May 29, 2021 3 min read

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Your reputation is a big part of who you are as a person. A good reputation makes you feel better about yourself, while a bad one can leave you with sleepless nights. There’s nothing worse than a client spreading negative comments about you on social media or other channels, especially if the claims are untrue.

If you’re not willing to do things and take on additional business because it could hurt your reputation if you fail, you may be missing out on massive opportunities that your competition is willing to jump on.

Remember, calculated risk equals greater reward. If you find yourself avoiding reputation risk, these three elements may help ease your discomfort in the decision-making process.

1. Be optimistic

It’s simple: Optimists get presented with opportunities, while pessimists don’t. Consider yourself lucky to have come across your opportunity or idea. The reason why many people don’t get what they want from their business and even life is because they don’t see the opportunities that are presented to them. There’s nothing wrong with being critical — having a critical mindset is important in spotting the deficiencies that others overlook. But if you’re constantly finding reasons to NOT do something, you have an issue. Be a critical optimist.

Related: You Need to Meet Your Challenges With Pathological Optimism at Every Turn

2. Pursue to the final stages

You owe it to yourself to pursue your opportunities to the final stages. If you’ve completed your due diligence and your opportunity still doesn’t look like it’s worth doing, then say “no” or “not right now.” But don’t say no before you have enough information to make an informed decision. The opportunity may not go anywhere, but at least you’ve investigated to the point that you’re not going to be kicking yourself in the butt afterwards. One of the biggest regrets business leaders have is not pursuing an opportunity that crossed their path earlier in life.

Related: Easily Distracted? Here’s How to Stay Focused When Opportunity Abounds

3. Have an acceptable risk meter

How do you know how much reputation risk you’re willing to take on, unless you have a way of measuring it? Risk can be subjective and objective. Most of the time, risk calculation is done subjectively. However, having an objective measure will give you more confidence in your decision. Having an actual measure of the impact will give you a clearer picture of what could go wrong and how much it could cost you in brand confidence as well as in dollars.

Know how to measure your reputation risk. You want a healthy measurement for the risk you’re willing to take, but also the opportunity you’re willing to leave on the table. 

Related: Risk Literacy: Need Of the Hour