You are an extension of your brand, your company, your value proposition and your reputation. I’ve written on this topic before: You ARE Your Brand — whether it comes to making healthy decisions to influence your overall well-being, or even improving your outward appearance to enhance your professionalism in the eyes your colleagues, or even to perk up your step.
As the embodiment of (and often even the mascot for) your company and your brand, it’s also important to remember that you must always represent your business in a professional manner, especially when it comes to sharing your professional opinions with others.
You Are Always Your Brand
Often the most important thing to remember is that you must always use professional tact, especially when it comes to topics of professional importance to your company. Everyone makes mistakes, but knowing some common missteps could help you avoid potential problems!
Common Mistakes in Professional Circles:
- Getting a little too friendly at networking events. First of all, try to prevent this issue from happening in the first place by pacing yourself if there are drinks involved and being careful to listen to other professionals before injecting your opinions or advice. If you’re not careful, you could spill the beans on a private matter between you and one of your clients or partners. Or you could make yourself look foolish and unprofessional to the entire networking circle. Word gets around, so always be in control of what you say and how you act!
- Reply To All. We’ve all done it — you hit Reply To All when you meant to hit Reply and now an entire group of people knows your private opinions. How embarrassing!
- You’re among friends (or so you think). What you expect to be simply a private comment to a friend could turn catastrophic if you or the other individual is unclear on your working or even private relationship status. Sometimes we tell others comments in confidence, only to hear them repeated elsewhere, much to our dismay.
Damage Avoidance
Obviously, being more careful in situations like the aforementioned is preferable. But, what many professionals don’t realize is that looking unprofessional doesn’t have to stem from a big mistake. It can come from a series of small, tactless actions or words, all culminating in eventual long-term damage to your brand integrity — and that’s bad for your business and your reputation!
So, Always Be Professional
Your best bet is to truly believe and employ the idea that You Are Your Brand. This idea then stretches into all areas of your life. Now, of course, you have friends and family who will know you and love you despite your mistakes, but I still strongly suggest approaching topics that are close to your areas of expertise, your experience and your business with great awareness of how you are representing your business. Yes, even with friends and family.
Be Professional:
- At all networking events, even if you feel familiar with a particular crowd.
- On social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter. Questionable conduct (for example: revealing profile photos) or careless wording in a status update could be easily misconstrued as unprofessional. This includes comments you leave on the blogs of others.
- When sharing opinions or advice on professional topics via email. I know you are thinking, “It’s JUST an email.” Yes, but you have no way of knowing your eventual audience with the ease of clicking a button and it being forwarded to the unknown. If there’s something you wouldn’t want shared with others, it’s best not to bother putting in writing at all.
Here’s a tip: if you must share an opinion or give advice related to your industry, always think before you share it! If you’re not sure how your comment will be taken, consider taking a different approach or directing your comments toward a more helpful direction.
Remember, you and your brand are always in the spotlight even when you think no one is watching.