A few weeks ago, I shared a story of “4 sites not to visit” because they all employed a company that utilized “comment spam” to increase their Google/SEO rankings.
Well, Ken and Sheena Walker of Greenbriar Designs provide a great example of what to do when your company’s reputation is on the line.
Let’s look at what Sheena did.
First, you own up to it.
Sheena gave me a call and explained the situation. She shared that she was a novice in web marketing and didn’t deny what had happened, but admitted to not being familiar with it beforehand. Her sincerity and authenticity were apparent.
Next, Fix It
Once she understood what was happening to her brand, she demanded a halt with the owner of the company that was spamming in what can only be described (as we used to say at Microsoft) as a “come to Jesus” meeting.
Then Ask, Don’t Demand
Now, I know what it takes to build a business and to have some blogger you don’t know write a post that portrays you in a negative light can be very frustrating. But Sheena didn’t lash out. She didn’t yell at me, nor demand that I take the post down.
She just asked “can you take it down now that we’ve made these changes?”
I told her I couldn’t take the post down because it was an important story, but that I would update the original post to reflect what they have done (which I did). Then, I decided to write this post as well to share the lesson and reflect their efforts.
The Takeaway
What happened to Sheena can (and will) happen to all of us. We make mistakes (either directly or via proxy—here’s my huge one). The important thing is to
- own up to what you did
- fix it
- ask for forgiveness and assistance from those who called you out on it
Kudos to Sheena and Ken for showing us how it should be done.
