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Reputation is the biggest determining factor in the long term success of any and all of your business efforts. Your reputation is remade every day with everyone your business interacts with. In reality you have not one business reputation, but many reputations that are given birth in the minds of people who deal with you in the course of your business movements. Of equal importance to comprehend that you have a reputation among people who have had no contact with you but know of you from others.

Joan Jett wrote a song from the old days that is called 'Bad Reputation.' Joan was a great musician of her day, but she also had good marketing sense. She postured herself as the bad girl of the rock world, and the song 'Bad Reputation' was wildly popular. In the ever rebel-dominated world of alternative rock, a woman happy with her bad reputation was in demand. She likely bent the truth a little in the song when she sang 'I don't give a damn about my bad reputation' as she in fact cared a good amount about her bad reputation, it was what made her marketable! She used that image to gain immortality.

Unluckily for the majority of us, a poor reputation does not prove to be a useful marketing goal to develop our business. The only exceptions outside of musicians might be trial lawyers, repo men, or bail bondsmen who are, in a way, respected for their dangerous air and fearsome reputation. For everyone else it just doesn't work.

You must remember that each of your deeds, and everything your employees do, in the course of your business contributes to your reputation. There are no Mulligans in business. You can work to make things right that might have put your business reputation in a bad light. In fact, repairing problems appropriately can be an opportunity in disguise. However, you can never undo the memories of the events that caused someone to think badly of your business.

Each experience you have with customers in your business has one of three endings that affect your reputation. Two of these endings are not good, the other one is excellent!

Experience number one is one you have with a customer, or potential customer, where you don't fail horribly, but you also don't stand out from the next company. This may not seem like the most harmful result, but it is close. You've succeeded in being only, at best, typical in the mind of a customer. You will likely be either forgotten in the future, or thought of as someone that 'did OK' last time.

The second ending takes place when you, or your worker, has made such a huge mistake so as to insure the customer feels a burning anger toward you. It can get no worse for your business. In addition to estranging a customer, you have left no doubt that you have lost anyone who listens to that customer when they talk about you. It's like a domino effect. If you as a business owner have knowingly permitted this to happen, then you certainly deserve the impact it has upon your business. However, many times the business owner knows nothing of what has happened if the problem occurred with one of their employees, or not in their own interactions with the customer. You can't assume that dissatisfied customers will make time to announce what happened. In most cases they just never set foot again in your business and you have no way to correct it. If you do become aware of the problem, but don't address it, then again you have earned the unfortunate reputation it makes. However, if you take the initiative to go to every length to right the situation, you will have made use of a wonderful chance in business - to reassure a customer that you think highly of their loyalty and will always do your best to display concern.

The third ending is sought by every savvy business owner in each and every interaction with people. You want to persuade the clients, and potential clients, that in addition to furnishing high-quality services or materials, you care deeply about how those products or services fill a need of the customer. It is about establishing a trusting relationship with your clients so that they know you are competent, fair, and focused on meeting their needs. When successful in this goal you have formed a loyal customer who's value surpasses any purchase they may make today.

Helping you discover how to gain such loyal customers is our goal. Hopefully if you have an interest developing your business based on this style you will think about signing up for our services.