Simple Guide To Getting More 5 Star Google Reviews Than Any Other Practice In Your Community

Host: Hi everyone, welcome to the veterinary business podcast, your ultimate resource for developing a successful veterinary practice in career. I'm Dr. Amanda Landis Hanna, one of the co-hosts of the veterinary business podcast. On this podcast, we bring you insights and expertise from industry leading doctors, experts, and thought leaders. We cover a wide range of topics including practice management, marketing strategies, leadership development, HR best practices, and much more. Whether you are a practicing veterinarian, a practice owner, a practice manager, or student studying to be a veterinarian, this podcast is tailored to help you navigate the unique challenges and opportunities of the business of veterinary medicine. Every listener of this podcast is welcome to visit the website www veterinarybusinessinstitute.com for additional resources and tools to support your growth. And remember, you can subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, and other popular podcast platforms.

Host: Today, I'm excited to talk to Naren, Arilaja, CEO of Equa, EKWA, marketing and founder of veterinary business institute about the simple guide to getting more five-star Google reviews than any other practice in your community. Let's jump in. Before we get started, Naren, why don't you take a minute to tell us a bit about yourself? Who are you? How did you get into the veterinary industry? Tell us your story, please. Thank you so much, and I really appreciate you for hosting this podcast for everything you do to the veterinary profession. Of course, appreciate you as a mom because I have two daughters and you have two daughters. I guess we have that in common, just slightly different age or kids, but it's probably the best experience in life. It's not the easiest, but it's definitely the best. So, thank you for everything you do. Yeah, a little bit about myself. I'm Naren Arilaja, and like you said, I'm the founder and CEO of Equa, marketing.

Host: And also, we started the veterinary business institute a little while back. And so, I guess, I am an accidental entrepreneur. I got fired four times in a row, you know, back in 2019, 1999, 2001. And after the full time, I told my wife, if you were newly married, my wife has pregnant, I can't do this, because I'll get fired for the fifth time. And I'm going to check myself into a mental asylum, thinking, I'm a loser, I'm this and that, probably going to depression and things like that. So, she's like, okay, I get it. So, I try to figure out how to run my own business. And the first four years when my daughter was, you know, right, right when she was born, I think she was, it was in December of 2002. I got fired for the last time. She was born in September. And, you know, I struggled, I just made every mistake in the book, trying to figure out what business is, how to make it work. And I learned a few lessons, like, focus on helping others get what they want. You have no competition. That's a court from data economy. And he said it in, I think, in the 30s, which is almost like I guess 100 years ago today,

Host: but it still is more valid than ever. Most of us as business owners are like, what's in it for me? You know, how do I get what I want? As opposed to, how do I help others get what they want? Whether it's your team members or whether it's your, you know, customers. So, those kind of lessons really helped me. And so, after struggling struggling struggling in 2007, we started working with the doctor, and this was, you know, I don't want to make the story longer than it needs to be. And then he saw amazing success in dominating Google and getting new patients. And then that turned into an entire business. And today we have 250 people. What I'm most proud of is, you know, 95% of our clients have it for life. And that number continues to, you know, improve. And what that tells me is, it's easy to get a client, because you can promise them the world, the world, the sun, the earth. But if you can't keep them, then you have this huge hole. And then your job is just filling the hole. And that is not fun. And I don't really enjoy sales. So I don't really enjoy it. So even today, even with 250 people, we have two people in our sales team. And still, everybody else is there to take care of customers.

Host: So I guess it's just a different way to think, and, you know, different philosophies. I guess that's the thing about being an entrepreneur. You can create your own world, so to speak, and, you know, believe, you know, do things the way you want. So that's my story. And then, of course, we started working with veterinary practices, I think, around 12 years ago. And, you know, we realized, you know, how do we give back to the community and how do we do it in a productive way? And then being an internet guy, and, you know, that's where I've been, I've worked from home for, you know, since 2002, so 21 years. And before work from home was cool, we have been doing it, not just me, but the entire company. So, so in that sense, internet is kind of how people who are, you know, anywhere communicate and do things. And so we decided to give back and we decided to do something very unique, do everything online. So virtual events, you know, podcasts, you know, virtual membership period. So all these things, where we want to be the best in the world at providing value online for practice owners. And, and practice administrators who are looking to learn the craft of business and improve that. So that's kind of the short story of who I am and where I am today.

