Who Owns Your Professional Reputation?
Building a Professional Reputation That Lasts a Lifetime
Physicians spend years building an outstanding professional reputation.
Medical school. Residency. Fellowship. Years of caring for patients. Relationships with colleagues, referral partners, and patients. Research. Speaking engagements. Community involvement.
Over time, all those experiences build something valuable.
I call it Physician Brand Equity™.
Physician Brand Equity is the professional value attached to your name. Like financial equity, it grows over time. But unlike financial equity, very few physicians think about who actually owns the assets connected to that equity.
That’s usually not a problem…
Until you change jobs.
Join another practice.
Or decide to open your own practice.
Your Professional Reputation Should Follow You
One of the biggest mistakes I see physicians make is allowing their professional identity to live inside someone else’s systems.
Their professional profile lives on the practice’s website.
Their email address belongs to their employer.
Their physician Google Business Profile is managed through the practice.
Their professional contacts are spread across different systems.
Then one day they change jobs and suddenly realize they don’t own many of the assets connected to their professional reputation.
Your professional reputation belongs to you. It should move with you throughout your entire career.
So where should you start?
Earlier than most physicians think.
The best time to begin building your professional brand isn’t ten years into practice. It’s during residency or fellowship.
You don’t have to build everything at once. Start with a strong foundation and continue building it throughout your career.
As your career evolves, your professional brand will evolve with it. Some assets, like your professional website, domain name, professional email address, and relationship database, can be established early. Others, like your physician Google Business Profile, can be added as your career progresses and your professional presence grows.
The important thing is simply to start. Build the foundation early, then let it grow with you throughout your career.
Own the Assets That Represent You
Your professional website becomes your permanent home on the internet.
Your domain name is your permanent professional web address.
Your professional email, connected to that domain, gives colleagues, patients, and referral partners one consistent way to reach you throughout your career.
Together, these assets create a professional identity that belongs to you, and not your employer.
Choose a professional domain name that represents you well for the long term. Avoid clever or informal website addresses that may not age well. Your domain should be something you’ll feel comfortable putting on a business card, conference presentation, publication, or professional profile twenty years from now.
While you’ll likely have an employer email wherever you practice, your professional email belongs to you.
As your career grows, your website can grow with you. You may eventually add published research, journal articles, presentations, conference summaries, continuing education, leadership roles, educational blog articles, or videos.
The goal isn’t to build a large website overnight.
The goal is to create a foundation that grows with your career.
Don’t Build Your Reputation on Borrowed Land
Every physician should have a LinkedIn profile. It’s an excellent way to connect with other professionals.
But I don’t recommend depending on any single platform that you don’t control.
LinkedIn is an outstanding networking tool today, but none of us knows what technology will look like twenty years from now.
Your personal professional website is different.
You own it.
You control it.
And it remains your professional home regardless of where your career takes you.
The same principle applies to your physician Google Business Profile.
One of our doctors left an established practice to start his own.
Because of a non-compete agreement, he opened his new practice outside the restricted geographic area.
When he left, he also lost access to the email address associated with his physician Google Business Profile.
The former practice refused to release it.
To make matters worse, his physician profile indicated he was no longer practicing, making it appear that he had left medicine altogether rather than simply opening a new practice.
Patients searching for his name had no idea where to find him.
After months of discussions and appeals, the profile was finally released.
The situation was completely avoidable.
A physician’s Google Business Profile is part of that physician’s professional identity. It should be set up by the physician and remain under the physician’s control throughout his or her career.
It’s also important to understand that there are two different Google Business Profiles.
One represents the practice.
The other represents the physician.
These profiles work together. When someone searches for your name, your physician profile often appears. When someone searches for the practice, the practice profile appears.
Your physician profile should identify where you currently practice.
Your practice profile should highlight the physicians associated with the practice.
Together they strengthen your online presence and build trust.
Build Relationships You Own
Another important part of building your professional brand is maintaining the relationships you develop throughout your career.
This is where a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can help.
Don’t let the name intimidate you. A CRM is simply a tool for organizing and maintaining your professional contacts.
It can be as simple as Google Contacts or a contact database within Constant Contact or Mailchimp.
Your database should include patients, colleagues, referring physicians, faculty and mentors, industry contacts, professional organizations, recruiters, former classmates, and conference connections.
The important thing isn’t which system you use.
The important thing is that you own the relationships.
Building relationships is only half the equation.
Maintaining them is where the long-term value is created.
Your updates don’t have to be elaborate newsletters with polished graphics.
A simple quarterly email letting people know what you’ve been doing is enough.
Share a career update.
Mention a conference you attended.
Highlight a publication or research project.
Announce a new practice location or a new area of clinical interest.
People appreciate hearing from people they know, and staying connected keeps relationships active. Those relationships often lead to future referrals, collaborations, and career opportunities.
Your website should also include a simple contact form and an option for visitors to receive future updates. Whether it’s a patient, colleague, referral partner, or someone you met at a conference, make it easy for people to stay connected with you.
Five Steps to Start Building Your Professional Brand Today
If you haven’t started building your professional brand, don’t feel like you have to do everything at once. Start with the basics and build from there.
- Purchase a professional domain name associated with your name.
- Create a simple professional website that you own and control.
- Set up a professional email address connected to your domain.
- Build a professional relationship database and stay connected with periodic updates.
- Claim and maintain your physician Google Business Profile when it becomes appropriate for your practice.
The goal isn’t to build everything overnight.
The goal is to establish a strong foundation that will support your professional reputation throughout your career.
Your professional reputation is built one relationship, one patient, and one career decision at a time.
Build it intentionally. Own it personally. Let it grow with you throughout your career.
How is Your Professional Reputation?
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