Building a Reputation that Precedes You 12 Simple, Yet Powerful Steps Oh, so you re Mike Thomas. I ve heard good things about you. You re the best trial lawyer in Los Angeles. There are few things in business that warm the heart more than when you learn that your reputation has preceded you. Having this minor celebrity status with your target audience gives you immediate credibility and a decided competitive edge. An average track record attached to a solid reputation beats a great track record with no reputation every time. Enjoying a reputation that precedes you only happens when enough great people say enough great things about you to enough great people. So how do we get this to happen? It s simple. Select your personal brand and then work tenaciously to build powerful brand equity. The Starting Point You will remember from our article The Power of the Personal Brand that a personal brand is the word or phrase you want others to think of when they think of you. For example, if you are a salesperson you may want to be known as a closer; if you re a financial advisor, trustworthy; a trial lawyer, a bulldog. The key is to decide for yourself what you want the word or phrase to be; if you don t, others will decide for you. Selecting the word or phrase is only the starting point. I know of one lawyer who declared himself, The finest products liability lawyer in the country. This bloke can claim this personal brand for himself all he wants, but without getting others to feel it his proclamations fall on deaf ears.
The emotional response your personal brand evokes is called personal brand equity. It is the residual emotional experience another takes away from an encounter with you. Just as you select your personal brand, you alone are responsible for creating personal brand equity. Why Personal Brand Equity Matters Powerful positive personal brand equity is extraordinarily valuable for three reasons: (1) it creates loyalty, (2) it absorbs fallout of errors, and (3) it compensates for skill deficiencies. I know of a real estate broker who had a long-standing personal/business relationship with the CEO of a particular company. This broker started having trouble with a new CFO who wanted to shop around to see what possible better broker options were out there. The CEO quickly put the kibosh on the CFO s strategy with a firm, We re using Tom. Move on to the next issue. Mistakes will be made. The more brand equity you have with someone the easier it is for that person to overlook or minimize a mistake. Lastly, talent does not always win in the end but popularity does. People will always do business with those they like even if others are more technically competent. You are better off polishing your skills until they are positively good and then turning your attention to building your brand until it is exceptional. The objective in building powerful personal brand equity is to create expectations because expectation creates reality. It s common sense. Suppose you were sitting on a jury and observing the lawyers at their tables in the courtroom and neither had said a word. The plaintiff lawyer was tall, fit, well-groomed and beautifully dressed in a blue suit, white shirt and powerful red tie while the defense lawyer was of medium
height, not particularly fit, poorly groomed and dressed in a blasé suit and tie. Who would you assume is the better lawyer? Fair? Probably not. Reality? Absolutely. The Twelve-Step Program of Personal Brand Equity Below are twelve proven strategies that I have personally observed and utilized to build powerful personal brand equity. I caution you against being underwhelmed by their simplicity. A very wise advertising director once gave me some very sage advice, Simple, good. Complex, bad. Track record You can t skip steps. You must have at least a respectable track record upon which to build a reputation. Get out there and rack up some good, solid wins. Look the part When people meet you for the first time they make up their mind about you, good or bad, in just one-quarter of one second. Before you open your mouth your fate could be sealed. Dress and groom yourself like a million bucks every single day, including Saturday and Sunday. Sound the part When people ask you what you do for a living, blow them away with a powerful 15-second commercial. You want them to instantly think, Wow! This guy s sharp! Maintain contact intentionally The average person needs to hear your message six to eight times to remember you. It s your responsibility to touch your key centers of influence in a way that reinforces the word or phrase you want them to associate with you. Christmas mailings and birthday cards, while nice, do little or nothing to reinforce the word or phrase you ve selected to describe you.
Build relationships with key hubs Hubs are those rare people who know lots of people whom you want to know, and when they speak to their peers on your behalf they give you instant credibility. Find them and cultivate the relationship assiduously. Promote! Promote! Promote! Position yourself as the expert by writing for periodicals and speaking at functions that reach your target audience. It s the expectation principle at work again. If they see your name in print or you on the dais, they automatically assume you are an expert. Be high-end Be willing to spend money. Host first-class events, donate generously to good causes and always pick up the tab first. Reputation is everything Ferociously guard your reputation. The Jews in the New York diamond district rarely use contracts when trading diamonds with one another. Instead, they acknowledge their agreement with a simple phrase, Mazel and Bracha, blessings and luck. A diamond trader who does anything to besmirch his reputation amongst colleagues is finished. Keep your eye on the ball Your private and public lives must be aligned. Create the expectation that you are too good to be true and then prove them wrong. Respect and honor your spouse. Love your children. Never give them something to talk about. Be magnanimous Fight the tendency to be professionally arrogant. Always look to learn and grow. Be a giver before you take. Be gracious in defeat and a good winner. ALWAYS talk nice about others.
Show people you care Find out everything you can about others who are important to you and find ways to delight them. Never miss an opportunity to go the extra mile. Consistency matters Don t miss a beat reinforcing your brand EVER! Exhaust them with your consistency. My friends, it s easy to figure out, hard to execute. To obtain the complete version of our The Power of Personal Branding article either email us at tob@motivatenow.com or fax us at (213) 622-0842.