Reputation Management – Velocity Media

16 June 2015

The Danger In Burning Bridges

There comes a point in business when relationships end. It could be due to wrongdoing or simply outgrowing. Sometimes it’s because you end it and sometimes it’s because someone else does. How it ends though, can make all of the difference, not only to your reputation, but your bottom line, future connections, and business opportunities.

While it can be tempting (and let’s face it in some cases completely justified) to say exactly what you feel and burn bridges behind you, if you are wise, you will try to end every relationship as amicably as possible. By leaving the bridge intact, even if a little rocky, you at least still have the option to pass by again in the future if you ever need to.

In case you’re not convinced, here are some of the dangers you can face when burning bridges – regardless of whether you are in the right or the wrong.

1. The business world is small

While it can often seem as though you are dealing with a person or business in isolation, it is rarely true. The business world is small, and it’s made even smaller with online communities.

People are well connected and often with people you least expect. You never know who knows who and what influence the person you are dealing with may have over their connections now or further down the track. You also never know what future opportunities could be missed or tainted because of a strained relationship or conflict.

2. Everyone talks to someone

Everyone has at least one confidant, a sounding board who helps them work through their challenges. If you are lucky, then it is only one person, but if the situation is heated or interesting enough, it can spread like wildfire. Suddenly a lot of people know – or think they know – what has happened before you’ve even had a chance to share your side.

The trouble with conflict, bad news and scandals is that it’s juicy, it spreads wide and fast, and can take longer to die down than good news. When you decide to burn bridges and react instead of respond, you never know who is behind the person you are having challenges with. Whose ear they are whispering in, what they are saying or increasingly, what they will write on social media.

3. What you do and say can be held against you

When you are angry or upset, it can be easy to say things you either don’t mean or would normally leave unsaid. But a moment really can change everything. You never know who may be watching, listening or reading and what opinion they can form of you based on that one experience with you or impression of you.

While it is important to keep things in writing, be mindful that your tone, emphasis, and intent can and will often be misconstrued. Before you send anything ask yourself, is this a good representation of my character and what I stand for? Could this have legal ramifications? Would I be happy for this to be made public?

4. Who you burn on the way up, can burn you on the way down

In business, there are never any guarantees. You can have a booming business one day and the next, due to circumstances that may or may not be in your control, end up right back where you started.

You never know when you will need a relationship or connection again, this is why it is so important to maintain relationships at all levels of your business journey.

Yes, relationships will end, and you will outgrow suppliers, associates, and even customers. Just make sure it is done without ego or high emotion, because if you do fall, you normally see or need to lean on the same people as you climb back up.

There is no question that in business, there will be times where you will have to stand up to injustice, defend your position and point or view, and even burn a bridge or two. When you do though, do it with the full knowledge of how it will affect you and your business now, and how it could affect you in the future.

Amanda

3 February 2015

How to manage fast growth and maintain your reputation

For many entrepreneurs starting a business comes with the dream of creating a fast growing company that customers love. But as demand grows and sales soar you can suddenly be faced with some very real and different challenges that you may not have planned for in your start-up.

Sometimes all takes is one big customer, one media opportunity or one photo, status or campaign to go viral and you can be faced with a flood of enquiries and sales. To ensure you handle your growth effectively and maintain your reputation along the way here are five points to keep in mind.

1. Streamline

The more you systemise and streamline each task the quicker it will be to complete and the easier it will be to outsource or delegate to new and existing team members as your business grows.

Ideally you want to be systemising from start-up while still keeping your processes fluid enough to grow with you. This will ensure you can grow easily with minimal disruption to your business operations.

2. Delegate

When you are experiencing high growth your time needs to be spent as productively and profitably as possible. Be ruthless with your to-do list and make sure any tasks that aren’t a good use of your time is delegated to another team member or outsourced professional.

3. Manage your cash flow

Staffing and other growth expenses can put significant strain on your cash flow, and if not managed effectively can cost you your business even despite its popularity.

To prevent this, ensure you are receiving regular financial reports so you can prioritise expenses and plan around periods of low cash flow. Also be careful about the staff roles you look to fill first. While you will need support staff to get the tasks done, you will also need sales people to bring in new business to cover your growing expenses.

4. Keep marketing

While stopping your marketing may seem like a good idea during high growth periods, it can drastically affect your cash flow. With increased expenses you need to ensure you have consistent income coming in.

