Return on Reputation

Over the years, I have discovered success is powered by three things: know-how, reputation and a network of contacts. That's it. That's the secret.

The formula for success = your human capital (what you know) times your social capital (who you know) times your reputation (who trusts you).

You can take away all my money and even my customer list, but if I can keep my smarts, my business relationships and reputation, I'll get it all back and then some.  Having knowledge, social capital and trust is the ultimate security blanket in good times and bad.

Public relations firm Hill & Knowlton released its "Return on Reputation" report that shows reputation is now perceived as having a direct correlation with financial performance.  How do consumers measure reputation?  According to the 282 global companies surveyed for the report, brand and marketing message (76 percent), corporate culture and working environment (51 percent), employee compensation and career opportunities (49 percent), and social responsibility/community investment (22 percent) all play an active role in reputation assessment.

The best corporate reputation belongs to Microsoft, according to one of the oldest and most respected indexes from Delahaye.  It's top spot is cemented by its well-publicized philanthropy.

Your corporate reputation can be built or wrecked at warp speed on the Internet.  Factiva, the media measurement arm of Dow Jones, released a report showing that journalists and corporate knowledge managers are builders or detractors of corporate reputation.  Factiva says 40 percent of total respondents said they use blogs as a source of business news and information.  Most telling, 48 percent of respondents rated blogs as highly reliable.  In fact, 91 percent of information professionals and knowledge managers who read blogs said that they were somewhat reliable or highly reliable.  More than half (51 percent) of the respondents who use blogs said that blogs contain information that they cannot find elsewhere.

Here is an example of how not to build your corporate reputation that you won't find anywhere but in a blog posting:

In early October 2005, I was unable to log into my purchased Profiles International, Inc. assessment inventory (at www.profilesontheweb.com) to satisfy an online retail order received through my www.SelfAssessmentCenter.com shopping cart.  Neither the Profiles International, Inc. dealer/distributor, that I purchased the inventory from, nor the Profiles International customer service people in Waco, TX could determine what the problem was and how to fix it.  Therefore, I asked the dealer/distributor to fulfill the consumer's self assessment order for me from his inventory. 

In following up to resolve the problem, the dealer/distributor reported his progress in an October 11, 2005 email to me:

John,

Regards your POTW Internet site.  It seems, despite a company's size, it takes forever to get answers.  Progress (actually lack of) to date:

1.  At 2:59 pm yesterday I called Mike Kelly (the VP of Sales with whom I interface on any and all issues).  Mike wasn't available and I was referred to Julia (another VP of Sales) who referred me to Andrian (a customer support person) who said she would have to find out why ... she could only verify the site was disabled.  Told her she might want to check with Scott Haney to see if he (or someone else) authorized the disabling of your account while doing her routine check of why the account was disabled. 

2.  Got a voice message from Mike Kelly last night (about 6:45 pm) saying he got an email from Scott saying he had no knowledge as to why your account was disabled.

3.  Talked with Mike Kelly a few minutes ago and he is waiting for one of the Tech People to call him back.

I'll keep you posted.

After the above email, the dealer/distributor continued his attempt to resolve the denied access problem.  What he discovered was the denial of access was not a technical issue but someone within of the management of this publisher had ordered the denied access.  That 'someone' was James L. Sirbasku, the CEO of Profiles International, Inc.

Later, through telephone conversations and email exchanges with the dealer/distributor and the Profiles International, Inc. corporate counsel, Scott F. Haney, Esq., I was informed that since the publisher's dealers/distributors were not allowed to post retail pricing (or any pricing for that matter) on their company websites (through an agreement they had executed with the publisher), the publisher's CEO determined that neither was my company allowed to post their suggested retail pricing of assessments on its Self Assessment Center.  So, the publisher's CEO unilaterally denied my company access to its previously purchased assessment inventory on the publisher's "profiles on the web" site set up to facilitate sales transactions....without either informing my company or their dealer/distributor who sold the assessments.  People both internal and external to the publisher were left to discover this denial of access action on their own.

Today, Profiles International, Inc. continues to hold hundreds of dollars of inaccessible assessment inventory paid for by my company prior to October 2005.  Would I recommend this assessment publisher to others based upon their reputation?

Source: 1to1 magazine, April 2007