1. The beliefs or opinions that are generally held about someone or something.
2. A widespread belief that someone or something has a particular habit or characteristic.
We know that our professional reputation is critical for success in business. For people to trust us we must be competent, ethical, reliable, credible, honest and fair. To build a reputation we must be all of these things—all of the time. One small slip and it’s down to the bottom of the snakes and ladders game board.
Like it or not, in real estate, our personal, our professional and our on-line lives intermingle in a rather incestuous way. What our friends and acquaintances think of us in our personal lives reflects on how they view us in our professional lives. They may really enjoy us as friends but if they don’t respect us and see us as professional, competent, ethical, reliable, credible, honest and fair they may not want us to represent them in their real estate dealings and in turn, they may not feel comfortable referring us to their network of people.
There is no way to build a good reputation other than earning it. It takes a lot longer to earn it than it does to damage it.
Here is a list of the top ways to damage your reputation:
- Don’t do what you say you are going to do.
- Make excuses instead of accepting responsibility when things go awry.
- Be late or miss deadlines.
- Be unresponsive or slow to respond to emails or phone calls including personal ones.
- Be dishonest; even a small white one will destroy your reputation.
- Criticize people who are not present.
- Make self-deprecating jokes.
- Be careless about the details.
- Complain incessantly about personal issues.
- Be excessive with food, alcohol, physical fitness or other emotional drivers.
So what is a real estate professional, who wants to have fun, to do? Keep your fun clean and moderate and if you can’t do that – remember “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!” Sometimes.