If you are considering stopping or slowing your marketing down, make these decisions based around your sales figures and budget forecast. Know where your leads are coming from as well as your slow periods, lead time and conversion rate.

5. Watch your capacity

To maintain your reputation you need to grow your capacity as your business grows. Make sure you can comfortably service all of your existing customers and exceed their expectations as well as any new customers you bring on board. Your existing customer base really is your gold mine; they are the best source of new business so it is important not to burn them.

Before you bring in new business or say yes to a project, ask yourself “Can I service this customer effectively and provide real value?” if the answer is yes, go for it, if the answer is no, be honest. If the answer is yes but not yet, then book the work in at a later date. While you may lose a sale, think about how much more you could lose if you can’t deliver and they tell people about their bad experience.

How do you manage your business growth?

Amanda

27 October 2014

Four ways to manage your business reputation

With your business reputation directly linked to your bottom line it is important to do everything you can to build and maintain it.

While your business will inevitably take knocks from unhappy customers, mistakes you make and decisions you wish you could do-over, by following these four ways to safeguard your reputation you can still preserve your standing in the business world.

1. Be personable, not personal

A lot of people get this concept confused, especially in the online world. Keep your personal life out of your business life as much as possible. Know what you will and won’t disclose and discuss with your customers, and be mindful of who is on – and who can see, your personal social media profiles.

2. Assume that nothing is private

As a publicist I can’t tell you how many times I see private information become public. Be careful what you put out in the public sphere and who you trust with information. You can only protect your content so much.

What you write or say can be taken out of context, forwarded on to others or downloaded before you have deleted it, and programs or website changes to rules and settings can leave your information vulnerable.

The best way to protect yourself and your business is to assume that nothing online or on your devices is private. If you aren’t happy for everyone to see it, don’t send or upload it.

3. Don’t run from adversity or negative feedback

You don’t need to be a saint to maintain a good reputation. We all make mistakes; it’s what we do after that makes the difference to our reputation.

Your character is proven in how you handle adversity, conflict and negative feedback. By taking responsibility for mistakes and handling adversity and negative criticism well (whether right or wrong) not only protects your reputation, it also wins you respect, and can result in more people coming to your aid and wanting to work with you simply because of the attitude you have.

4. Monitor your reputation

As your profile builds it is important to monitor what is being said or published about you. Monitor social media, do regular searches and set Google Alerts for your name, key staff and business name. Being proactive will not only allow you to stay on top of any negative feedback, you will also be able to thank those who are referring and promoting you.

If you do find negative feedback (depending on what has been said), don’t rush to delete it or complain, it can be an opportunity to turn the situation completely around. Many businesses gain likes and customers from social media simply by acknowledging, apologising and offering a solution to an unhappy customer.

How do you manage your business reputation?

Amanda

2 August 2014

How to give people a “good feeling” about you

Like it or loathe it intuition and having a “good feeling” about someone or something can greatly impact our business decisions and the purchase decisions of our customers and potential customers.

So how do you ensure you are giving out the right vibe when you are talking to people? Here are five tips to help you give people a “good feeling” about you.

1. Be confident, friendly and approachable

People are naturally drawn to warm people and are more likely to listen to confident people, that is why being confident, friendly and approachable is the rapport building trifecta.

Not only will you be more likeable, people will feel more relaxed around you, respect your opinions and be more inclined to follow you, leaving you smiling all the way to the bank.

2. Be an expert in your industry

When you are an expert in your field, and know your products and services intimately you give better explanations, presentations, infomercials and pitches and answer those tricky questions and objections quickly and powerfully.

Nothing gives a customer or potential customer more confidence than having all of their questions answered or hearing someone knowledgeable share insight that will help them in their life or business.

3. Add value

Instead of seeing what you can get out of each person you meet, focus on how you can add value. By adding value you prove your value and your potential customers guards naturally come down.

With this approach potential customers will not only be more receptive to what you have to say, they will open up to you, making it easier to convert sales and build profitable relationships.

4. Ask questions and listen carefully

Asking the right questions and listening closely to the answers can be incredibly powerful. You can establish rapport, showcase your knowledge, increase credibility, uncover needs, and build relationships.

The more targeted and intelligent your questions are, the better the answers you receive and the easier it is to find even more ways to add value.

5. Never underestimate the power of your body language

Often the “feeling” someone will have about you will come more from what you are not saying. While you may be a smooth talker, if your body language doesn’t support what you are saying, people will question your authenticity.

