Maverick Mastery®

Many small businesses are putting their business and earning capacity at risk by investing in expensive marketing activity that increases visibility but does nothing for brand reputation, the ultimate decision making factor used by businesses during turbulent times, according to networking strategy specialists at leadership consultancy Dynamic Transitions.

In a recent whitepaper by Dynamic Transitions MD Judith Germain entitled ‘building reputation and credibility for your business’, Germain suggests that potential clients will only buy ‘high ticket value’ services from those they trust and that SME’s need to focus on how they can develop, nuture and maintain that trust, particularly during the credit crunch when spend is often limited.

Germain suggests that businesses should consider forgoing expensive marketing activity that only increases the business’ visibility but does nothing to lessen the ‘risk’ of hiring the company, arguing that those who rely on referrals or social networking to secure work instead will realise that the most cost effective way to gain new clients is to use ‘pull’ rather than ‘push’ marketing techniques.

“Reputation is personal in its nature, concerning itself with the character of the business (or person) and the intention of its (their) actions. It is essential that you are consistent with what you say and do, especially on the internet where everything that is recorded there is of a permanent nature. Inconsistency can be the biggest killer of reputation because it undermines the trust that is being established between the two parties”, explains Germain.

Germain strongly believes that freely providing advice to others without expectation of a return helps to build your reputation as an expert and provides an informative view on your character, and ironically the return on this activity can be immense.

Germain adds, “with the credit crunch still impacting most industries, you need to ensure that you focus your energies on delivering a consistent and compelling reason for clients to work with you and a well defined networking strategy will help you to achieve this for very little cash outlay. It is a solid, credible reputation (not just increased visibility) that will carry you and business out of the crunch and beyond. So, look at the way your brand is seen by others and ask yourself this…based on the information available about me, would I hire me?”

You can download the free whitepaper ‘building reputation and credibility for your business’ from www.developing-leadership.com/leadership-whitepapers.html. For further information or to find out more about Dynamic Transitions visit www.developing-leadership.com or telephone +44 (0) 208 288 0512.

Tags: Credit crunch, Reputation and Credibility, SME

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 at 9:09 am and is filed under Press Releases, Reputation and Credibility. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.