Professional Reputation
A small business can create a reputation as being the best rather than the biggest, and an individual can rise the noise to become known as the person to ask on a specific topic. The world of commerce is awash with tales of individuals who made their riches or dominated the market purely through establishing their professional reputation and expertise within their niche.
There can be multiple sides to your professional reputation, and you need to pick your angle, and develop your professional reputation appropriately – depending on the nature of your business, it may pay to be perceived as an innovator, or you may want to create your rep around a single area of knowledge & experience.
So, how can you look at developing your Professional Reputation?
Be reliable. Colleagues and customers like to know what they’re getting when they work with you, so ensure they know that they can count you. it just takes is a single person doubting your commitment, or questioning your timekeeping, and it could take you months to reestablish your professional reputation.
Risks and responsibility. You’re unlikely to climb to the top if you never take any risks: to stand out you need to put yourself out there. But pick your time, weigh up the risk and – if things don’t work out – take responsibility. You’ll develop some kudos just for trying.
Network. Who do you know and how can they help you? Establish contacts and build friendships. And be sure to utilise online tools to help you out: LinkedIn, for example, could save you days of ‘asking around’.
Demonstrate your knowledge. Let people see that you’re experienced on a topic and that your peers respect your opinion. Platforms such as Deskarma enable you to show your knowledge and to establish a peer rating that demonstrates other peers respect you. Nothing reflects better on your professional reputation than peers’ appreciation of your value-add.
Commitment. If you want to genuinely succeed then you need to be constantly devoted to your cause. You need to be at all meetings (and contributing), putting in those few extra calls to squeeze all you possibly can from a campaign, and staying in the office until the job’s done. There are no short cuts to commitment – the 3 day weeks and golf course conferences come after you’ve put in the legwork!
There aren’t many aspects of business where you actually can compete, but professional reputation is one. Establish your professional reputation (and then maintain it like the ‘brand’ that it is), is an essential aspect of securing a career.