If a person can’t maintain eye contact with you, covers their mouth a lot when they speak, is fidgety or seems uncomfortable, leans back and crosses their arms, or frowns a lot, chances are you are going to walk away from the meeting and not have a great feeling about the person you were talking to or how the meeting went.

However, if you are meeting with someone who maintains eye contact, faces towards you and leans in, smiles, nods and is open and animated, you will naturally warm to them.

Next time you are talking to someone ask yourself “what is my body language saying about me and is it matching my message?”

Do you use your intuition in making business decisions? What gives you a “good feeling” about someone?

Amanda

27 July 2014

Knowing when to walk away

In business we often come across opportunities, people, businesses, ideas and situations that look promising and profitable.

While some can certainly meet and even exceed our expectations, every now and again one can hand us a confronting dose of reality that can result in hard decisions and the possibility of cutting all ties.

But how do you know when to stop or when to try harder? Here are five checks to put in place so you know when it’s time to walk away in business.

1. Know what you stand for

Know who you are and what you stand for both personally and professionally. Also know what your business and brand stands for, beyond just making sales or profits.

What boundaries do you want to set around the way you work? What behaviour is acceptable and not acceptable from you, your staff, your customers, suppliers and associates? What lines are you comfortable with crossing in business and what lines will you never cross?

By establishing what you do and don’t stand for and what you will and won’t tolerate you make it easier to identify when you need to take action to prevent a situation from escalating, or when you need to cut your losses and walk away.

2. Be committed to win/win

Any business arrangement you enter into should be win/win, and equally win/win at that. If it isn’t steps need to be taken to rectify it in order to create a mutually beneficial arrangement.

To guard against possible resentment and relationship breakdowns, you need to regularly evaluate your working relationships and maintain open communication to make sure all parties are getting what they want and need.

Sometimes in relationships one party ends up giving more at times, the key is to be aware of it and manage it to ensure it balances out. If it still continues to be win/lose than it might be time to lose the relationship.

3. Keep your emotions in check

Emotions influence and impact every decision we make. For this reason it is important to be mindful about how they may be motivating or fuelling your thoughts and actions through crucial situations and circumstances.

Whatever you are dealing with examine your thought process, are you making rational arguments? Are you calm or highly emotional? Are you looking at the facts or at the hypothetical? Often some time and space from the situation can be enough for you to think a little more rationally and logically.

4. Listen to your intuition

Our subconscious mind takes in far more information than we can consciously process and can often give us little clues through our intuition to help us in our decision-making.

While we can’t recall all of the information, we will often get a ‘feeling’ that something is not quite right. Listen to it; you get this for a reason. Find out more information to evaluate the opportunity, person, business or idea properly if needed and make the decision that gives you the most peace.

5. Know your value

In order to avoid resentful and difficult situations you need to be clear on the value of your time and expertise. What you do, what you know and even who you know is valuable.

If you want to know how valuable, work out what it would cost to hire someone else to do everything you do at your level. You will soon see just how much your time is worth and how valuable your knowledge and skills really are.

Once you know your value set your price and stick to it. As tempting as it can be to chase, discount and say, “yes” to the money, it can come at a cost and sometimes even a loss to your business.

By knowing what you are worth and what you want to command you will be able to sort the good opportunities from the bad or the costly, and move away from those who don’t value you faster.

How do you decide it is time to walk away in business?

Amanda

10 March 2014

How to turn a mistake into a marketing opportunity

While mistakes in business can fill us with dread and embarrassment, like many other times of trial and adversity they can be turned into an opportunity to showcase the professionalism, integrity and authenticity of our business.

So how do you recover with your reputation in tact after you’ve dropped the ball? Here are three tips to help you turn a mistake into a marketing opportunity and win the respect of your customers and business associates.

1. Remember mistakes can be the best teachers

When money is coming in, the phone is ringing, our customers are happy and everything is going smoothly we don’t always look for ways to improve, change, update, innovate or leverage to make our business work better. After all if it’s working why mess with it – right?

Just think about it, when are you more motivated and driven to change your marketing approach or bring in sales, in a slow month or a busy month? What about adding value to your customers and increasing your level of customer service? Are you more likely to think about it when you have a happy customer or an unhappy customer?

When are you more innovative and creative in business, when it’s business as usual or you’re under threat because of a mistake, wrong decision or competitor?

