#1169 Reputation
A Reminder: My new podcast, Selling in the Age of AI, is live. This week's episode features the fantastic Rick Trobeman of DLL Bank. Rick shares a lot of wisdom you won't want to miss. Selling in the Age of AI is available wherever you listen to podcasts.
Now for this week: Reputation
If you ask people if reputation matters, most will say yes. But I wonder how many understand that our reputation is constantly being deployed ahead of us, either creating opportunities or leaving us stagnating, wondering why opportunities fail to knock on our doors.
In a simple example, when my son-in-law asks me if I know a good landscaper, I tell him to stay away from Green Today, who showed up at my place late, charged too much, and thought hedge trimming included cutting the nascent blooms off Deb's hydrangeas. (She schooled them SEVERELY)
If, on the other hand, he asks for a good plumber, I text him and Al, the plumber, instantly and then call him to insist he use Al. Al has always been on time, skilled, and reasonable. In other words, Al does the thing that defines his reputation for me. He does what he said he'd do when he said he'd do it, and he does it with pride.
That's a straightforward example of being asked for a recommendation, but what about more esoteric opportunities? How many pieces of business do people miss because they are overlooked and not included?
Let's say you have a commercial electrical contracting business. Let's imagine a new building is going up in your area. You know nothing about the project, and the GC has invited some of your competitors to bid. You will go through life not knowing that an opportunity went to someone else. You don't know you lost it because you didn't know it was out there.
Now, let's imagine you have an amazing reputation in that area. You are so skilled, personable, dependable, and reasonable that the alarm companies, masons, plumbers, and designers have all loved working with you on past projects. If the GC invited any of them to bid on the unknown project we just imagined, they would tell the GC to get you to do the wiring. You've unwittingly deployed your reputation as a strategic asset with zero marketing effort by you.
Whenever you collaborate on a project, you are either impressive, difficult, or unnoticed. Every time you render your services for another, they leave with an opinion. If that opinion is strong enough, in either direction, they will remember and mention you.
Look at Google ratings or the stars on Amazon. It is exactly like that in your field, even when it isn't published on social media. People like to recommend five-star experiences even when they aren't asked.
They double down on that unsolicited advice with one-star experiences.
Think of your reputation as a pop-up ad that splashes across the screens of not only your prospects but also all of the other vendors your prospect engages with. Design it intentionally to convey what you want people to think about you. If you don't, it will design itself by virtue of the way you move through the world, and the outcome will help you, hinder you, or leave you struggling daily to find your piece of the pie.
Own Your Sales Gene…