Good work and good communication will lead to a good reputation, close relations and successful business.
What determines how other organizations, partners and potential customers and supporters perceive your organization?
Any activity whether it is inside your organization and project, or your work with clients and the public has an impact on how your organization and projects are perceived: negative or positive, boring or exciting, old or new, anonymous or personal, separating or integrating, unkind or friendly, reserved or open, non-transparent or transparent, suspect or trustworthy.
The following chart shows which factors shape your public perception.
The core activities represent the expertise, services, products, and not at least the organization’s ethics and commitment to sustainability. Only if your organization can convince with its inner values it has a purposeful core which can be exposed to the public.
The core activities will then be communicated to clients and the public using various media and means like websites, maps, social media, webinars, publications, but also conferences, fairs, and meetings with clients.
When core activities have been successfully communicated, your work will resonate and be recognized by the public in the form of positive media feedback, potential nominations, and awards, and by the formation of valuable strategic partnerships, as well as a growing customer base.
In order to test your organization’s public perception, you might ask your clients and follows on a scale of 1 (very unlikely) to 10 (very likely) how likely they would recommend you to their network. A successful perception of your organization should at least achieve a 7 in this rating to be successful in the long run according to Daniel Priestley.
Take away:
- Doing good work is the prerequisite for transparent and authentic communication. The best communication is worthless if the promised work cannot be delivered.
- Likewise, if good work is not communicated well, there is no audience to acknowledge your work.
- Both, good work and good communication, will help to build up a loyal and growing customer base.
- Use various channels to communicate your activities, as every channel has its own audience.
- The perception of your public recognition can be measured with simple surveys.
