I spent much of my childhood growing up in Pennsylvania. I always assumed I’d go to Penn State. When you live in PA, it was almost as prestigious as Harvard. Note … was.
Sad things happening there lately. You’ve heard the news. There are updates daily. And that will continue to be the case. New victims coming out of the woodwork and contacting authorities. Sad indeed.
We all need to be aware of our reputation. It’s your badge of honor in business. A great reputation begets customers begets more customers begets … income.
Damage to your reputation is a serious concern. It may not even be a BIG event that will send you into damage control mode. In the speaking business, every time we take the platform we stand (no pun intended) on our reputation. It’s one of the reasons we get hired.
We risk every time we take the stage. Delivering poor performance can be damaging. So can small things like not returning calls, answering inquiries, returning queries from speaker bureaus. Speaking is a very public business. You can make an idiot of yourself in front of literally thousands by making a stupid comment, saying something inappropriate or not being fully prepared. We see people doing it all the time on social media.
For us, it may mean our business drastically. We lose customers, opportunities. As small business people, we won’t be hiring an agency in New York to “manage” and “mitigate” damage. We’re on our own. An uphill battle.
I heard a commentator discussing Penn State and saying that they will never recover from their damage. Imagine .. never recover what they once had. Another said it will take years. Donations will dry up. In turn, expenditures will dry up. Athletes will choose other schools to play their sports. And on and on and on.
We can learn a lesson from the Penn State debacle. Namely, NOT to get into a reputation ruiner in the first place. Public relations firms make a fortune out of saving people from these kinds of disasters. Some firm is going to get a lot of money from Penn State. So, where does Penn State go, where do we go to get our good reputations back after a disaster?
I think the recovery has much to do with how quickly and effectively you deal with the damage. You need to face it head on and go. Walk into the fire.
As a speaker, you need to ensure that the mistakes you made in a program don’t happen again, the power point will always work, and you arrive early enough to do a sound check. You need to make it up to the client. Perhaps even refund a fee. Whatever it takes. If it is with a bureau, again, you need to do whatever it takes.
We need to be in the reputation management business every day.
Lois Creamer works with professional speakers who want to book more business, make more money and avoid costly mistakes! She can be reached in the following ways:
Lois@BookMoreBusiness.com
Twitter: @loiscreamer
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/loiscreamer
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/loiscreamer
For more information on Lois’ business check out http://www.bookmorebusiness.com as well as http://www.bookmorebusiness.tv!
