The gender balance has got a little testosterone heavy in the office with our new recruits taking the head count to 6 guys and 3 gals. So I thought a thoroughly gal-orientated blog post might help level the hormones.

With the sun’s summer debut last weekend it was time for my ’spring clean’ (as it were) and, what with one thing and another, I realised Reputation Management is much like a beauty regime…

Preventative
Cleanse, tone and moisturise. Rinse and repeat as necessary. Much like those crucial preventative or preparatory steps, reputation management is best achieved when tackled in advance. Building up your positive content can act as a buffer if anything negative happens, just like that skin care mantra can keep you looking resplendent even if you indulge in one too many Cornetto ice creams.

Break-out
Yikes! Break-out! You wake up, look in the mirror and realise something has gone very very wrong. Maybe you’ve actively done something bad (left the hair dye on far too long; distributed exploding laptops), maybe you’ve missed a crucial step of the preventative stage (passed out with your make-up on again; failed to create any positive content), maybe you’ve done everything right and it’s still gone horribly, horribly wrong (hormones; pissed off ex-employee).

What to do? The knee-jerk reaction is to cover-up, but this is often the worst choice of solution. So you’ve dyed your hair pink by mistake? Style it out: re-dying or a hat that covers all may seem appealing but you’ll fool no-one. The same rule applies for reputation management. If you face the problem head on and don’t try to fool anyone, you’re much more likely to come out with at least some of your reputation intact.

Recovery
Ok, the worst of it is under control. The recovery stages are simple: deal with the problem and fix it if you can. Then return to those preventative steps and work at them until all the bad stuff either gets better or disappears.

Now, what have we learnt? No prep + negative stuff = trouble. And, because a flare-up can happen anytime, anywhere, the only constant is the preparation.

Also, if you get yourself sorted, you can afford to take risks- how would you know pink wasn’t your colour if you didn’t try it? But these actions have to be supported with something to fall back on. Great eyebrows and well-applied lipstick could take a lot of the attention away from your hair, just as a kick-ass set of online profiles and some independent positive content can keep your rep lookin’ rosy!

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