The Internet has revolutionized the way we operate in life, work, and recreation.  Small companies can efficiently serve national or global customers real-time, meeting their needs and fulfilling their demands.  While this convenience is mostly positive in the eyes of a business owner, it can also come with some hefty negatives.  Case in point, online reputation.  A trend called “online reputation monitoring”, which began to get noticed back in 2005 is gaining steam as companies seek to manage their brand’s integrity and reputation amongst the thralls of blogs, message boards, forums and what’s known as “user generated content”.  So this begs to question, what is your reputation worth when you are planning on appraising and then selling your business?

Potential buyers will conduct extensive due diligence in a quest to find the skeletons in your closet.  After all, they dont want to buy your liabilities or the problems you have created.  The Wall Street Journal has a great article on reputation monitoring and reports on the threats this can pose and how to minimize your exposure.

Some examples of user generated content and a company’s positive/negative reputation include voting vehicles such as City Search, Google Groups, MySpace, Facebook and millions of blogs.  Our 1st amendment right is preserved in these online outlets, but slander and defamation can legally be stopped.  There is a fine line in someone’s opinion.  Go into a search engine, Google suggested, and search for your company’s name.  What do you find?  Are negative results on the first page of results?  If so, you may wish to seek out solutions or attempt to optimize your website or start a blog, to push those results to the second page.  Business buyer’s will be wary if they search your name and see negatives from customers……..while these negatives may be unwarranted, they do greatly influence buying decisions.

Take control of your future and react to negative buzz about your business.