Starting

is a given for nearly all human beings. We easily get excited and start this and that. However, few of those who start, whatever it is, do actually finish. What will make you carry on the same spirit from the time you start to the time you finish will be what will earn you a great reputation.

That thing about experience

People want to identify with and do business with finishers. They want to connect with people that they can trust. They will only entrust their “business”, whatever form or shape to someone whose reputation speaks of accomplishment.

That is why many recruiting agencies and organizations that are looking for new employees will ask for “experience”. What we do wrong is to write off whatever experience we have that is not necessarily connected to what the organization is looking for. Whatever the case, your reputation will go a long way in contributing to your success and advancement.

Reputation is a Big Thing

So if you are interested in advancing in life, it is important that you take your reputation seriously. It is important that you go at great lengths to manage it so that all might be well with you. In the previous article, we started looking at different ways that you can dismember or soil or blight your reputation. Here, we are not talking about someone else being responsible for your spoilt reputation but yourself.

A Recap

We have already looked at two ways you can spoil your reputation:

1. Values
2. Promises and commitments

Today, we continue with the subject matter by taking a look further at the different ways you can spoil your reputation.

3. Some little slacking on your capacity

If you ever were to earn a title of “mediocre” it will be because people are aware that you could do much more than what you are doing. Capacity is something that we all have. We all have been blessed with different levels and types of unique potential.

Potential

It so happens that this potential comes in the form of a seed. It can be a hint here and there, but for the most part, the people you interact with are able to see the “promise” that you do have. People are inherently humane enough to give you time to develop that capacity.

However, as time passes by, people look at what you are doing with your potential and with your capacity. If you are doing nothing to develop it, they count you with those who are mediocre. The world always expects something from a human. That’s a given.

We all expect fruit out of potential

It is a law of nature to expect fruitfulness from all living things, especially the human. So when people see that you are slacking or you are outrightly lazy with your potential, they tend to develop a low reference to you. That is how you soil your reputation.

However, your reputation increases through leaps and bounds directly proportionate to how urgent, consistent, and fervent you are in developing your talent, your gifts and potential. Every time you do something towards developing your capacity, people appreciate. People take note. Silently, they give you some psychological scores in their minds. Your reputation is enhanced thus.

4. One little compromise on your standards

Yesterday, a friend took me out to Café Javas (CJs) in Kampala. I remarked that the place was minting money because nearly every seat in that restaurant was fully booked. A quick observation showed me that as much as the place was teeming with people, each person was given attention within seconds of their arrival.

OK Plus 1

There were no complaints from customers. Meanwhile, my friend narrates how they could not eat a food item that they had ordered previously from this restaurant. They were bombarded with over 7 managers from the restaurant who needed to inquire what the matter was.

Needless to say, Café Javas has set a standard of service delivery to be OK plus 1. Now, what would happen if one day I go there and I am treated worse than I was the first place? It would definitely be because their standards have been compromised.

Right then and there, I would feel bad about it. I would vent and rant about it and I would tell as many people that are in my circles as possible about this bad experience. The reputation of Café Javas would be soiled simply by lowering their standards.

Good standards can be a trap…

It is easy to lower your standards especially when your high standards are working and giving you traffic. It is easy to get disillusioned that the traffic will always be there. In fact, it is easy to get overwhelmed with the traffic that was brought about by your impeccable standards.

Compromise comes in subtly

By that time, when you compromise, you won’t even notice. At first, your clientele might “understand” knowing that it is something that you will easily rectify. However, before you know it, your standards are even lower. Any time you allow something, you accept it and it becomes your new standard.

A few years later on when you visit the same people who were running a booming business, you just find a handful of customers there with a few disgruntled employees hanging around. What happened? Their reputation was soiled by a little compromise of their standards.

Don’t Compromise

Therefore, once you have set your standards and you have seen how those standards have helped you grow, do not ever compromise on them. If anything, you ought to improve on them. In fact, improving on those standards is just as critical as not compromising on them.

Otherwise, your reputation will be tainted. We shall carry on with these thoughts in the next article as we finish off this mini-series on disfiguring your reputation.