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Why you should build your reputation

Written by: Helen Dowling

Article Overview: Reputation in business is everything. It helps you build trust and credibility with your customers and contacts; it can help persuade someone to buy from you if they’re not sure and it’s also far easier to raise your prices if people perceive you as an expert.

Why you should build your reputation

Reputation in business is everything. It helps you build trust and credibility with your customers and contacts; it can help persuade someone to buy from you if they’re not sure and it’s also far easier to raise your prices if people perceive you as an expert.

Building your reputation is one of the most important things you can do in your marketing. There’s nothing more powerful than this – I’d much rather buy from someone who looked as though they knew what they were doing. Wouldn’t you?

So, if it’s that important, how do you go about doing this?

Well, there are lots of ways you can build your reputation as an expert in your field. Here’s just a few – I’m sure you’ll be able to think of other things you can do too:

1. Speaking on the radio
2. Commenting on a subject in the press
3. Speaking at an event or a conference
4. Having a letter that you sent to a newspaper or magazine published
5. Being associated with a major organisation
6. Participating in on-line forums
7. Entering awards
8. Being seen on your local television news
9. Writing and publishing articles
10. Having a regular column either in the press or on-line
11. Writing a blog or contributing to the blogs of others
12. Writing e-books, reports and tips sheets
13. Holding an event and giving a demonstration
14. Being an expert on a talk show (go on, be brave!)
15. Write and publish a book

I know not all of these ideas will appeal to you, but if any of them do, go out there and give them a go. The more you concentrate on building your reputation, the more people will perceive you as an expert – and that can’t be a bad thing at all.

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Article Tags: blog, blogs, credibility, demonstration, e books, important things, line forums, local television news, marketing, radio 2, reputation



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Re: Branding On A Budget - Several of the things that I promote to clients are elements of their branding and credibility is a big thing that I talk with clients about - especially non fiction authors and other business people. Credibility and reputation are critical in any business venture, but especially with online businesses because we need to build trust. Shri
Local mechanics - While that's true that just because they are local does not mean they wouldn't rip you off. I'm sure it happens. But I guess I was not making my point clear because what I meant by checking with local mechanics is that you wont have to travel too far for a second opinion and typically you know which mechanics are in your neighborhood and how long they have been there. Generally, if they have been there a while, they have a build reputation (good or bad) and other people, including yourself would know of it. this means the cances of getting ripped off are less.
Re: Question of the week: Does free work? - It seems as though a lot of the time when you give something away for free people tend to think it isn't of much value, even if it really is very valuable and could be sold for a high price. And you waste a lot of time with tire kickers that never end up purchasing anything. Ultimately it depends on why/how you are doing it... If you are doing it to build a list or some reputation, or something else along those lines it can be great. But if you are actually giving away your precious time (as in consulting) then I don't think it would be worth it. If you have a membership site where the first month is free then it automatically bills them after that it can also be a great way to get new members.
Re: Need some information on freelance jobs! - oDesk is the same as Elance where you can bid on projects/jobs that are posted. When I was working in oDesk the main problem I experienced was the difficulty in getting my first job because of competition. There are already other service providers who already have a lot of completed jobs and good ratings with good feedback. So what I did was to bid on simple jobs - I bid a very low price so that I could just get a job and hopefully when I done it right or done it well I can have a good rating and feedback. That's how I began. I slowly build my reputation by completing simple jobs and eventually I can then compete with others and can bid high already.
Re: Social media question - Hi Rachel, I'm a member and active user of both Twitter and Facebook, but more so of Facebook. Yes, there is a lot of power between the two when used correctly. The nice thing is that you can link the two by having your Twitter tweets show up on your status updates on Facebook. This alone is powerful as my tweets get responses from my Facebook friends, who are potential business partners or clients. One thing with Facebook is setting up a group about you, your product, or your business. As you build up targeted friends you can invite them to your group and build a reputation for yourself. This is kind of the same angle you want to use with Twitter as you tweet about your niche. Another aspect of using Twitter and Facebook is setting them up to automatically post a link and description of your blog posts. As others have mentioned, you should set up a blog and post content relative to your niche. As you can see by setting both sites up like this, part of your marketing efforts are on autopilot. This is just a small example of what's possible, and do read over the other suggestions that you were given because they are great as well. Hope that helps and best wishes, Alan


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