Treat your reputation as though it were the most important thing in your career. It is.
By Jim Logan • May 27th, 2007 • Category: Featured Leadership Post
There is nothing more important in business than your personal reputation. Your reputation is what people trust, believe in, and ultimately buy. Or not buy, dependent upon the reputation.
A reputation is what you're known for, what others believe you to be, and a reflection of the experience of having been in your presence. A great reputation earns respect and creates opportunity. A poor reputation chases everything good away. Stellar people and organizations don't want to be part of anything that's less than highly reputable and trustworthy.
You can't hide from a bad reputation. You can smile, act like everything is okay, treat people and conduct business as you should…for a while. But a bad reputation is always there and at the smallest slip is ready to haunt you again, only stronger than before because now you've proven your worst.
Once damaged, your reputation may never be rebuilt. It can be damaged three ways.
- Shoot yourself in the foot. First and foremost, you are responsible for your reputation. If you cheat, lie, steal, mislead, cross lines, avoid, hinder, gossip, are continuously late, careless, etc. then that is what you are. You shot yourself in the foot.
- Guilt by affiliation. If you work for a rotten company, the perception is likely you're rotten too. The thought process is if you were a quality person, you wouldn't work for such a rotten place. Perception is reality. Sad, but true.
- Guilt by association. Choose the people you associate with carefully and make sure they have the same character as yours. Why? Because you're known by those whose company you keep. Keep company with a crook…you're known as a crook.
Treat your reputation as though it were the most important thing in your career. It is.
What do you think?
Jim Logan is the founder of JS Logan, a B2B lead generation and sales acceleration company. Click Here and discover what makes JS Logan different from other B2B complex sales and marketing firms.
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Yeah, damaged reputations are difficult to deal with. Once trust is broken, it is hard to build up.
Here is a scenario:
If I owned a small business and I knew I made a mistake and my customer knew I made a mistake, the best thing for me to do is humble myself, apologize, make up 10 fold, and give them an offer to show them they are important. (At least those are the steps I think I would take).
But what if you begin working for a company and you encounter a customer who has been hurt by a minor let down?
If you don’t feel like you have complete permission to do anything you need in order to build that trust up, what then? What do you do?
Bob: There are countless scenarios that would elicit a different and more appropriate response…I can think of a few.
The first part of your scenario is common. I’m sure many people reading this would agree - chances are many of us have entered a new job or position and encountered a customer who felt let down by our company. Many jobs and positions become available because of such letdowns. I’ve had two such jobs.
In both cases, what I did was be direct with my “new” customer and tell them that whatever ill happened before my arrival was just that…an ill I didn’t have part in. And the thing to do now was focus on the future and move forward. I was never that curt, but in this little space that’s accurate.
In both cases I fixed whatever could be reasonably fixed to get the working relationship as level as possible moving forward. This is the part with a lot of variables….what if your company doesn’t give you the authority to fix an obvious wrong, doesn’t want to fix something you feel should be fixed, or doesn’t believe they’re in wrong? Now what do you do?
What I’d do is work with the customer to build trust: setting and meeting expectations, removing surprises, delivering bad news quickly, offering alternatives to solve problems jointly, and focus on larger solutions to put the immediate problems in perspective.
The variable and scenarios are many. Is there a specific scenario you’d like to discuss?
Bob - you ask a good question. You need to do what is within your authority. But if you don’t feel that’s enough, then either do more on your own (and risk trouble from your boss) or ask for the authority to do more.
I call it the “be a hero not a zero” tactic.
If you can’t do what the customer wants (or what you think is right) then tell the customer you’re going to take it “upstream” to try to get the okay. This way you show your customer you’re working for them not against them.
Even if your boss says “no” you still should gain some trust with your customer for trying. Do whatever you can to show them you’re on their side. This is the best way to build trust.
I think that your personal reputation is really going to affect your brand. If you don’t have a good reputation as a person, it’s going to be very difficult for your brand to have a good reputation.
Reputations are all important. However, I actually like focussing on my experience. What…I can hear you all say. Well, what I actually mean by this is what is the actual experience my Client feels / encounters when dealing with The Ideas Guy? Personally, I want it to be fun, valuable and worth telling others about. That’s why I add value to Clients relations beyond the work at hand…I’m proud of the fact that Clients love ringing me and asking where the best Pizza restaurant is in a certain part of town, what film they should rent tonight etc etc. All this builds on my reputation as a Marketing consultant of choice. Bye for now.