Creativity and innovation thrive when we are under fire. There is nothing quite like making a mistake or facing adversity and the accompanying pain or embarrassment, to get us out of our comfort zone and into our creative, innovative and strategic problem-solving zone to find a better way.

So take the education, learn the lesson, find a way to make it better or prevent it from happening in the future and make the change.

2. Realise mistakes can humanize you and help build rapport

The fact is we all make mistakes, and provided it is small, there is limited damage and the intent was innocent, mistakes can actually work for us, making us more relatable and approachable to our customers and business associates.

To give you an example, many years ago I told a potential customer they could get “one product for the price of three!” – a bargain right?! This silly, slip of the tongue completely broke the ice, gave them a good laugh and allowed me to build a good rapport with them over the phone which lead to an ongoing relationship and ongoing sales.

Who hasn’t made a typo, got tongue tied, sent an email to the wrong person, forgotten to do something, misspoke, or made a wrong decision? The key is in how you handle it, recover from it and make up for it.

Could you use the mistake or blunder as a rapport builder, a case study to help your customers avoid the same mistakes themselves or as an opportunity to showcase new and better procedures, methods or measures?

3. Use your mistakes as an opportunity to show your character

There is something inspiring about a person who takes responsibility for their actions, faces the consequences and tries to make it right. It shows character.

So if you do make a mistake own it, if you make the wrong decision fix it and if you have an unhappy customer, address it. Be professional, admit your mistake, apologise and make it right.

By being open, honest and accountable for your mistakes you not only protect your reputation, you can end up having more people want to work with you simply because of the attitude you have and actions you have taken.

Amanda

23 November 2013

What to do when you have an unhappy customer

An unhappy customer can be incredibly damaging to your business and reputation. People are 2-3 times more likely to tell others about a bad customer experience than a good customer experience.

Combine this with easy access to social media on mobiles and suddenly an unhappy customer can be voicing their dissatisfaction to the world within seconds – before they’ve had time to think things through or you’ve had a chance to rectify the situation.

So what do you do when you have an unhappy customer on your hands? Here are five tips to help you diffuse the situation and keep your reputation intact.

1. Deal with the situation swiftly

If you are faced with an unhappy customer, deal with the situation quickly, calmly and with a genuine desire to achieve a win/win outcome. If possible don’t let them leave your store or get off the phone until it has been resolved.

2. Listen without interruption

What an unhappy customer wants most is to be able to vent their frustrations without interruption and to feel heard. Giving them this opportunity and encouraging the conversation with a statement like “let’s go over what happened” is often the first step in diffusing the situation.

As hard as it can be, particularly if you have been taken off guard, you need to resist the urge to interrupt, get defensive or try to solve the issue immediately. Your only role at this time is to listen for the key issues and facts that are hiding beneath their emotional reaction.

3. Repeat back the problem

Once they have finished, if you need to, ask any additional questions that will help you identify the problem or ensure you’ve identified the right one. Then let them know you have heard them by repeating the problem back to them.

4. Be understanding and accountable

Once you’ve clarified the problem put yourself in your customer’s shoes. How would you feel in the same situation? Show them understanding and empathy.

If you have made a mistake, take responsibility for your actions and apologise. When you are honest, humble and accountable for your mistakes you will often turn a negative situation into a positive opportunity to wow your unhappy customer.

If you aren’t in the wrong, and have found through your questioning that the complaint is unfounded or that your customer has misinterpreted or done something wrong, still show your professionalism by being understanding and sensitive. Take the time to explain what has happened, outline any terms or conditions and if applicable why your processes or terms are this way.

5. Come to a solution

It is important to deal with each situation individually, taking into consideration the potential damage the customer in question may do to your business if it is left unresolved.

Come up with a solution to satisfy them personally, remembering it is always far better to have a short-term loss, then a long-term loss. Once the solution has been agreed on, take action immediately. Let them see that you are ready and willing to fix the problem on the spot.

When there isn’t a happily ever after…

Occasionally there are customers who can’t be pacified or contained, particularly in instances when the customer feels wronged but the business is not in the wrong. In these instances the most important thing to do is to keep all communication in writing, handle the situation with professionalism and seek legal council in the case of defamation or harassment.

Instead of being reactive, be proactive by looking after your existing customers so well that they can’t help but rave about you. Showcase your testimonials on your website and social media channels and let the positive word of mouth from your happy customers squash any possible negativity surrounding your business.

How do you handle unhappy customers?