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Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production

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of iHeartRadio. Good

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Morning, This is Laura.

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Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

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Today's tip is to write

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a review. If

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you have a special small business in your

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life, your positive

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reviews really can make a difference.

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So take two minutes to write one

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and you will help that business out a

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lot. Given

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how prevalent online reviews are these

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days, it is hard to believe

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that thirty years ago they just weren't

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a thing. If you wanted

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to find a good pizza place near you,

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you had to ask people, read

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reviews in local newspapers or magazines

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if you could find them, or look in

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the phone book to see the advertisements

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and just guess based on the menus and such

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what you would think. Now,

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of course, anyone under the sun can

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review anything, and

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that is great in some ways, but

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it also gives the cranky folks

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among us quite a lot of power.

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That's because most people don't

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bother to write reviews. We're

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busy. Even if we liked

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a restaurant, or a hair salon or a retail

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store, we are unlikely

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to sit down at our computers and formulate

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a review. And if we are

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modestly unhappy, we

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tend not to write a review saying that either. I

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can see this in the statistics for let's

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say a show like this one with

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more than a million downloads every month, only

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a few people leave reviews on

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the major podcast sites. That

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is just the way life works. But

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the fact that most people don't write

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reviews can wind up being

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a problem given that nuh

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thing moves people to action like

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anger. So if

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your really great local pizza

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place has an off night, running

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short on certain items, or if maybe too

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many staff members have called out sick,

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you can get a one star review, staying

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as the most prominent one on Yelp

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or other places for a long

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time for months.

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When people look for a pizza place, they

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are going to see that one star

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review. Now, I am

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not saying the restaurant didn't deserve

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a one star review for that person's experience.

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The problem is context.

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That is far from the only experience

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people have at that particular restaurant. It

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is just that the vast majority of people

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don't write reviews. But

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if anyone can write reviews,

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then you can become the sort of person who

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writes reviews. So

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why not take a few minutes to write

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positive reviews for the small businesses

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in your life. If

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you eat somewhere frequently, you

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obviously like it enough to be a

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repeat customer. So

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take a few minutes and write a review saying

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that It really doesn't

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have to be elaborate. You

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can just say something like I order

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from here every Tuesday. I

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especially love the chicken enchiladas and

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the salsa is always great. Or

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if you shop at a local boutique right great

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selection and owner Casey

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is always friendly and helpful, highly

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recommended. When you are looking for a special outfit,

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just write it and post it. That's

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really all there is to it. Then,

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when people are looking for a Mexican

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restaurant or a special occasion boutique,

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your review will appear alongside

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whatever random or cranky person got

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inspired to write by something going wrong.

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You just might get it's someone else to

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try out one of your favorite spots.

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Lots of small businesses could use the

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business. This is

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a great way to support them

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in the meantime. This is Laura.

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Thanks for listening, and here's

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to making the most of our time.

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Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you.

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You can send me your tips, your questions or

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anything else, Just connect with

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me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram

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at Before Breakfast Pod. That's

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b the number four then

4:41

Breakfast pod. You

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can also shoot me an email at Before

4:46

Breakfast Podcasts at iHeartMedia

4:48

dot com that before Breakfast is spelled

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out with all the letters. Thanks so much,

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should I look forward to staying in touch. Before

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Breakfast is a production of iHeartRadio.

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