Host: That's wonderful. And you're absolutely right. Things have gone completely online. You were ahead of the curve for sure. So it's great to know you have such fabulous experience in the online world, and especially thank you for giving back to the veterinary practices. What are some of the specific goals of veterinary practice should set when it comes to things like Google reviews? That's a great question. And I really look forward to our conversation on our topic today. Simple guide to getting more five star Google reviews than any other practice in your community. Simple guide to getting more five star Google reviews than any other practice in your community. This is the number one goal. I mean, find out in your community in your area where you draw your patients from who all the practices, just Google, you know, veterinary practice reviews. And then see who has how many reviews. And your goal, I think the first and foremost goal should be you should be the one with the most number of five star Google reviews in your community. Of course, if you don't want to sit there in literally count how many five star reviews you have, just look at the total number of reviews and look at the average star. So, for example, if somebody has 4.9, 4.8 and they have 300 views. There's a good chance most of those 300 reviews are going to be five star reviews. So, so be the practice with the most number of reviews. Now, that's the overall overarching goal. Think of it like a vision. The mission is to at least get 10 love letter reviews a month. And I will get into this more, but you want to make sure that every single month, you're getting 10 people raving about you on Google.

Host: And if you do that for an year, just 10, right, you have 120 people raving about you in a year. In two years, that's 240. So you can really really really start moving the needle by just taking bite size pieces, but doing it consistently. So, it's not like all some weeks or some months I have a lot of reviews and then other months zero or almost zero. Rather, it's just consistency, right? Like, you know, if it's 10, which is your goal, every week you need three reviews. That's it. You know, so that's all you need to think about. How do I get three reviews? And there are steps we'll get into. And so that those are the goals. Get 10 or more love letter reviews a month. And in the long term, try to be the practice with the most number of five star reviews in your community. You described for us what a love letter review is and how to ask or encourage patients to give you some of those love letter reviews. That's a great question. So, love letter reviews are a paragraph or reviews with many sentences. And typically, when people write paragraphs with many sentences and assuming these be patients in our love you, meaning they appreciate you. They think of the world of you. They are going to be love letters. I mean, literally, they're going to say, you know, or I love this team, you know, they take care of, you know, my pet, like it's their own.

Host: And if my pet looks forward to going, you know, to this practice, you know, they're so kind, you know, they have proactive, you know, they tell me things. I don't even know about so that I can make sure that my family member, which is my pet, is in an optimal health. So, it's really raising why they like your practice. And unfortunately, it's very, very easy to get negative reviews, because negative reviews today are used almost like a stick to beat up a practice. And usually it's used by people, you know, who had a bad day and whatever you did, just, you know, kind of dropped it wrong way and they're really mad. You know, and a lot of times, it was nothing to do with you, just they're having a bad day. And sometimes it's, you know, people who are disgruntled employees, you know, for some reason, they want to quote and quote take revenge. And it's unfortunate, but sometimes it's a competition, because they feel like the way to throw their business is to beat up somebody else's business. So they directly, or some people in the practice will write nasty reviews. And I wish I would like to say it's not happening, but it is happening. I see the lot, I see this a lot in the veterinary space. So, so lovely reviews just don't show up. Negative reviews will just show up. You have to, you know, have a method and a process to get lovely reviews.

