policy. And offers them yet again, the chance to buy travel insurance because travel insurance will protect them in case anything happens.

And we let them know. Just in case something happens, we will not be refunding your money because we are a small business. We can't make that income up in most cases. And if we can't, we're not giving you your money back because we need to be able to pay our bills, pay rent. It's our business. We have to protect our business.

So get cancellation insurance, if you think you're going to cancel. So we had this policy in place and Airbnb has stood by us. We recently had a nurse come in. And this nurse had held three months of our business. She actually actually asked us to move somebody so she could get back. And she with us before.

And so we did, we moved 30, who was in one reservation. We took the tag on the cancellation, but we had her permission and we actually gave her money so that she would move. We're like, okay, please take this, sorry about this, buy it. Can we move you over? And she was really nice about it. So then we had our three months open for this nurse who had stayed with us before.

And it's quite an income when you've got three months solid with these nurses, it was a good income. Well, she canceled, she canceled and we had canceled the reservation that was inside. And we were like, oh my gosh, well that's okay. We will put it out there and see what happens. So we put it out there and another nurse booked.

And this nurse messaged us and asked us for further discount. Now there's already a discount for month long stays and above. And so we discounted it. And then it was like, can you discount it again? So we listened to the letter and we were like, you know what? Let's just get this book. At least we'll have these three months covered because we aren't going to be able to make this up.

When COVID struck, we were marketing to nurses. We were going on nursing websites and marketing to traveling nurses to fill our properties. And we did pretty good. We're not marketing to nurses anymore. We, as matter of fact, don't have it clicked on in our platforms that we are long-term stays. We just have people requesting it from us.

And I don't understand why, but they do. And lately we've had a lot of nurse requests. Traveling nurses have requests or properties for two and three month long stays in two areas in particular. Like several on the same dates too. So it's been really, really weird. So when anyways, we thought, okay, this is not going to be possible.

We're not going to be able to fill this because it was before all these nursing requests came in. So we're like, okay, let's just bite the bullet, give them the discount. We'll book it up. It's better to break even than to not have anybody in there, but we did warn them of the strict cancellation. And we have extenuating circumstances as does Airbnb has an extenuating circumstance policy.

We actually even add in there a death in the family. On our policy, don't double dip policy. Meaning if we have a booking that cancels and we get to keep the funds, if we are able to rebook it, we're not going to keep both funds. We're only going to make money off of one. We don't want to double dip and the advantage of somebody who's paying or whatever reason they had to cancel.

But here's the weirdest part of that. When you have cancellation insurance, And the extenuating circumstances, you know, the illnesses and the death in the family, your cancellation should be covered. It should be covered by travel insurance, too. It's not going to be covered if you just change your mind and therefore it wasn't covered for this nurse, they just changed their mind.

They just changed their mind a day before they were to go in. When they messaged us. I said, Hey, yeah, that's okay. I wasn't mean about it or anything, but I knew I was going to get the cancellation policy. Well, when they found out they weren't going to get their money back, they were pretty upset. And then the letters came back and forth and then they contacted Airbnb.

And because they didn't have a valid reason for canceling Airbnb sided with us. They were like, yeah, you just, you can't change your mind, got a strict cancellation policy. You're going to have to pay it. So they were quite upset and they sent me a letter and then sent me another letter and tried to guilt me into it.

I made this money serving COVID patients, you know, frontline workers. And I'm like, wow, I have a business. And I know what they're trying to do. They're trying to guilt me into it. And you're not going to make me feel guilty for running my business. So they just kept going and going. And so finally, you know, they were asking why I was going to keep the money and I said, okay, well, let me explain it to you.

When you have a small window of opportunity for bookings and somebody holds that booking until the very last minute and then cancels it, chances are we're not going to be able to refill it, and we're not going to make any money. And a strict cancellation policy protects our income. And that is the only way we can operate as a small business is to protect our income.

