If you are happy, tell a friend! If you are not happy, please tell ME!
It recently hit me how much of our time (and money) and ATTENTION is spent in the sharing of our feelings. It is just the way we are wired as humans. If you discover a new restaurant and you have a good (or bad) experience, you tell your friends. If you find a new 'shortcut' to work, you tell your co-workers. Book reviews, movie reviews. Who is old enough to remember getting Consumer Reports Magazine in the mail? It turns out that Consumer Reports is one of the most trusted sources for information and advice on consumer products and services, with more than 7 million paying members in 2025.
The likes on social media, the tweets (and the re-tweets). And of course, Yelp.com
Yelp is a website and mobile app that serves as a platform for local business reviews, ratings, and a social networking site. Users can find and evaluate businesses, submit reviews, and rate their experiences on a one to five-star scale. Businesses can also use Yelp to manage their listings, update information, and respond to reviews. It's the biggest source for restaurant reviews online, though you can find critiques of almost any public facing business you can think of. Business Ownership on Yelp is limited. Businesses cannot manage much on their Yelp profile. Reviews posted on Google Reviews are owned by the reviewers themselves. All they have to do is adhere to some community guidelines.
Why is Yelp controversial?
Yelp's sales tactics are borderline harassment.
In fact, over the years, Yelp has become the gold standard in terms of disturbing sales strategies that border harassment. Starting in 2020, Yelp upped the ante and started algorithmically sorting photos on business profiles. Yelp uses an automated algorithm to decide which reviews are "recommended" and which are not, primarily to filter out fake, biased, or unhelpful reviews. Reviews may be flagged as "not recommended" for various reasons, including being written by users who are not active on Yelp, by someone connected to the business, or if they lack sufficient detail or seem like a rant. Additionally, reviews may be flagged if they seem to have been solicited by the business. So, in 2025, the 'value' of a Yelp review is suspect.
Attention > Engagement > Adoption > Utilization
All sales, all marketing begins with ATTENTION. If I don't have your attention, I cannot sell you anything, I cannot teach you anything. So Job #1 is always to earn their ATTENTION. From there, you ask for the engagement. The call to action! The click, the call, the activity that the attention has teed up. But we need usage. We need ADOPTION. Insurance is a funny product, in that we pay for it with the hopes that we never need it. You must have insurance for your car, for your home. You might even need Cyber Insurance to protect your digital world. Ah, but do you have the RIGHT insurance, from the RIGHT carrier, in the RIGHT amount? And then lastly, utilization. Did that product | service | book | course do the job they were hired to do? Yes? Tell a friend. No? Hmmm... tell a friend. No matter what - good or bad - you will probably talk about it.
You can buy a simple video camera for your Zoom or GoTo or WebEx or Microsoft Teams (or...or...or...) service for around $99 on Amazon. Or, you can buy a Meeting Owl 4K+ for around $1,999. Over 20X the price - and some people will absolutely LOVE IT!
A review on Owl Labs from Dr. James Brown, the Chair of the Global Distance Learning Association seems to be valuable. I would put more weight behind such a review, than a post on Yelp or Google Reviews. Now, you might WANT a Meeting Owl, but you might not NEED a Meeting Owl. But if you NEED a Meeting Owl, if you need the results, the business outcome, the EXPERIENCE that a $1,999 Meeting Owl will deliver, then you already know that. You can feel it. Look at the pictures below. Can you FEEL yourself in that classroom, or meeting room?
No? Then you it won't matter what Dr. James Brown, Chair of the Global Distance Learning Association has to say. Ah, but if YES - if you can FEEL it, then the words and opinion of such an influencer is very valuable indeed. And you should www.GetMeetingOwl.com
See my signature below? Tell your friends to follow me!
.... but only if you are smiling right now.....