Host: And all of this starts with an inspired team that really cares about this and really sees this as part of their job. And I'll touch on that later, you know, during this conversation. But let's park that for a minute. Let's park. You know, how do we create a team that is passionate about getting 10 or more love-let's reviews a month? And let's just talk about the mechanics of how to get it. So the best way. I mean, I'm a huge fan of Dr. Robert Childini. He's the one who wrote the book called Influence. So it's all about how do you influence people to get the outcomes you want. Whether it's getting them to accept treatment, whether it's getting them to write a review, it's really influencing people to get the outcomes you want. You can apply this with your kids, you can apply this with your social situation and of course any of business. So he talks about six principles of influence. Now it's seven. And what he says is you can use these principles to create a moment when people are three or four times more likely to do the things you want them to do. So you use these principles to create a moment when people are three or more times likely to do the things you want.

Host: The catch is the moment is very short-lived. So you have to use that moment. And I'm certified by Dr. Robert Childini's Childini Institute. So I can actually teach these principles. And one of those principles is called reciprocity. And what that means is when a person feels grateful, that is the best moment to ask them for something. So let's say you want your neighbor to keep an eye on your house, right? And you and your neighbor are friends, even though you might not be close, let's say you're going on a trip. So you might take this wonderful cake. You heard two years ago that they love this set and kind of a cake. So you take that exact cake, go knock on their door and say hey, I just want to say how it's Christmas season. I just wanted to wish you for Christmas and say thank you for being an awesome neighbor. And now I've got this cake you love and hope you enjoy.

Host: And the neighbor is out of the moon because it's unexpected, they really appreciate you. They're like thank you so much. You just read my mind. This is my favorite cake. Of course you know that. That's why you got them that cake. And they're feeling really, really grateful. That might be the best moment to ask them. You know, this is awesome. And before that moment vanishes, you know, we're just going on a four day trip. Can you just keep an eye on my house? I know you don't have to do anything, but just keep an eye just in case. Of course we'll keep an eye on your house. Oh, by the way, we'll even, you know, take any stuff out of your mailbox and, you know, leave it, leave it wherever you want us to leave it. So it doesn't feel like you guys out of the house. You know, so the neighbor will go out of the way to be helpful because in that moment they're feeling supremely grateful, which is one of the influence principles that, you know, children he talks about that creates the, the moment where people are more likely to do what you want them to do. So that's a simple example, right? How do you apply this in a practice setting?

Host: So, you know, there's a couple of ways. So of course, for most pet owners, the pet is a family member. I mean, I would say for all, at least in 2020, you know, four. So, you know, the more you appreciate the pet, the more you have fun with the pet, the more you, you know, like, take a picture with them and like, you know, she's so cute. I mean, they're going to feel really, really appreciative all the way you treat the pet, right? You take care of it. You don't make them wait. You answer their question, you are kind. They're going to feel appreciative. And, you know, so anytime they are like, they start complimenting you and, you know, I'm saying, you know, thank you so much. You guys are amazing. I love coming here. You're just the opposite of the last one I went to. And this, this and this and they start praising you, right? That's the moment you want to ask for that love letter of you. We love taking care of you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so kindly for sharing what it just told me. Can I ask you for a tiny favor? Then, of course, why? Because they're feeling grateful. They're feeling appreciative. So, what did I say? The three times more likely to comply. And the tiny favor is, let me send you a quick text. You'll have a link to our Google, my business page. Can you spend two minutes to write a review? Of course, share what you just told me because I would love to attract more patients or more pet parents like you to our practice. Because, you know, we like serving people like you. Otherwise, we will love coming to work every day. So, that, of course, you guys are amazing. I'll do everything I can to help. So, and the key is remember the moment. So, you have to send that text when they are being grateful, when they are in the office. Not when they're leaving your office and they're thinking about what's next. Remember, the moment vanishes.

