Keller on Letting It Go

 

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

– Helen Keller (1880–1968)
American humanitarian
Advocate for the deaf and blind

 

What are the most common “drag you down, get in the way of success” thoughts?

  • Defeatist (accepting, expecting, or being resigned to defeat)
  • Cynical (contemptuously distrustful of human nature and motives)
  • Vindictive (seeking revenge)
  • Blame/ Fault (who cares? what are we going to do now?)
  • Wishful (do what you can to influence the deal and keep moving)

Google Places: The contexts in the English language

Bad is a word that is used in many contexts in the English language. It can mean anything from terrible to awesome used by iteslf and there are many phrases that integrate the word for totally different meaning altogether. Bad boy, bad ass and a bad taste to note a few. This is particularly true with hair. A “bad hair day” for example has been elevated to the level of cliche for getting the day off on the wrong foot.

Bad hair salon NY search

Now add to this linguistic mishegas the fact that Google is possibly doing keyword to category mapping.

In this process Google is apparently indexing keywords associated with a citation, mapping those keyword to their appropriate category and if there is enough searcher intent, showing 7-Pack or Blended results on those adhoc keyword related categories.

In the hair salon business this combination of linguistic “nuances” and keyword mapping leads to unintended outcomes. If you search on Bad Hair Salon NY, NY, which is unambiguous for most of us, it shows a seven pack and a ton of salons in Manhatten that are “bad”.

In that pack, I chose the first highly rated salon on that search, the Salon V, a 4.5 star rated establishment, to see exactly why it was so “bad”, why it showed in the results….When you further refine the search “Salon V” Bad hair NYC you see the types of ambiguous statements showing in the search results that may have lead to the results:

After 2 “bad hair” days I was ready to give up b. ..

I ended up running back to Salon V to correct a very bad highlight job.  I’ve had my haircut at many places in NYC, LA, and SF, but Salon V is definetly the best. 

THANKYOU CAROLEENA AT SALON V!!!!! So….I’ve had multiple bad hair salon …. A gem in NYC! Hawaii lost one of its treasures when Vernelle moved away a few 

Salon V of Fairfield, CT – Take advantage of the quality services, convenient location  went to Salon V for the first time (after several bad cuts at another salon) and I got a 

The take aways?

Review content, whether via Google’s keyword to category mapping or some other mechanism, can influence search results.

Monitoring search results for these types of negative top ranking search results in your market is probably worthwhile. This certainly opens up new areas for defensive reputation management of your listing and business.

Arden on Impossible People

 

“I only want people around me who can do the impossible.

–Elizabeth Arden (1878–1966)

Canadian businesswoman, style mogul

What if…

John and Abigail Adams had been more concerned with themselves and work/life balance than creating a democracy?

What if… Abraham Lincoln had quit trying after having a business go under and losing his first local legislative race (and then 3 congressional races and 2 senatorial races)?

What if… Martin Luther King didn’t have a dream and played it safe (and didn’t travel over 6 million miles giving more than 2500 speeches). What if he thought he was too young to have an impact (he did everything he did in a life of only 39 years)?

What if… Gandhi, Teresa, Roosevelt, Ford, Disney, Walton, Gates, Winfrey, Jobs, Stewart, and Ash hadn’t stepped up and worked hard. (What if the thousands of people who supported them hadn’t?) What if your police, military, firefighters didn’t?

What if… No one pushed it, risked it, and pushed it again (and again)?

Be obligated to your world (your customers, your people).