Your Personal Brand Precedes You: Why It’s Important And What You Can Do About It

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” Warren Buffett

How Your Reputation Precedes You

We’re all familiar with the phrase “Your reputation precedes you.”, but what does that mean exactly, and why is it important? When you’re meeting someone for the first time, it’s important to remember that you don’t always get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to being perceived as likable or trustworthy. And sometimes, an unexpected negative encounter with someone can have a huge impact on how others perceive your reputation, even if you have no idea what happened with that person and know nothing about their interactions before you meet them. This makes it even more important to be aware of what your personal brand is, and how your reputation precedes you.

At its core, your reputation simply means the perception of you that people have formed through their experiences with you and your work. That said, your reputation can be both beneficial and detrimental to your career or business goals, and so it’s important to make sure it’s positive rather than negative by actively managing it throughout your working life and beyond.

Your reputation is essentially your public perception. It’s how others see you and your company; it’s made up of things like the quality of your product or service, the reliability of your employees and partners, and even the culture of your workplace. By cultivating an excellent reputation, you can have some control over the way people perceive you and your organization, and it can help you gain customers and grow more efficiently than if you had no reputation at all.

How Your Personal Brand Precedes You

Before you can really understand what reputation means, it’s important to understand what personal brand is. According to Forbes, a personal brand is A person’s reputation as shaped by his or her actions and experiences over time-and by how others perceive and communicate about that individual through such interactions. For example, when I ask someone who knows me well for their opinion on my character and personality traits, I would hope that they might say something like, “They’re extremely dedicated to helping people. They have strong communication skills and are passionate about finding solutions for customers. They’ll do anything they can to help out their friends.”

What You Can Do About Your Personal Brand

Let people know what they should expect from you by creating a personal brand. A personal brand is a collection of all your social media accounts and any other information about yourself that can be found online. It’s important to keep your personal brand consistent across all platforms, so that it is recognizable wherever it appears. People who are familiar with your personal brand will have an idea of what to expect when they interact with you, and will be more likely to continue interacting with you in future. If you have a strong reputation, people will trust that you won’t let them down!

Managing your reputation isn’t just an ‘in person’ kind of thing. It’s not only important in person, but also online. Stand behind your words (and tweets!) and be willing to defend them. You don’t have to be right all of the time, but you do need to take responsibility for what you say and be willing to stand by it. If you can’t do that, then you should probably keep quiet. The same goes for Twitter: Be smart about what you post on social media and don’t say anything that could come back to haunt you later.

In today’s business world, it is vitally important that you define and maintain your personal brand. According to a recent study, 45% of employers conducted an online search on a candidate before hiring them, with more than half saying they found information that changed their minds about hiring someone. So as an employee it’s essential that you understand what your personal brand is and how to improve it if needed. As an employer (or future employer), it’s imperative that you learn how to spot someone who cares about their reputation and takes steps to ensure they are putting their best foot forward in every situation. The key is knowing both sides — what you can do as an employee or job candidate, and what employers expect from you.

If you’re starting a new job, it’s especially important to let people know what they should expect from you. First impressions are everything-be honest and genuine and keep your promises. If you say you’re going to do something, do it. It’s all about building trust by being dependable and consistent with others. People will learn to expect the good from you, but also the bad-make sure that’s worth their attention. Whether your coworkers or customers decide to give you another shot is up to them.

This isn’t just important in the workplace, but also as a general rule of thumb. Let’s say for a moment that you’re starting a business, and you’re counting on your friend of ten years to help support you in this. You have nothing but the best intentions, but you’ve previously let your friend down, and he thinks that you’re a little flakey. Oof. Well, we can move past that, right? Except.. When he’s asked questions about your new business by a potential customer, he raises the question of.. Are you trustworthy? Will you do the work? Will you provide the services, or merchandise as promised?

Don’t back yourself into a corner. If you don’t believe in something, don’t say it. If you are asked about something you do not know about, be honest and say so. If someone is looking for an opinion on something, give them your honest opinion. When you are talking to people, always try to make sure that what you say can’t be misconstrued or taken out of context later on because it will come back to bite you at some point and could potentially hurt your reputation as well as that of your company or organization.

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Originally published at https://tricitiesdm.com on October 22, 2022.