Negative reviews are devastating. They show up on Google or Yelp, and they do tremendous psychic harm. When it happens to our firm, I’m personally devastated. It’s horrible.

I hate negative reviews.

It’s more than the damage it does to our practice when others read it and choose to hire someone else. That’s horrible enough.

It’s knowing we didn’t live up to the expectations of our client. That’s crushing.

Sure, it’s not our fault.

They’re crazy or irrational or impossible to please. Sure, there was nothing we could have done to make them happy.

But after we’ve done all the rationalizing, they still think we’re terrible.

We don’t want to be thought of as terrible by our clients. I want us to be loved and respected, and I want clients to walk away pleased with the work we did and the value we delivered.

I want our clients to tell their friends we were amazing. I want to be the hero in their stories.

Leaving someone angry, upset, or in any way dissatisfied is not what we’re about. It’s not what I’m about, and I know that everyone on our team wants to please our clients. We want to deliver more than they ever expected.

I really hate negative reviews.

Unfortunately, there’s little to be done to salve the wounds we suffer from the criticism. There’s little I can do to feel better about having failed to leave our client pleased with our effort.

All I can do, and I do have to do it sometimes, is to remind myself of something that’s easy to forget. It’s especially easy to forget when I’m feeling beaten down by defeat.

I remember that it could be worse.

There’s a fate worse than being criticized, attacked, and mauled by the unhappy.

There’s a fate worse than being taken to task by someone we disappointed.

The alternative is safer. It’s more comfortable. The alternative is so much worse.

We could be ignored.