!Building a Quality Reputation in Your Community
When it comes to starting and running a new business, your reputation is an important piece of whether your business will succeed or fail.
Establishing a reputation in your community can take time, but there are things you can do to ensure that your business has a quality reputation in your community.
Building a reputation is a lot like building relationships. If you know of two people who sell a product you want, but only one of them is your friend, who are you going to choose? Most often, you’ll choose your friend because you know and trust them.
To build a quality reputation, you’ll want to make yourself seen and known by your community. You can do this by volunteering at local charities, building relationships that are based in authentic and genuine interest of others, or going to local sporting events and cheering on your team.
The idea is to go where your community is, and get to know them. Who are the people in your community? What are their dreams, their passions and their goals? How does your business fit into the landscape of the community, and how can you best serve them based on these needs?
And then, help them. What can you do to show up for your community in a way that shows you actually care? What are your core values and passions, and how can those be translated into helping the community be the best it can be?
When you show up as your best self, people take notice. If they see an authentic, kind and loving person willing to show up and be there for them, they’ll want to return the favor and be there for you. Supporting the community will help you grow as a person, and ultimately build that reputation by expanding your relationship circle.
As a local business, you rely on your community to support you and to buy your services and products. In return, giving to give to them is a great way to boost your reputation, as well as show your gratitude.
Giving to give can be done in many ways. This mindset begins with the mentality and knowledge that the law of attraction is real, when you give it will come back to you in some form or another. Giving to give because you choose to give is a very powerful place to come from that helps your community know you give because you want to not because you have to.
Examples of giving back include things like:
> Donating a % of Profits to a Local Charity
> Offering Support & Expertise to Those Who Are in Your Community
> Volunteer
> Mentoring a Small Business Struggling
> Sending Referrals and Making Recommendations
> Sharing Your Knowledge and Skills
> Finding New Ways to Collaborate to Support Small Businesses Through the Pandemic
One way people develop good reputations is by establishing trust with others. Allowing the community to be involved in your business is a great way to build a connection with them, allowing them the opportunity to get to know you and trust you, boosting your reputation in the process.
If you sell products, find creative ways to connect it to your community. Invite local businesses to collaborate on new products, or on service deals to better serve your community. Host workshops and tutorials if you are an artist or a service provider, and demonstrate your process.
Involving your community is a wonderful way to build your reputation and show your community that you care about them and their input.
There isn’t much that can help build a quality reputation in your community than to prioritize service and quality in your business.
You need to make sure your service or product is the best quality it can be. Of course, nobody's perfect and neither are products. But people can tell when you put your heart into things, and that heart is what counts.
Sometimes you’ll make mistakes, or someone won’t be satisfied with their purchases. These moments will make or break your reputation. Treating your customers cordially and offering them refunds or fixing whatever problems they have with kindness and sincerity will go a long way in building a bond between you and them.
Even if they decide your products aren’t right for them, they’ll remember how helpful and kind you were. That’s how you want everyone to feel who comes in contact with you and your business.
Starting a business can be difficult, and building a reputation in your community is something that can take time. Here at Biz to Biz, we believe that you have what it takes to build trust and stand out in your community.
With 15 years of proven strategies, implemented to build groups and support small businesses, one of the most effective ways to build a quality reputation is by relationship building, and that is best done with networking groups. Many of our chapter members have been able to expand their business and increase their reputation through our proven strategies applied in our weekly chapter meetings.
Learn more about our chapters here >
