“Reputation and Relationships — those are the only two things that matter.”
That’s never more true than when starting a business.
I was fortunate enough in my career to work for a successful mobile ad-tech business. It was early and had a fantastic and memorable IPO, before eventually going on to be acquired for $238m. At the point of the acquisition, I was managing a team of 24 incredible marketers around the world. I guess that — amongst a few other things — has burnished my reputation in that industry. But what’s the half life of a reputation?
Warren Buffet famously said “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it”. I’ve noticed they also diminish exponentially, if you’re only calling on past achievements.
And what of relationships? In this always-on, digitally-connected life, it is very easy to amass tens of thousands of connections, across LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and others. But what does that really mean? Are these metrics an accurate measure of a relationship?
Probably not, which is why I’m choosy when deciding whether to accept any of the daily avalanche of unqualified connection requests. I have no desire to be a personal media brand and day trade attention, as many social media gurus tend to imply is necessary.
Don’t get me wrong, reach is very important and, having taken time to create some content, I want to put suitable effort and resource into distribution. But I see that as running an effective campaign, rather than just amassing a large, but impersonal CRM database.
True relationships, between two people, are something much more significant.
In starting Too Many Dreams Limited , I’ve come to realise how important reputation and relationships really are, particularly as a new company, trying to win new business. The relationships that have been cultivated over many years and which have created a stronger connection are clearly visible, as friends actively want to help, looking for ways our companies can partner and work together.
Outside of these situations, having strong relationship and reputation scores will get you in the door, and secure you a meeting. But then it’s down to delivering the third R — Results. It’s this third one that burnishes your reputation, helps grow your relationships and gets you back in the door to try again another day.
Coda One
I started writing this blog post a few weeks ago, shortly after I published my first one. It was weeks before the UK election and I was pretty sure this forum wouldn’t be a place where I aired my own political views; friends of mine will already get enough of that on Facebook and Twitter! However it’s the first few days after an historic and quite bamboozling election.
One of the things that is interesting about modern politics is that we seem to have forgotten the reputation part of this equation. Campaigns and their success seem to be predicated so highly on the relationships politicians have, particularly with the media, to the exclusion of all else.
I think we need to get back the balance — in politics, business and life — where reputations, relationships and results matter equally.
Coda Two
A surprising, but enjoyable by-product of writing this blog and promoting the content to my network is that a number of my friends have responded positively to both what I wrote and the style in which I did so. These are people who would never normally get chance to read my prose, as it’s almost all in a business context, for industries they are not in. It’s been heartwarming and really encouraging to receive positive feedback from them. After all, along with my family, they are the most important relationships I have.