‘In a competitive world of sameness, noise and low trust, Rob Brown's excellent guide to reputation building gives busy corporate executives and professionals the definitive guide to standing out in a crowd.’
Jeff Black, President & CEO, Black Sheep Inc
‘Over 100 practical strategies to get your name out there. Just do 10% of what Rob Brown tells, and in a year's time your life, reputation and positioning will be completely transformed.’
Daniel Barnett, Barrister, Broadcaster and Keynote Speaker
‘Simply brilliant. A tour de force of why and how to build your reputation. An invaluable and intensely practical must-read.’
Steve Pipe, Author of The World's Most Inspiring Accountants
‘As a thought leader, your reputation is your most valuable asset. Without it, you have no trust and no credibility and no business. If you're an expert looking to stand out in a competitive industry, this is your blueprint to success.’
Warren Knight, Social Media Strategist, Social Sales Strategist and Award-Winning Entrepreneur
‘If you want to succeed in business today, you need a strong reputation; people need to know, trust and like you. In this book, Rob Brown sets out exactly how you can stand out giving over 100 strategies that you can use to build your most valuable career and business asset. Rob knows what he is talking about so read this book and set your sights on being the number one go-to person in your field.’
Gavin Ingham, Author of Motivate People
‘Standing up and standing out for something is one of the few paths to success in life. Few people achieve this, usually because they don't know exactly how. This book by Rob Brown gives you the answers to practically make that happen – a must-read for anyone who wants to get on in life.’
Geoff Burch, International Business Expert, TV presenter and Bestselling Author
‘To excel in any business or industry you need to make sure you create and maintain an excellent personal reputation. In this book Rob shares in detail how you go about achieving that brilliantly and gives you a roadmap to success.’
Simon Chaplin, Founder, Socks Up Simon www.socksupsimon.com
‘You can't buy a good reputation and building one needn't cost you a fortune either. Rob Brown walks his talk and his reputation will inspire you as you read this book. Make reading it your first step in your journey to a great reputation.’
Robert Ashton, The Barefoot Entrepreneur
‘Reputation matters! If you aspire to rise to the top of your “career game”, then Rob Brown's book is a must-read for you. This brilliant book guides you on how to strategically create and market your personal brand so you stand out in the competitive world of business as a leader and corporate influencer.’
Adèle McLay, Business Growth Strategist, Entrepreneur, Investor, Keynote Speaker, and Author
‘If you want to stand out from the crowd and get ahead, then Rob Brown's excellent guide will give you all the tools you need to build a world-class reputation and network that will get you through any doors.’
Nigel Risner, Award-Winning Leadership Speaker
‘Understanding, respecting and leveraging your reputation are key to having a successful career. It's what got you where you are and what will shape your future. This book by renowned reputation authority Rob Brown helps by giving you the tools to take charge of this most valuable asset.’
Adam Harris, Vistage Chair, Business Coach and Speaker
‘I have thoroughly enjoyed watching Rob's TEDx Talk on YouTube (twice!), listening to him being interviewed on podcasts, and hearing him talk live. So I eagerly grabbed hold of a copy of his new book at the earliest opportunity. Within minutes of scanning through it I found a brilliant nugget, which I highlighted, and I soon found more. I loved those sudden rushes of dopamine. Rob's book is hugely practical and he writes with delightful playfulness. I’m very happy to recommend it highly.'
Christopher John Payne, Founder, Effort-Free Media
‘In a world where building your personal brand matters more than ever before, Rob Brown has produced a book full of practical advice for those individuals who understand that managing their reputation cannot merely be left to chance.’
Grant Leboff, CEO, StickyMarketing.com
‘If you want to be an influential and impactful leader, then you are going to need a strong reputation and a strong network. This insightful and practical book will give you the tools and methods you need to build both.’
Simon Hazeldine, Bestselling Author of Neuro-Sell: How Neuroscience Can Power Your Sales Success
‘In his brilliant new book on building your personal reputation, Rob Brown says that reputation is “what people say about you behind your back”. If luck is where preparation meets opportunity, then building your reputation intentionally makes you luckier as you are better prepared, and more opportunities will find you, not the other way round.’
David Gilroy, Director of Stuff & Things, Conscious Solutions
‘Rob Brown's reputation book will become a bible for anyone serious about developing their career prospects.’
Robert Craven, Managing Director, The Directors Center
This edition first published 2016
© 2016 Rob Brown
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‘A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.’
– Jeff Bezos
Not so long ago, your circle of influence went as far as you could see. Your reputation extended to people who could physically see you. Contact was frequent and guaranteed. If you did a good job at work, you could easily control what people thought about you.
This was your ‘hallway’ reputation. People stuck around. Job change was rare. People had a chance to get to know you over an extended period of time. You gained influence gradually and got promoted because you lasted the course.
Now you find yourself in a new world of new rules. The online space means you have to deal with social media, instant news and frightening transparency. Barriers have fallen between countries, cultures and boundaries. Globalization has levelled the playing field. Workforces are much more diverse – multicultural and multilingual.
We live in complex, uncertain, but exciting times. Mobile phones and digital technology give even average people the chance to build a brand around themselves. Anyone can own a business, write a blog and send an opinion round the world. Attention spans have fallen, marketing messages have exploded and noise has increased dramatically.