Host: So, that's kind of a high level technique. It's easier said than done, but the good news is, every practice that follows our methodology. We have a tool called growing reviews, succeeds, marvelously. Of course, it's going to take a bit of work, and it's amazingly powerful. The reason is getting a review that doesn't have these paragraphs is as good as not getting a review for lots of reasons. It's technical, as well as it's psychological. You know, people are much more likely to come to a practice that has a lot of letter reviews that just no word or one or two word reviews. Okay. Well, that's incredibly helpful, and certainly something that I think that most practices will be very enlighten to hear about how to engage clients in love letter reviews. But what happens when you get a negative review? Yeah. So when you get a negative review, I think the number one thing is psychology, right? I know a lot of doctors care about what they do. They got into veterinary medicine to make a difference. So when somebody says something that is not true and hurtful, it really upsets them. And also, a lot of them have, you know, they are the kids when they were in school, who got hundreds or 90s, right? That's how you get into vet school. I mean, so you really care about, you know, grades and what other people think and so forth. So you have to kind of understand, you cannot please everyone, right? It's just the nature of games, especially if you are serving human beings. There's no way nobody on the planet that I know of who can please everyone. So you have to take it with that perspective and also look at it like people understand that too. So it's not about whether you have that one negative review or two negative reviews. It's like how many stars do you have? How many love letter reviews you have? So in the whole, if 85% of them are 90% of them are awesome people saying awesome things about you. You know, like 5% or less saying not too good things about you people get it. Now, of course, you can respond. If you, if you don't think this is a real patient, you can say, you know, we try to look you up, we couldn't.

Host: Why don't you call our office and we'll do everything we can to help you. You don't want to like start fighting with the person you don't want to look mean you want to be like the McNanima person who's just kind regardless of what somebody has to say. And then most importantly, you know, psychologically, don't let it back to you because I know practice owners who just have a bad day bad week because of that one negative review every time they're like they're talking about it, every conversation they're talking about it. So don't be that person. On the other hand, what did I say at the beginning said the goals right 10 or more love letter reviews a month because remember when you have those love letter reviews coming in it will drown out the negative review. And also, your average rating will continue to go up because, you know, one negative review was his 10 positive reviews do the math, right? It doesn't have much of an impact. Absolutely. How do you manage the Google profile of your veterinary practice? This gets really technical is because answer this question. I have to kind of give you a perspective on the business of Google and the business of the internet. So as many of you know, Google makes more money than any other all the other marketing companies combined in the world. They made in the year 2022 for which I have data, they made $224 billion just from Google ads, $224 billion. Just to put this in perspective, there's only 55 countries in the world that whose GDP's are bigger than $224 billion out of around close to 200 countries. Think about it. So 150 countries or so make less money in a year that Google makes from it. So this is huge, right? So when you have so much money at play, there are rules to the game and sometimes they're invisible rules.

Host: The rules are Google needs SEO, meaning all the people who are finding your business for free because without those people using Google to find answers to their question, people use Google, I think 8.5 billion times a day, 8.5 billion times a day. Google can't sell any ads. So they need the people who are marketing people who get their clients to show up at the very top. Because that's the reason why people use Google to find those answers. But they have to keep that population really, really, really tiny because think about it. If everybody got free traffic, who's going to give Google $224 billion? So that pie gets smaller and smaller and smaller. So today, it's less than 5%. So more than 95% of the practices will get zero traffic for free and 5% will get all the other traffic, whether it's on Google Maps, which is where reviews come in all whether it's on the regular Google search. So Google makes things extremely hard because that's how they make their money.

Host: Now think of it like this, right? It's like getting into the best vet school on the planet or in the country. You have to ace everything, right? Amazing GPS, amazing references, amazing things you did during undergraduate, great interview. So everything has to be like A plus A plus, if you do get A plus A plus, then you get admitted to that school. Now, of course, vet school is not free, but Google SEO is free. So Google SEO is like getting into that top school or top university every day. So there are a lot of nuances and part of the problem is Google algorithms are changing 3,000 times a year. That is 10 times a day and that applies to Google my business as well as the regular SEO. So part of your job, if you really, really want to master is to keep up with those changes, keep up with those 10 changes a day. Now the problem I find with a lot of practice owners and doctors is they love medicine and they love taking care of their pets. So they don't really have the time to dedicate 15, 20 hours to keep up with everything.

