Doing Business In the "Culture Of Victimization"

A growing undercurrent online is producing a wave of unreasonable demands which are very unhealthy to the overall marketplace, IMO.

The syndrome begins with a bizarre sense of entitlement exhibited by a customer or prospect and almost inevitably winds up with the words "rip-off", "scam", and the emotionally charged favorite, "victim" being hurled around and posted all over the web.

It truly IS a "Culture of Victimization" at work, and it is aggregated, propped up, radicalized and turbocharged by the unprecedented monetization of consumer advocacy.

Profiteering under the guise of "protecting consumers" is the scammiest scam of all time, and yet it flies right under the radar of righteous indignation every time.

No one likes being taken advantage of. Especially when you put so much trust in others to do the right thing...

Right now, you might think I was referring to consumers above - WRONG...

I was talking about business owners, entrepreneurs, and marketers who are falsely and maliciously targeted with concerted public smear campaigns with the singular purpose of damaging their reputation combined with coordinated complaint sprees to regulatory agency and consumer groups - all because some customer goes bonkers.

It's a very, very serious problem.

At best, a business attacked in this way has 2 options, neither of which are good:

1) Ignore or purge, then maintain an ongoing damage control process
2) Litigate and spend a bunch of money you'll never recover because a turnip yields no blood.

Brand & Reputation Management have never been so crucial because the cavalry is NOT coming...