Category: Reputations

Profile of a Leader: Susan McGalla

by UPF

Susan  McGalla is a woman, mother, wife, and a businessperson. Presently based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she was born and raised with two brothers in East Liverpool, Ohio. She also received a bachelor’s degree in business and marketing while attending Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio. As a young woman, McGalla didn’t stop there.

From 1986 to 1994, she worked for the department store retail sector of Joseph Horne Company and spent time working in various merchandising and management positions. Having made a name for herself, she then joined American Eagle and held various management positions until she became President and Chief Merchandising Officer. As the CMO, she was responsible for business development, design, marketing, revenues, and performance. During her time with American Eagle, the company earned revenues of up to $3 billion. McGalla was able to expand American Eagle Outfitter Inc.’s portfolio from one brand to four brands, earning a net income of $400 million with more than a thousand stores and 28,000 employees.

After her successful stint in her management and leadership positions, Susan McGalla on bizjournals decided to be an independent consultant for the retail industry by 2009. McGalla’s expert consultation to clients on branding, marketing and talent management, operational efficiencies, and more, allowed her to found the P3 Executive Consulting, LLC which offers an insider’s perspective to clients for the specialty retail industry.

Throughout that time, McGalla served as Chairman of the American Eagle Foundation and has been a director of HFF, Inc., and HFF Holdings, LLC since October of 2009. She also finds time to give back to the community. Together with her husband, Steve McGalla, who is in wealth management, she chaired the largest grossing annual philanthropic event, the Hillman Cancer Center, in support of the Pittsburgh Cancer Institute.

She spends time seeking to inspire young women who are looking for a career in business by serving a speaker for various womens organizations whose goals is to promote and encourage women from all over the world to achieve their dreams and goals. McGalla often shares to her audiences that higher education will give them an edge over their peers in the workplace, men or women. She also stresses that perseverance and hard work along with improving skills will give women recognition and success especially in a skill-dependent economy. Her own path to success, which took many years, was filled with a determination to succeed and the cost of education can be offset with scholarships and financial grants.

Never one to comfortably hide behind gender stereotypes, McGalla, whose father was a local football coach, who is now employed with the National Football League’s Pittsburgh Steelers. Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the Pittsburgh Steelers is a professional American football team and one of the oldest franchise teams in the American Football Conference.

I Wouldn’t Choose Any Other Company Except FreedomPop

by UPF

The reason I switched to FreedomPop is because I started realizing that I was being overcharged for the services I was using on a daily basis. Although I use my Internet service almost every day, I didn’t want to pay such a high amount of money for the service. I decided that I would try and save as much money as possible, but I didn’t know how it was going to do that. My current Internet company was charging me $75 a month for the service, but I wasn’t getting anything else, not even wifi.

I decided that I would look around for other Internet service providers, and I came across FreedomPop by accident. It turns out that FreedomPop allows its customers to get free Internet and cell phone service if they want it, as long as they stay within a certain plan. It sounded way too good to be true, so I did some more research. After I visited the website for the company, I realize that everything is exactly what they said. I wasted no time in signing up for the FreedomPop services, and within the same week, I had Internet service in my home.

The best thing about the Internet service is that it comes with its own wifi. I can’t believe I was paying $75 a month to another company that didn’t even give me wifi in my home. I have a laptop that I rarely used, because I couldn’t get Internet on it, without going through a lot of set up. I now can hook up my laptop to the wifi in my home, and I can use both my computer and laptop simultaneously. Another thing I love is the price, which is free at this point.

If I need additional data on my Internet service plan, then I can purchase it for such a low rate that my previous Internet provider would be ashamed of what they were charging me. For just a few dollars I could easily get more data from FreedomPop. The data cost is much lower than what some of these other service providers charge if I go over their data allotment. FreedomPop is a great service provider, and I’m grateful for the fact that I am able to get the Internet for free because it saves me a lot of money. FreedomPop is a great Internet service provider, and I plan to stick with them.

For more information on FreedomPop, check out the latest on TechCrunch.

Excelling in Online Reputation Management

by UPF

An overwhelming majority of consumers read online reviews to establish the quality of local businesses. A similar percentage of the consumers who are impressed by the positive online reviews of companies are lured into trusting the brands. You cannot please all the people all times but it is imperative to monitor the online public opinion about your business and manage it. The following the basic steps for online reputation management
Monitor Your Own Profile
You have to monitor your online reputation since there are propagandist and cut-throat competitors on the internet. You can notice the absence of a common industry review website from your list of referral traffic. You may notice a suddenly drop of your company reviews in a sites. If so, chances are that a negative review could have triggered the sudden traffic drop. Tools like ReviewPush enables multi-site monitoring with notifications and email alerts to always update you with your online reviews.
Monitor Industry Review Sites
Monitoring your company reviews on search engines only is not enough. You need to narrow down your search to specific sites and the social media. When searching for online companies, you should include specific recommendation since there are an ocean of products and services available on the internet.
Responding Without Confrontation
Negative online reviews are inevitable but what matters is how you handle them. The best approach to address negative reviews is through an instant online response that asks the maligning reviewer to get in touch with you at their convenience. When the reviewer gets in touch, you can solve the issue offline or privately. One should also be sensitive with his or her response tone.
Incentivizing Satisfied Reviewers
Most clients who are satisfied with a product never post their reviews. It is the aggravated clients who are more like to vent their anger on the internet. You can consolidate your position by targeting your best clients and incentivize them. The incentives can be in form of service discounts or free products.
Darius Fisher is a British entrepreneur, film producer, filmmaker and visual effects engineer. He is well known for his award-winning films like Bhutto, Fuel, The Aviator, The Big Fix and Avatar. Fisher is the founder of Digital Neural Axis and President of Status Labs. Status Labs is a leading online reputation management, public relations and digital marketing firm. Status Labs has offices in New York, Austin and Sao Paulo.