We have to, and if we are able to rebook, we will be happy to refund your money up into the a hundred percent, you know, mark so that we're not double-dipping and stuff, but I'm not giving you your money back. So it was a hard reservation. Oh. And during the booking process, they were taking their sweet time to make the reservation.

They had sent several requests. And changed the dates and done a bunch of stuff and asked for all those discounts. And meanwhile, some requests started coming in for nurses. We had four requests, which I was able to show Airbnb to drain the whole thing when they were trying to get their money back from us and get around the strict cancellation.

I said, look, We held it for them. We held it longer than they asked for. Cause they said they would have an answer by Monday. They didn't, it took them longer. So no, I'm not going to do this because I turned down four reservations. And as soon as they canceled, I contacted all those people. And of course they all had somewhere else to stay, so I couldn't make it back up.

Right. I was like, all right, I'm not going to be able to make this back up. If I do, if I'm able to rebook it, I'm going to frantically go out there and try to find somebody. And obviously I'd rather have somebody in there that I'm hosting and actually doing my job rather than making money off of somebody else's well, in this case changed mine, but a lot of times it would be another reason.

And so we started marketing it and again, more traveling nurses. Right. But this time we got a traveling nurse that didn't ask for another and another and another discount. So we ended up renting it for a longer and. Making back that money and then we'll give him the money back, but we're waiting for the negative review because we know it's coming.

And the fact that Airbnb sided with us, I was super excited about, because I was like, look, they had no reason to cancel. I don't know if they'd just changed their mind or they found another place, but they had no good reason to cancel. And. I can show them too, that we turned down all these other reservations and that we asked all those other reservations, if they wanted to book with us, and then we would give him his money back, you know, but that wasn't happening, whether it did or not.

We wanted to make sure that we recover. I mean, it's part of our policy. We ask all our guests to buy travel insurance. In this case, the travel insurance would not have covered this nurse. Because he did not have a valid reason for canceling. There was no real reason for canceling. No good reason that would be covered under cancellation insurance in a travel insurance industry.

So you have to be careful because just getting a bug up your butt and deciding you want to cancel, or you want to go somewhere else. That's not going to be a good reason to cancel, and it's not going to be a good reason for them to give you your money back either you have to have a real reason for canceling.

So people should just be more careful. They really should. And we send them out that message several times, which is why Airbnb sided with us. I want you to do the same thing. And in this case, we're prepared, we're prepared for this person to leave us a bad review because they almost didn't get their money back and they're not getting all their money back.

They're still gonna have a few days that we were not able to fill at the beginning because they canceled the day before. But. When they leave us that review, we're going to be very calm. And one thing I said in my message to him is I understand that this feels very personal to you. However, it is not, it has nothing to do with you personally, as a matter of fact, We have had a strict cancellation policy in place for a long time.

It is a policy because it's a real problem in our industry. Just having people cancel and us losing money. And therefore we put this policy in place to protect us and it wasn't to protect us against you. We had no idea that you would be coming. So it was basically a policy to protect period. It had nothing to do with them personally.

And that's the challenge that everybody has because when things happen to people, they take things very personally people do. You know, I've mentioned before the four agreements, the book, the four agreements, and in the four agreements, one of the first agreements is not taking things. So personally.

People take everything. Personally, if somebody says something that gets on, it's like, well, you said it against me. It's not against you personally stop taking everything. So personally, even if it is personal, usually it's not directed at you. If this person had a bad day and they got cut off or something terrible happened, and anything that would happen that would ruin somebody's day.

The very next thing that could happen. Could literally be the straw that broke the camel's back. It should not be that way, but it could be, and they could go into a coffee place and the person made a small mistake and they could go off on that person, like just really tear into them about what a crappy coffee place this is.

And it would be one simple mistake, but to them it was the straw that broke the camel's back. And again, stop taking it personally. What if the person, the barista took that very personally and said, man, I'd, I'm not even supposed to be in this industry. And it really had nothing to do with them. It was just the one thing that this person just could not take because they had accumulated so many bad things in their life.