Host: So I'll just give you a few things you need to pay attention to. Again, you can read a book on it. So I'm not going to give you a book explanation, but rather just high level bullet points. Number one, there's something called Google my business page. And that is really technical. First of all, you have to get a hold of it. Again, to get a hold of it, you have to sometimes get a verification. There's a whole bunch of stuff. And then you have to manage it. Like for example, sometimes you'll have duplicate listings. So there'll be two or three listings. Why does it happen? Because there's a place on the internet where maybe your name is spelled differently. Or your address is spelled differently.

Host: And all of a sudden Google my create two listings and now you'll reviews are getting split. Google is getting confused. So even though you might have 4.9 stars and 200 reviews or 300 reviews, you're not getting them on a free traffic you should be getting. And there's something else called nap. So Google doesn't just look at only its profiles. It's looking at every review site. Like there are hundreds of them. And then again, if those sites don't have consideration, you don't show up. So again, Google kind of does it. Partly because it wants to keep the number of people paying at money at a very large amount.

Host: And I mean, I think that's the real motivation because you know, Google has to call the people who on Google stock. And they won't Google stock to go up. How does Google stock go up? They make more money every year, right? Just simple economics. If they can't make more money every year, then why would somebody pay more money for their stock? So if I have to see your and my compensation is driven by how much the stock price goes up, which is typically what happens. If you have to see your of a large company, then you're doing everything in your power to keep driving your price up, keep driving your price up. So there's a lot of economics. I think we need to work with the professional who knows what they're doing. But the catch is you can't just find the professional who understands Google my business. You need to find somebody who does the whole thing your website, your SEO. Because the reason is they all interconnected. So you can't do one without the other.

Host: Like they all like link together, even your nap, right? So I think you can try to do it. But I have never seen a practice owner who successfully does it consistently for more than like a week or two. And then it just gets overwhelming because it's like a 15 to 20 hour job to keep on top of all these roles, do all the things you're supposed to. There are many specific stats that you're looking for, say, for instance, start reviews or percentages that would help make things a little bit more clear and basic for all of us Google, Google business newbies. Yeah, again, getting stats is not that easy, but you can. Log in to your Google my business page. You can get said kind of information. For example, Google will tell you how many people saw your Google my business page in that month. Like many of our clients are seeing 30,000 times, 20,000 times in a single month just from Google my business. Remember this is without counting all the SEO traffic. So that's a stat, right? How many people are seeing me on Google? The second stat is how many of those people clicked driving directions. Typically, if 120 people clicked driving directions, those 120 people, at least the last number of them ended up showing up at the practice, right?

Host: Otherwise, why would they click driving directions? Is driving directions is looking at whatever I want to get to your office right now. So again, that's a good stat, right? So you know, okay, 120 people came to my office. Thanks to what I did on my Google my business page. I mean, think about it, right? If each patient is worth, you know, a thousand dollars because usually these are like lifelong relationships, you know, even half of 120 is 60 people. That's like $60,000 worth of relationships. So of course, there's going to be existing patients there. Typically, it's only 20% of their money, new patients. So you have to, you know, do all the math to figure out all of this stuff out. The other thing is how many people are calling you? Because again, Google knows when somebody presses that phone number on the Google my business page. And it'll tell you, okay, this month you got 75 calls or 89 calls from the Google my business page. So these are the three big stats. And this is like the most successful veterinary practice owners, they don't try to become marketing experts, but they know what's important to pay attention to. So they are paying attention to how many people are seeing me on Google. They are paying attention to how many people are looking at driving directions.