Jobs for life are rare. Who gets offered tenure these days? Who even wants it? People want passion, freedom, significance and choice. Of course, that's all still there, but there are millions of people looking for it. Which means predatory competition and a brutal, unstable job market. How will you compete?
This book maintains that the ability to market yourself, create career capital and build reputational stock are what will give you the edge that gets you chosen. Your ‘in person’ and your `online' reputation are both at stake. If cultivated properly, together they could be your most valuable commercial asset.
This playbook will propel you quickly to the top of your tree. Or at least more quickly along a meaningful and enjoyable career path. If you're already at the top, this is about keeping you there with more control, influence, recognition and engagement. If you're already in a role you love, it's about keeping you there too, with more security, more control and more flexibility. It's about freedom to choose.
This is your fast-track guide to boardroom opportunities, recognition of your brilliance, backing of your potential, investment in your ideas and engagement with your vision. It's a guide to intrapreneurship or how to think and act like an entrepreneur in order to thrive within the constraints of a big corporation or firm.
These things rarely happen by accident or good fortune. That's why this playbook is packed with a ton of practical ways for you to hit your career and leadership goals intentionally and faster. It's not a theoretical work and it's not grounded in a master's thesis or academic research. It's a pragmatic guide that gives you a variety of ways to become the number one obvious choice for what you do.
It's a career playbook for a life of fulfilment. Sounds a bit grand, but your work probably defines you. If your work is good, you're probably a happy bunny. When people ask you who you are or what you do, you'll probably lead with your job title or the industry you're in. So it's a ‘how to’ manual for controlling your career and securing work you love on your terms.
This is also aimed at leaders, whether thought leaders or business leaders. I'm calling you a leader since you're probably already in the top 5% of brains and talent in the world right now. After all, you're reading this book! And with this kind of power, you're an influencer and a change agent. That means you're already some kind of leader.
Finally, this book is a time machine. Sure, you'll make it to where you want to be in your career. This will just get you there faster. It's a fast-track mechanism for career progression. The vehicle that will propel you there is called ‘career capital’ and the key to the car is called reputation.
Although intangible, reputation has a value. And if it has a value, then it also has a cost. Reward and risk. Your reputation will take you a long time to build and a moment to ruin. But you can accelerate the building process by intentionally and purposefully doing good things that enhance your good name. After that, it's a case of marketing yourself well enough that good people talk about it. You're a brand, and all brands make good promises and need good promotion.
Listen, if you've ever …
… then it's almost certain that this book will help you hugely. It's your playbook to quickly and strategically navigate through the career gears to a higher and higher calling. It will show you how to play the Career Game that most people don't even know they're in. It will show you how to create the necessary personal reputation that will cut through the crap and open the doors to the best jobs and opportunities. Creating a good name and a powerful reputation as a ‘go-to’ guy or girl is going to further your cause.
You're about to get the low down on how to connect at high levels for valuable advocacy, influence and sponsorship. You're going to learn the dimensions of executive presence – that boardroom gravitas that shows you're a peer of the senior players. And you're going to create a game plan of powerful reputation-building strategies that play to your unique strengths, personality and objectives.
You may not have seen your reputation as a career weapon or leadership platform before now. But you're holding this career playbook and you feel there's something in it. It makes sense then for you to know exactly what your reputation is and how it works for or against you.
So, in the first part of the book, we'll define reputation properly and make the strongest case for its relevance to your career and business success. You'll get clarity over the difference between your personal brand and your reputation, and even what role your character plays in all that. Then you'll discover how the unholy trinity of online, mobile and digital have changed the way your reputation is built and broken.
You'll quickly see that as a leader and influencer (which you are, no matter what you might think) your reputation is an intangible yet critical career asset. In fact, the higher up you go, the more your personal reputation can make or break the people and company you represent. Then we get to the ‘meat’ of the book …
The second half of this book is the real ‘how to’ stuff. The nuts and bolts. The specific strategies you can deploy in building your own great name and store of career capital. The way you do it will be different to the way everybody else does it. That's why there are so many strategies to choose from.
Your mission as you read this book is to apply yourself to making it work for you and you alone. What works for you won't necessarily work for your colleague. You've got to play the game with your strengths, your weapons, your game plan. Everyone is different, but the general principles of ‘be remarkable, market yourself well and trade smartly’ apply to all.
Everything you need is in this book. Probably. But who knows? You could be one of those hungry people who really get it and want more. You could be a fascinated student of the topic in need of supplementary materials. You could have bigger plans for your reputation than I thought.
That's why you've got the Reputation Vault. It's a hidden resource just for people who have bought the book. You get a bunch of useful worksheets, manifestos and interviews that wouldn't fit into the book. Not because they weren't worthy or instructive. But because there was not enough room.
For instance, the Executive Presence Manifesto does a deep dive into that subtle blend of gravitas, temperament, inner strength, credibility, charisma and skills that gets you viewed as a player and a peer of the top people. Resources like this supplement the book and ground you in the methodology.
You've got unrestricted access to the Vault with our compliments. Go to www.Rep.NetworkingCoachingAcademy.com/repvault and put in the access details supplied in the Additional Resources section at the back of the book.
For now, focus on what you have right here. Forget about the Vault for the moment. Let's just ensure you get the very most out of this book …
‘More than a great database, a killer product or service, a set of skills, or a particular talent – your reputation is the single biggest factor in whether or not you will be a success on this planet.’
– Rob Brown