How Your Reputation Can Effect When Starting a Business?

The reputation you have established for yourself follows you through life.

This can affect you when you are starting a business. We often learn from our parents about honesty and being trustworthy. People do business with someone they know, trust, and like.

Therefore if your long term goal is to build a successful business that will grow and thrive as the years go by you need to be sure you’re conscious of how you treat your coworkers and your employees.

If you are known as a trustworthy business owner who offers good customer service and fair treatment then word of mouth advertising will help you grow your business, for a minimal amount of cost, then all the money your pay for advertising to entice customers into your store.

Trust, is earned by having good business practices. That is, as a businessman you gain your customers trust when you follow through on your promises.

That means, that if you advertise a high quality product for a high end price you must deliver what you promise.

Remember a business grows from repeat business and referral business.

In today’s marketplace, more business is done online, then face-to-face. In the past many people shop in brick and mortar stores and all that was required was good customer service for repeat business.

Today, people don’t have the time or patience to shop in brick and mortar stores.

Many department stores have website or store fronts where customers can purchase their products and have it delivered directly to the home.

In fact, many companies have closed down their brick and mortar stores due to high overhead, and build their business from online sales.

Therefore, word of mouth advertising can build your business faster than traditional marketing methods.

When I know I can trust the person I do business with based on his business practices then I feel comfortable referring business to him.

But if I find I don’t trust the businessman then he will lose my business and any other business that I may have referred to him.

Trust is gained by building your reputation as an honest businessman. Honesty means that you follow through with any promises that you make to a customer.

For instance, if you promise a five day, seven day, 14 day, or a 30 day money back guarantee, then you must follow through with your promise.

If you try to bait and sell someone by placing an ad for a product you don’t have and then up sell them when they come into your store, your customer will tell their friends and you lose your reputation.

This is the quickest way to cost you business then it would to follow through on a promise.

Many companies are building their business by Internet marketing. They are using payment processors to process payments on orders.

I want to purchase a service this way from someone that I thought was a reputable businessman. They promised that I would receive my service within 14 days. I used my credit card for the payment.

After 14 days I never received the service I was promised. When I contacted the payment processor I never got an answer from them about getting a refund.

I found then phone number and contacted them and they told me everything had to be done by submitting a ticket.

Since they never responded to any kids that I have submitted I contacted my credit card company to dispute the payment.

They then contacted the payment processor and were informed that I had purchased a downloadable product. Therefore, my bank closed the case.

I then disputed this payments and researched this company and business owner. I found nearly 100 testimonials of other people who had had a similar experience as I did to getting refunds for a promise service they did not receive.

I cut and paste the all of these testimonials into a Word document.

I also found the business owner on Facebook and communicated with him to let them know that I wanted a refund. Instead of acting like a reputable businessman he threatened me.

I then made copies of all of these communication and send them to my bank as part of my dispute.

It took 60 days but they did refund the credit to my card. I then followed up by going to a government website and reporting this company and business owner for fraud.

Remember, your reputation follows you from one business to another so make sure you are an honest and trustworthy businessman from the start!