Host: And they are paying attention to how many calls are coming in. And what they are trying to do is with their marketing company. They are trying to make sure these numbers continue to grow and stay up. So that's, that's, I guess, you know, three of the metrics that I would strongly recommend that you pay attention to. Excellent. So how do you leverage this data onto your website? How do you use Google reviews on your website? Yeah. So the way you use Google reviews on your website is, you know, Google has something called, again, I'm getting technical like it. Google has something called Google Eat. And Google has six things you have to do to, and you have to ace these six things. Just like that, you know, veterinary school example, we have to ace 506 things. You have to ace every one of these six things for you to get into the top five percent to both get traffic from a CEO and from Google Maps. And one of those six things that impact how you well you do what a CEO and on Google Maps is called Google Eat. And he stands for expertise, A4 authority, T for trust. So T for trust, you have to somehow embed those reviews on the relevant pages. So people are talking about vaccinations, perhaps there's a person who talked about vaccinations in their review. You need to embed that review on your vaccination page. So that'll increase your chances of ranking for those types of keywords.

Host: So again, today, it's not just a single keyword to do with vaccination. There might be 30 different limitations and combinations of keywords. Like, you know, dog vaccine near me and dog vaccine zip code and you know, you name it. So whatever they type in, you show up both organically and on the maps, but the one of the ways to show up is you don't just get the reviews, but then you know how to embed those reviews on the relevant page on your website. And then I said they all interconnected. So this is what I mean, like you need one company who knows all of this, we're putting the hours in to kind of make all of these dots. So that's the secret. Excellent. Well, I've really enjoyed this conversation. If a practice wants to learn more, how can that practice learn more? Absolutely. So I mean, this is the new year. So we're going to gift what we call a marketing strategy meeting to you. So it's it's a no cost meeting typically. We charge around $900 for it. And prior to the meeting, our team will look at are you in that top 5% of Google, my business as well as Google SEO. If you are, keep doing what you're doing. If you are not, remember, you will get very, very, very little traffic or benefit from Google. So if you're not in the top 5%, we'll also tell you why. Okay, here are the six things Google cares about. How are you doing on those six things?

Host: Where are you getting a name? Where are you getting a B? Where are you getting a C? And again, it's specific to your practice. Our team will spend six hours figuring all of this stuff out and they'll give you a great on all these six things. And not only that, then they'll give you a plan. So it doesn't matter whether you're getting a C here and a D there. How can you turn it around in a 12 month period? One other goals you need to set. And of course, that's our gift to you. It's called the marketing strategy meeting. It's EKW8.com, power slash MSM, MSM for marketing strategy meeting, EKW8.com, power slash MSM. We'll put a link, I think, on the show notes, so you can also go there and click on it. You know, take advantage of it because if you don't know where you start and you don't have a plan, you can't even take action, right? First step is knowing where you stand and coming up with the plan. So work on it, get that plan. And then, you know, make 2024 your best year by attracting people who are looking for quality veterinary practices, who have wonderful Google reviews, who are doing excellent work. The only thing is just because you have three little reviews, but if people are not finding you, who cares, right? It's like you're the best vet in town,

Host: but nobody knows you're the best vet in town because you're not showing up on Google searches. So I think you need both. So Google reviews is great, but it's almost like state table stakes. It alone is not enough, at least in 2024. Thank you so much, Naren. I really appreciate that as a practicing veterinarian. This has given me a lot of insight into what options and opportunities are available within veterinary practices. Again, thank you so much for joining us today and talking to us about simple guide to getting more five star Google reviews than any other practice in your community. We appreciate it so much and really thank you for your time. I also want to take a moment to thank our listeners. We appreciate each and every one of you. We cannot do what we do without you. If you like our podcast, kindly share it with your colleagues and friends on social media. Also, please don't forget to leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. We've been talking about reviews this whole time. Feel free to leave us a five star review.

Host: Your reviews will help other veterinarians and practice owners find us. And until next time, keep striving for excellence and making a positive impact in the lives of your patients and pet parents. We're wishing you an amazing week and a very happy 2024.