Maybe they got in a car accident, maybe their car broke down that maybe they had to get all new tires. Maybe the refrigerator broke. Maybe they're going through a breakup who knows what people are going through, but you are usually not the reason for everything happening to them. You know, it's not. You just don't take it personally, even if it's some little mistake you made, even that, that barista accidentally put in regular coffee when it was supposed to be decaf, little mistakes happen and that's okay.

Don't take it personally. Just let things go. And when you can take things, not personally, and somebody is attacking you and your business in a review. Just don't take it personally, be kind, just make sure that you take a step back and start with kindness. Let them know that you see them. You would like to do good for them.

In this case, we still have to do good for us. We still have to enforce our policy. Our policy is there for a reason. It's there to protect our income. And therefore I have to make sure that. I'm doing everything I can to make money for my business partner and myself. Right. So I have responsibilities as well.

And they do too. This guy is throwing the fact that he's a nurse. If there was a policy at his work that said before you went in to see any of the patients, you had to have a COVID test, or you had to wear a mask, or you had to get your temperature taken, would they go against their policy? Just because no, they keep their policies or policy.

Is there for a reason your policy is there for a reason, my political opinions, my personal opinions wouldn't make any deal to that nurse because they would have to enforce the policy of the hospital. And I realized that I'm not an idiot. I wouldn't go into the hospital because I would know that their policies have to be enforced.

And I wouldn't expect them to change their policy for me. We need to allow people to not take things personally, we need to not attack them and not expect them to change their policies for us. And I'm not going to change my policy for them. And we just let them know in a nice way, in a nice way. We say, guess what?

I can't change my policy. It's there for a reason. It's there to protect our income. You know, your policy is. There to potentially protect. And if it's a bunch of elderly people in a nursing home, then by God, they better do it. Right. They better protect those elderly people. I can understand that I'm not going to ask them to change.

So please don't ask me to change. So there are absolutely reasons why you don't mind having bad reviews because in this case, when this guy leaves a review and. We have to answer kindly and replied to how we hold true to our strict cancellation policy. Guess what? That allows everyone else to see that we stick to our cancellation policy, just like when we had somebody trash, another place and they left a bad review and we said, look, you trashed our place.

And even Airbnb sided with us and we had to charge you extra for cleaning. When people see you answer politely, just give people the facts. Then they will also see that you stick to your rules. You stick to your rules and they're like, wow, these people are serious. If there's a party, the police are going to be called.

If we trash the place cleaning, these will be charged. If we cancel for no good reason, we will not get our money back. All these reviews were based on something that happened, but they also give everybody else a really good look at the insight of how you run your business. And if you are sticking to your policies, if you are getting complaints for good reasons, and you are politely answering and replying to those.

Always answer and reply kindly and professionally. But when you do, people will see that, wow. I mean, look, they got 98% of their reviews are five star reviews and you have a couple instances where something happened and they can see what happened on you replied very nicely, then they can say, well, This person pretty much sucks to their guns and they're not afraid of keeping it on there.

So real reviews, real life situations. They're good for your business. They're good for your business. I know it doesn't seem like they are, but they really are. You don't want to be all five star because it doesn't look real. Having a few of those other ones in there. Studies have shown it's actually a really good thing.

And so don't be afraid of it. Embrace it. And remember with a four star reviews that you get, those are your opportunities to change. Whenever somebody brings something up about something they didn't like take time to listen to their criticism and fix what you can. Because the majority of times, especially when it's a four star review, they like everything about your place, except for one thing.

It's great. It's a great opportunity for you to fix something or improve your place. So that's today's episode. Thanks so much for listening. If you get the opportunity, please, please go to iTunes and leave us a review. We really need those reviews lately because we've got to get back onto some kind of platform so we can start advertising.

And remember, we've got the summit coming up in a couple of weeks and your opportunity to. Get those tickets will be coming to you. Just make sure you're on our mailing list. So go to bnb-boss.com. Join our mailing list and you'll be given some opportunities to get some free tickets to the summit, to listen to our speakers.

Thanks so much for listening. God bless you. Have a great day.  Go and grow.