BY LOGAN CHIEROTTI @LOGANCHIEROTTI

Learn how to successfully encourage your team to share their thoughts about your company and how you're leading it.

Reputation management isn't a cure-all. It's important to make sure you're getting to the root of the problem that's affecting how your company is being perceived.

Shared: From your friends TechAutoCareers.com® the online resource for the Automotive Sales Consultant

Reputation management is a vital service in the age of the Internet. However, as I counsel my clients again and again, it's wonderful for quashing defamatory, unfair, or just plain uninformed criticism, but it isn't a cure-all.

In the short term, it can, perhaps, help you cover up pressing systemic problems that impact your organization. It can't cover them up forever, though. And if you're not working on those problems, sooner or later your company's negative press is going to reach critical mass, and no SEO firewall is going to change that.

Take Walmart, for example, which is turning into the nation's most hated company. It doesn't matter what people find in the search results. WalMart looks like one of the bad guys in the court of public opinion, and there's not much the company can do to change that.

Knowing reputation management's limits is as important as knowing its strengths. Here are three things my company could never do for you.

1. Reputation management can't turn a bad product into a good product. It can't fix bad customer service or poor management. Putting a band aid on a real business issue by starting a reputation management campaign is not a solution that I recommend.

Eventually, a shoddy or silly product is simply going to fail. Word is going to get around and people are going to stop buying it.

Reputation management may help a business squeeze a few extra dollars out of the product, but that's all. If your product makes people sick, injures them, or otherwise endangers their lives, then the news is going to come out. And you'll have a long, hard road ahead of you if you want to restore consumer confidence.

The solution? Make sure you're putting out a good product in the first place. Then you'll get some natural reputation benefits.

2. It can't help you keep your talent.

If you're treating your employees poorly, you're going to get high turnover, even if reputation management helps you present yourself as a stellar firm that offers an outstanding work environment.

Apply the golden rule to your workplace. Treat others as you'd like to be treated. Act with integrity. Create a place that people want to be involved in.

3. It won't turn your customers into evangelists.

The founder of Tom's Shoes describes exactly how and why he's turned his customers into evangelists. He's done it by performing good works in addition to chasing profits.

Pursuing a social good is one excellent way to accomplish this goal, but it's not the only way. You don't have to solve poverty every time you sell a widget. You can also turn customers into evangelists just by being a stellar company. Deliver what you promise. Offer outstanding service. Be the kind of company that you'd want to work with, no exceptions.

A company whose reputation is merely "clean" is no match for a company that customers love. If you're taking the time to invest in proactive reputation management at all (and you should be) then you should take the time to perform the housekeeping that will elevate you to this coveted status. It's all part of that firewall--the one that just might save you when a malicious customer or competitor starts smearing your business.

What do you think? Is this something you can benefit from or do you have a few tricks up your sleeve that are just as powerful? Make your voice heard by leaving a comment below. Don’t forget to hit the share button if you know others who will find this post useful.

I.C. Collins ~ Author, Educator, Trainer and President: Has One Simple Goal: Improve a Million Automotive Sales Consultants Lives with our ebook "How to Succeed in the Automotive Sales Industry"

I wanted to take a minute and THANK all the people that comment, like, and share my posts daily. I appreciate you all! From your friends TechAutoCareers.com® the online resource for the Automotive Sales Consultant™

Please accept our invitation and feel free to be yourself and get to know our members on TechAutoCareers.com®, Facebook, Google+, and Linkedin.