The Reputation Audit: What People Actually Say When You Leave the Room

Last post I made the case that reputation is the only PR asset that compounds. This week: how to figure out what you're actually working with.

Most companies — even big ones with comms teams — outsource this question to brand surveys. NPS. A quarterly perception study with a 12% response rate. Charts that look impressive and tell you nothing.

That's not an audit. That's a deck.

A real reputation audit answers one question: what sentence do people use to describe us when we're not there?

Here's the three-source method I use with clients.

Source 1: Clients you lost

Not the ones who churned politely with a "budget reasons" email. The ones who chose someone else and you don't know why. Get on a phone call — not a Calendly invite, not a Zoom with five people. Pick up the phone. Ask: "I'm not trying to win you back. I'm trying to understand what I missed. What did the other firm say about us?"

The answer tells you what your reputation is in your category. Not what you think it is. What it is.

Source 2: Former employees, 12+ months out

People who left this quarter are still mad or still loyal. People 12 months out have moved on. They'll tell you the truth.

Don't ask "what could we do better." That's HR-survey filler. Ask: "When you describe us to your new colleagues, what do you say?" The first sentence out of their mouth is your real internal reputation. Write it down verbatim.

Source 3: Reporters who don't cover you

If your industry has 10 reporters who matter, three of them probably write about you and seven don't. Take one of the seven to coffee. No pitch. No agenda. Ask why they've never written about your company.

You'll get one of three answers: they don't know who you are (a positioning problem), they know but don't think you're newsworthy (a story problem), or they've heard things (a reputation problem). All three are fixable. None of them are findable through a brand survey.

What to do with what you find

Build a one-pager. Three columns: what we think we are, what they say we are, the gap. Send it to your leadership team without commentary.

The conversation that follows is the most expensive — and most valuable — meeting you'll have all year.

A reputation audit isn't a vanity exercise. It's the foundation for every decision you'll make about positioning, pricing, hiring, and crisis prep for the next 18 months.

Next post: what happens when the storm actually hits — and how the audit you ran in calm weather decides whether you make it through.