Military spouse business owners shouldn’t have to start over online with every PCS
The views and opinion expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities mentioned.
Every few years, orders arrive, and a military family packs up. For spouses who run their own businesses, the move costs more than boxes and a security deposit. Many of them also lose something that took years to build: the online reputation that brought in customers.
Think about the spouse who runs a pet-sitting service, a cleaning business or a portrait studio. Most new customers find a business like that on Google. They search, they read the reviews, and they call the one with 40 good ones over the one with three. Those reviews are earned one customer at a time.
Then the family moves. Too often, the old business listing gets deleted or forgotten, and a new one starts from zero at the next duty station. The spouse is back to three reviews, competing against local companies that have never had to move.
It doesn’t have to work that way. A Google Business Profile can be updated when a business relocates. A business that serves customers at their homes can hide its street address and list the areas it serves instead. Reviews are attached to the business, not the house. With some planning before the move, a spouse can take that track record along.
A few habits make a real difference:
• Keep the same business name, website, and email from one duty station to the next, so customers and search engines see one business, not five. • Use a phone number that moves with you, not a local landline you’ll have to give up. • Update the business listing yourself when you move. Don’t delete it and start over. • Ask happy customers for reviews before you leave, while the work is fresh in their minds. • Keep before-and-after photos and customer stories on a website you own, not only on social media.
None of this is complicated. It just isn’t widely taught. Military spouse entrepreneurs get plenty of advice about business plans, licenses and funding, and that advice matters. But the reputation a spouse builds online is one of the few business assets that can survive a PCS intact, and it deserves a place on that list.
Military families already give up a lot when orders come. A spouse’s hard-earned customer reviews shouldn’t be one of those losses. Anyone who helps military spouses start businesses, from spouse employment programs to installation family centers to fellow spouses, can add this to the conversation: before you move, make sure your business moves with you.
Aaron Hurlburt is a Navy veteran and the owner of VSF Marketing, a small marketing firm in the Tampa Bay area that works with local service businesses.
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