Has your reputation been tarnished? Have you burned bridges without thinking twice? Are you trying to build or rebuild your standing?

In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I discuss how you can create better relationships with others. These ideas will work whether you’re just starting to put yourself out there, or looking to restore broken relationships. Just remember – you must be patient with the rebuilding process. People won’t learn to trust you overnight.

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Podcast Highlights:

00:14 – Today’s topic, being liked

00:24 – How to build a better reputation

00:44 – Practicing conversational generosity

01:09 – Active listening

01:38 – Adding relevant value to people and personalizing communication

03:09 – Smiling at people and being confident

03:49 – Be dependable

04:28 – Being dependable makes you endorsable

04:49 – Avoid arguments

05:57 – Read How to Win Friends and Influence People

Transcription:

Hi there. Today I wanted to talk about being liked.

I’ve had some questions about reputation. Winning over people and then losing their trust. And I thought I would like to share some ideas on how you can build a better reputation for yourself, and possibly even restore and eliminate a bad reputation. As I’ve said before, this is difficult, but certainly not impossible. You can win people back and earn their trust once more.

Practicing Conversational Generosity

The first thing I wanted to talk about is straightforward. It’s something called conversational generosity. In other words, when you’re talking with others, letting them speak more, and asking more questions. When you ask people open-ended questions about themselves, more often than not they love to answer them and talk about themselves.

But you also need to practice active listening and make sure you’re listening to what they’re saying so you can ask relevant follow-up questions.

And as you practice conversational generosity, you might find people saying things like, “wow, this was a really great conversation” even though you did very little talking at all. Or, “thank you for listening.” That’s how you know you’re putting this principle into practice.

Adding Value to People

The second thing is adding value to people. So often, people will send me an email, reach out to me about possible guest post opportunities, business opportunities, partnerships, things of that nature. And not all of them are necessarily going to be beneficial. Some of them are a good fit, some them are not.

But when people are reaching out, some are very good at it, and have me in mind when they reach out. Many others, however, do not have me in mind. Sometimes their emails or messages aren’t even addressed to me. So, can I assume it’s not for me, or can I assume it’s a form letter? I think it’s a pretty safe bet.

Also, maybe the content of their message or email is all in favor of themselves. It’s beneficial to them and the goals they want to achieve, but not beneficial to me in any way.

So, if you’re reaching out to people and trying to communicate with them, you have to keep those two things in mind. First, you must address it personally to them, make it to relevant them, and then you also have to think about what’s in it for them. And only then will you be able to begin to add value to them. And as you add value to those people, you’ll see your relationships get better and thrive.

As you add value to people, you'll see your relationships grow and thrive.Click To Tweet

Communication is the cornerstone to all relationships, and without good communication, that relationship will not grow and thrive.

Smile More Often

The next point is to smile more often, especially if you’re going to something like a networking event. Smiling at people, shaking their hands, and again, putting those other things into practice. Practicing conversational generosity, asking about them, where they’re from, what they do,