News from the upside!
Welcome to The Upside, your destination for uplifting stories and positive news from around the country. In a world often filled with challenging headlines, we aim to bring a refreshing perspective by celebrating the inspiring moments, acts of kindness, and achievements that showcase the best of New Zealand. From heartwarming community efforts to breakthrough innovations,The Upside is dedicated to spreading optimism and highlighting the bright side of life. Let’s shine a light on the good happening all around us!
Growing your own food – win win!
I grew up in a New Zealand where practically every home had a garden that supplied a healthy and consistent crop of fruit and vegetables. Gardening was not a hobby but an accepted necessity and now as we find ourselves subject to the financial squeeze brought on by...
Processing criticism leads to productive outcomes, if handled properly
We've all experienced criticism, it's part and parcel of human interaction but it's worth noting that there are stages of processing that feedback and how it is a journey toward resolution and something more valuable - acceptance. A recent article by Esther Bintliff...
Stay safe when shopping online
Online shopping is not even the new normal - it's just the normal. The past few years of the Covid pandemic has further increased consumer online spending to the degree whereby consumer behaviour has radically shifted. That means it pays to heed a few tips and...
Plasterboard supply chaos easing
The plasterboard supply debacle that has hindered the building industry and caused needless delays is slowly dissipating, signalling good news for Kiwi builders and consumers. As reported by Nicholas Pointon in RNZ this week, "The plasterboard shortage has eased...
Things to do to spruce up your house this Spring
Sure, it's been snowing where it usually doesn't this time of the year but it's Spring - the time to pay some attention to your home, inside and out. With the weekends hopefully warning up, there will be time to take care of small and large jobs that'll have your...
Want the best painting results? Check the weather
Painting the exterior of your home is a necessary investment that protects and enhances your most valuable asset. Before you even consider commissioning a painting professional to get the project started, do a bit of due diligence and consider the best time of the...
Tough conditions require a little patience
Currently things are really, really tough for a lot of trades around the country and despite a building boom, significant factors and stressors have created a set of extremely difficult conditions. Business owners are under considerable strain and homeowners and...
Turn that downside upside down
Petrol prices, groceries, interest rates, and inflation are all on the rise, practically everywhere in the world, and in New Zealand we have the added frustration of a scarcity of essential building supplies to satisfy what is touted as a 'building boom'. All the...
NoCowboys’ points of difference
To have pioneered online reviews in New Zealand and to have kept in step with an ever changing digital landscape for over 16 years is no mean feat. That we continue to evolve and grow Kiwi businesses online as well as offering the best information to consumers, isn't...
When times are tough – reputation is essential
One need only glance at whichever news platform you prefer to know that we are currently in difficult times. Inflation and interest rates are rising, consumer prices for essentials are increasing and despite the government reducing fuel taxes, the cost of fuel keeps...
Thumbs up, thumbs down? No thanks
There's a few review platforms out there aiming to deliver the benefits of online reviews for businesses but failing as they do not actually focus on the key, as well as tangential benefits, of online consumer reviews. In essence they send out a message to customers...
Lack of real oversight when it come to reviews
I have a friend who runs a business - a financial advisor and accountant, whose services I use. She told me a story recently about a mysterious phone call she received a few months ago from someone she knew was an ex-employer who resented her leaving his business and...
Reviews, the far more powerful endorsement
In my last piece I wrote about branding and reviews and since then I've had the opportunity to talk with colleagues and think further on the subject and realised I had missed another feature of traditional branding that is trumped by authenticated online reviews -...
Small steps to increase profitability
Businesses are always looking for ways to increase profit and in this series we will be offering some tips on ways to do exactly that - without having to invest much at all. These pointers involve doing little things, that will steadily grow the bottom line. How to...
Feeling gravity’s pull – the power of online reviews
Push and pull - the connection between a business and its hoped for customers. What fills the gap? What drives one toward the other? What are the most effective and easiest ways to ensure customers are actively drawn toward a business as opposed to being reached out...
