SOLD. . .To The Highest Bidder!
There’s one thing in life you can truly call your own – with no payments, mortgages, interest or finance charges. Just straight-up yours from the day you’re born.
However, with this gift comes a responsibility. Some people choose to throw it away while others choose to guard it like one of their most valued possessions.
Have you figured out what I’m talking about yet?
It’s your name.
And it’s one of the most important assets you can possess in business. Your name [and its close counterpart, your reputation] can have a tremendous impact on your ability to get a job, a client, a referral – or even a date!
The responsibility that comes with managing your name and reputation is something I don’t take lightly. I never give an employee recommendation for anyone I don’t believe in, and I have never delivered or endorsed a product or service I wouldn’t use myself.
That’s why I’m taken aback when I see marketers who show no obvious regard for their names or reputations.
Let me get to the point. One of the latest trends I’m seeing is marketers ‘selling’ their endorsement [i.e. name and reputation] to the highest bidder on eBay.
These same marketers have lists of tens of thousands of people who, for the most part, trust and respect what they have to say.
They email their throngs of followers and proudly announce, “Buy This Product!” – solely because they have pimped out their name on eBay and not because they think the product will truly help their readers.
Think about it. Their names and reputations are their livelihood. Don’t you think prostituting their names will have an adverse affect on their reputations?
Sure it will. What I can’t understand is how they haven’t figured this out for themselves.
So I ask you…are you managing your reputation?