6 Tips for Boosting Your Reputation — and Your Business

The pandemic-induced economic downturn has businesses of all kinds scrambling to survive. For community association managers, their prospects may well turn on their reputations.

“Being a referral-based business, where you’re selling your experience and your knowledge, I think reputation is the most important thing because that’s what brings you that business,” says Katie Anderson, CEO of Aperion Management Group, LLC, which manages around 65 associations in Central Oregon.

So how you can build and maintain your reputation? Here are some tips from the trenches.

1. Mind Your Online Presence

Long-time managers know that the Internet changed everything when it came to reputation management. With unhappy board members or owners able to easily launch online rocket fire that could potentially reach mass audiences, the Internet plays an outsized role in your reputation.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” Anderson says, “because, if you have an online presence, you have to devote some resources to manage that presence.” And, with the proliferation of review sites, almost every business has an online presence, regardless of whether they want it. “If you’re not paying attention to it,” Anderson says, “someone else is going to determine what your story is. You’re better off being in control of that yourself.”

Anderson is a big believer in specifically dedicating resources to branding and marketing your management company. “It takes energy to make sure the right information is getting out there. It’s more than just asking your happy customers to write positive reviews.”

Aperion has a strategy for handling both positive and negative reviews. “We always respond, positive or negative, unless it’s just a star rating without any content,” she says.

“We’re human, and we’re going to screw up; it’s a matter of how we respond. We’ve gotten feedback from associations we were bidding on that saw how we responded to complaints and liked it.”

To learn five more ways to boost your reputation, read our new article: Reputation Matters: Building Your Business by Building Your Brand.

Best regards,
Matt Humphrey
President