Consigliera College: Build a reputation, not a personal brand

Welcome to another episode of Consigliera College, for early to mid-career executives.

According to a recent New York Times article, the concept of a personal brand showed up in a 1997 article in Fast Company written by Tom Peters. Most personal branding today is done on social media, and the Times article talks about the toll it takes when your life is your brand and your brand is the content you post and develop about your life.

My advice? Build a reputation, not a personal brand.

Reputation is an old-fashioned word, and I don’t hear it often anymore. It’s harder to build a good reputation than a personal brand. There is rarely a moment that “goes viral” in a way that burnishes your reputation unless of course you pluck a stranger from a burning building. Ruining a reputation can happen in an instant, building one takes years.

I have a good career, and it’s been going strong for three decades now. Almost all of my job opportunities in the past, and current clients in the present, come from referrals. Because of my reputation. One person tells another person I’m good at what I do. And then they call me, verify if we’re a fit, and hopefully hire me.

If you are building a personal brand on social media, you are at the mercy of the social media platforms. And that’s been especially obvious the past few weeks. With Elon Musk taking over Twitter, people are either leaving the platform or concerned about how much more of a hellscape it will become now that he’s in charge. But for years people have complained that one tweak of an algorithm or one “violation” of a moderation rule and your presence on a platform is in jeopardy. Just this morning, Instagram seems to have shorn people of thousands of followers. This isn’t a public square, it’s a for profit company, and there’s little you can do to address how a platform treats you.  

Building your career on social media is like building your house on sand.

Building your career by developing a good reputation is like building on rock.

If you want to build a good reputation, here’s where to start. 

Realize that every career is a small town, and you won’t be able to hide for long. I’ve worked in advertising and technology in Seattle. Which are connected to the slightly larger advertising and tech communities nationally and internationally. Which means that someone can find someone who knows me pretty easily in my field. Most fields are the same. So, treat everyone well, because they’ll all talk.

Don’t lie, cheat or steal. Don’t take credit for someone else’s work. Don’t do anything illegal. Don’t be a racist or sexist. Enter every interaction you have with the intention to never say or do anything that you wouldn’t want broadcast to your mother, your partner or your kids. There are no secrets anymore. Don’t be an asshole.

Business karma is real. Everyone you treat badly will remember what you did. There was a woman I worked with who treated me reprehensibly after my son was injured in a car accident and I was taking care of him. Years later, at another firm, my boss mentioned that this same woman had applied for a senior position where I now worked.

“You worked with her. Should I bring her in for an interview?” he said.

“No,” I said. That was all I said. He didn’t interview her, and one of the few senior positions in the city at the time was closed to her.

Be nice to the people next to you and behind you. When I started in adverting, I did brown bag trainings at lunch for the junior account people. Negotiation training, how to give a presentation, the same kinds of things I do trainings on now. They would all show up, we’d have a dozen junior account people in the conference room at lunch. One day one of them asked me why I did it, why I took the time from running new business to train them.

“Someday in the future, you all will be running agencies or marketing teams client side, and you’re going to hire me,” I said. They laughed, but I was right, they have been running big agencies and big clients for years now.

Don’t talk trash about people. Gossip is fun, I get it, but it can really scorch a reputation. The nasty story not told is always the better choice, because if Person A talks trash about Person C to Person B, B is bound to wonder what A says when B leaves the room. I’m not talking about calling out illegal or unethical behavior, I’m talking about gossip.

Watch the drug and alcohol consumption at work events or with work people. I’ve been lucky enough to be sober since I started my career, but I’ve watched plenty of people make really bad choices under the influence, choices that followed them around for years. 

Be generous with job recommendations and favors where merited, because you may need some yourself one day. “Where merited” is key – I only recommend people who I know are good. Take informational interviews with people who are junior to you. Mentor or volunteer if you can.

There may still be people who say bad things about you. There are men I called out for creating a hostile work environment who still dislike me for telling them they shouldn’t be doing the shitty things they were doing. Reputation isn’t about everyone liking you, that’s popularity. Reputation means that when one of those men talks trash about me, hopefully there will be someone nearby who will be able to counteract that narrative with a positive one of their own about me. And if there are enough people, he will know to shut up because it just makes him look bad. And, yes, this has actually happened.

How do you want to be known? Early in my career I met a media buyer who said she wanted people to say she was “tough but fair.” And she was, and people did refer to her in that way.

How do you want to be known in the small town that is your field? Tough but fair? Honest and insightful? Creative and hard working? Think of the people you respect in your career – what two words would you use to describe them?

Having a sense of what kind of reputation you want to build can help you make intentional choices about how you get there, which can impact everything from the jobs you take to the clients you work with and, yes, even to what you post on social media.