Vector has a way to go to restore its reputation after storm disables network
It was either Oscar Wilde or Donald Trump who said you never really appreciate a thing until it’s gone. For the past week, over half of Auckland's homes have had their power supply disrupted by a vicious storm that hit the region for six. A lot of people got to...
It takes real leadership to protect reputations
Reputations are organic and fluid. They can be made, unmade, and made again. But it takes real leadership in a crisis to make or break a reputation. A great case in point is the recent Australian cricket cheating scandal. Even if you don't know much about the...
Customer reviews – invaluable market research for every business
Customers are everything to a business. Not only do they generate revenue - happy customers will keep coming back and create a growing customer base through word-of-mouth and by contributing online reviews. But those reviews are far more than just markers of...
Protecting a reputation is all about honesty and transparency
If ever we needed guidance on how to deal with a reputation crisis, KFC's marketing department in the UK recently delivered an ingenious response to a potentially damaging logistics failure, that left many of KFC's 870 restaurants without their key ingredient -...
Online reviews go hand in hand with the evolution of the internet
It is worth remembering just how much the internet has changed how we do business and has radically altered consumer behaviour. Knowing how much it has revolutionised interactions and exchanges is key to increasing business and understanding consumers. Not so long ago...
Preparation is key to keep your home safe in bad weather
Kiwi summers aren't just about long periods of hot weather - because we are in the South Pacific, we are also susceptible to tropical storms. Whenever there are warnings of the possibility of severe weather events, it makes good sense to be prepared. Some great tips...
Taking control of a negative online reputation
A negative online reputation cannot be ignored. While a good reputation will attract customers and establish a business' future through boom times and bust, a bad reputation will do nothing but harm. But there is nothing to stop a business owner avoiding any future...
What are consumers biggest complaints?
In business it's critical to build a customer base while holding on to existing ones. Knowing what consumers are looking for in every transaction is a vital part of ensuring your business stays healthy and thrives. The most successful businesses do a number of things...
What’s the point of authenticating online reviews?
So here you are – you’ve just had a business finish up a job for you, and they’ve asked you to leave them a review on NoCowboys. You have a spare minute to do so, and the feedback will be beneficial to both the business and future consumers, so why not? You enter your...
How online reviews help increase SEO
Some people think of it as the holly grail, some people know all the ways of making the most of it, and some people don't really understand it at all, but SEO - (Search Engine Optimisation) is not overly difficult to comprehend and there are lots of ways that you can...
Taking care of your house in the summer
If you want to make sure that your house in is in the best condition possible, then every season there are particular things that need your attention and summer is no different. We've trawled through a number of excellent articles online you give you some fantastic...
Stay in control by encouraging feedback for your business
When 97 percent of consumers are going online to find reviews before even considering contacting a business you want to make sure that you have a review strategy in place - and there are more benefits than you could imagine. Often business owners think that they have...
How to spot fake consumer reviews
In life and business, indeed in everything we do, trust is a valued and desired commodity. Now that reviews are part and parcel of consumer choice online, it's worth knowing that not all reviews are the same and that some sites do not monitor or remove suspect and...
Top tips for getting the most out of your summer garden
Summer is a fantastic time for gardens - fruit trees bursting with sweet, juicy nectarines, peaches and apples, the vege garden and vines filled with seasonal produce. It's the best time of the year for being in the garden too - sitting on the deck with an umbrella...
The 5 best ways to get your business seen online for 2018
Every business wants to be seen where everyone is looking – that’s been the basis of marketing since shop owners in ancient Greece and Rome daubed messages about their businesses on what were the equivalent of modern day billboards. Even back then – word of mouth was...
Some great tips for New Year resolutions
Human beings are always changing, striving, seeking to improve and adapt. It's part of our DNA. Like Christmas, New Year is rife with traditions and one of the greatest is creating resolutions to meet the upcoming year head on. With origins stretching back to the...
Keep your home safe and secure while you’re on holiday
Christmas and New Year are the main holiday times for Kiwis - going camping, road tripping, visiting family and friends, or travelling overseas - but it's also the time when we leave our homes unattended. With a little bit of attention and effort, it's possible to...
