Brand and reputation are related, but not synonymous. A brand is something you build, but it must be founded on a solid reputation, which is something you get whether you like it or not.
A strong brand depends on a strong reputation. If you have a strong reputation, your brand will pretty much take care of itself. If you have a weak reputation, no amount of branding will compensate for it. In fact, the opposite is true. Trying to build a brand on top of a weak reputation will ruin both.
Reputation vs. brand
Reputation is “bottom-up,” the sum of your words and actions as formed in the minds of the people who experience them. Your reputation may take one shape in the mind of a coworker, another for a Twitter follower, another for a judge, and another for a client.
I call reputation “bottom-up” because you — the top — don’t really get to decide what your reputation will be. If you are a jerk, you will probably get a reputation as a bad lawyer even if you work hard and do a good job for your clients.
Branding is top-down; brands are created by companies (or in the case of “personal branding,” by people). A strong brand gives customers an idea of what to expect if they buy a product. For lawyers, the goal is to give prospective clients and referral sources a preview of what it would be like to have you for lawyer. I called branding “top-down” because you get to decide what your brand will be. Of course, if your brand promises one thing and you deliver another, it won’t take long for people to learn to distrust your brand.
Out-of-sync brands
Imagine a product that looks amazing in an ad, but when you get it home and opened the box, you find that the reality is nothing like the marketing. We have all experienced this. For example, check out these macabre popsicles that look nothing like the cartoon characters they are supposed to resemble. Or this tiny kiddie pool that looks like inflatable water park on the box. What will you think of the manufacturer after you open the box?
If you experience a product that is out of sync with its brand — whether through your own purchases or through what you hear from others — you probably will not buy it. Or if you already did, you probably won’t buy it again, and you certainly won’t recommend it to anyone else. You may even tell people about your experience with it.
Think about what it would take for a company to win you back once you decide it does not live up to its promises. If you are like most, it takes a long time and plenty of evidence that the company’s reputation has come up to the level you expected it to be in the first place.
Brands, reputation, and lawyering
This is actually very similar to what happens with lawyers, clients, and referral sources.
While you are relatively unknown, you won’t have much of a reputation, so you can get away with building whatever brand you want — for a while. Sooner or later, though, your reputation will catch up with you. What happens then depends more on what you have been doing as a lawyer than on how good your logo looks, or how well-optimized your law firm website is.
Because for most lawyers, brand and reputation are just different aspects of the same thing. Whether you realize it now, or not, your reputation is hugely important to your practice. It helps to determine how much you can charge clients, how easily you can work with opposing counsel, and how much you can get in settlements. It has a lot to do with the size and strength of your referral network. It may even help you avoid ethics complaints.
Your reputation, in the end, is everything. Whatever marketing you do, never let it undermine your reputation. More importantly, never make the mistake of thinking you can make up for a poor reputation with fancy branding. If your brand and your reputation get out of sync, it will be difficult — perhaps impossible — to get them back in sync.