Word of mouth isn’t enough if you don’t have online reviews
Back in the day we put a listing in the Yellow Pages, chucked the odd flyer through letterboxes and relied on satisfied customers spreading the good message through word of mouth. That was fine then because that was before the internet exploded and became a necessity...
The Kiwi Christmas tree
We may not get snow and a roaring fire like those in the Northern Hemisphere but a Christmas at the height of summer is made all the better by the Kiwi Christmas tree in bloom. We are blessed with so many beautiful and majestic native tress but the Pohutukawa is a...
A few tips on how to look after your Christmas tree
One of the best things about Christmas is a beautiful tree adorned with decorations but it's worth knowing that trees - real and fake - can also be a fire hazard. There's also a few ways of ensuring a tree lasts longer and is in tip -top condition. Here's a few tips...
Reviews tell a story – don’t just look at the numbers
Authenticated reviews are a consumer's best friend when it comes to peace of mind about contacting a business, or not! But it's important to read them and look out for some tell tale signs - here's a few tips. Reviews tell the story of a business - don't just read the...
A further word of warning about scammers
Everybody knows about scammers, fakers, peddlers, and fraudsters. Unfortunately, it's a common feature of the internet. But it's easy to spot and always best to go with your first instinct - if it's suspect - it is. For over a year NoCowboys customers have been...
Increasing the value of your reputation with video reviews
Online consumer reviews can make or break a business. Transparency and immediacy means that consumers want to see reviews before they will make contact with a business. No reviews? Lost customers, and no business can survive if they are not actively marketing...
Consumers are looking for online reviews more than ever before
The latest research by BrightLocal says that more than ever consumers are actively seeking online reviews before deciding which business to contact. The research establishes just how essential an online reputation is for every business, big or small. Since 2011 the...
Why is owning your business name online essential?
Many businesses spend a lot of money on AdWords to try to gain an edge over their competitors and fail to do the one thing that is of even greater value – owning their own business name on Google. Sometimes it’s a good idea to step back and realise that the ways...
How to make your reviews even more valuable
Reviews left by consumers are of great value to your business – they build trust, create transparency, and cement the power of your reputation online to maintain and advance your future well-being. When 90 percent of online visitors are driven to find reviews before...
Buying fake reviews is a costly mistake
As the acceptance of the value of online reviews increases for all businesses, opportunities arise for fraudulent vendors to reach out to business owners soliciting fake reviews, promising big returns for little capital outlay. The return is actually untold damage to...
Reviews, reviews, reviews – which ones are worth the most to your business?
The whole point of a solid reputation online is that it is transparent and believable to the consumers reading reviews about your business. If a consumer doubts their validity – then they are worth nothing. Recently the New Zealand Herald published a story about a...
Size isn’t everything – why recent reviews are so important
Recently a high profile Kiwi TV personality went public about a dissatisfying experience with a tradie he had found online. He said he was attracted by the number of positive reviews in making his choice but there was a huge factor that went ignored in the process -...
Why it is never too late to market your business’ reputation online
I get to hear a lot of questions about online reputation marketing and I expect to. It makes sense. While online reviews have been around for over a decade, the power they can have for businesses is only now being seen as essential. So I take it for granted that I’ll...
Cash jobs can be more than you bargained for . . .
It may seem like a good idea – get yourself a deal and do a tradie a favour - but cash jobs are never that smart and the outcomes can be disastrous. "Reputation is the one thing that smart and organised tradies take seriously . . ." There’s a saying about taxes –...
Won’t get fooled – tradie exposes scammers and wins
One of the drawbacks of life online is being open to scammers. There are countless people out there who will try every angle to get us to either fall for a ploy or pay for a product or service that may, at first glance, look genuine. For over a year now businesses...
Keeping the cowboys in the corral
Do you check recent reviews on businesses before you use them? A recent story in the Kiwi press highlights again just how valuable reviews are... These days it's critical to spend a bit of time choosing the right tradie or service provider online before you pick up...