Authenticity In a Skeptical World

 

Wikipedia defines Authenticity as “The quality of being genuine or not corrupted from the original” but what does that mean. On a more fundamental level as humans, we all have built in right or wrong meters. You know when you are doing something bad, dishonest, or wrong. Yet I see so many companies that have an authenticity shortage.

Authenticity is corruptible from the top down, so it’s fixable, and more importantly, preventable from the top down too. This means that, as a business owner, the responsibility to stay genuine and, to use the parlance of our times, to ‘keep it real,’ rests squarely on your shoulders.

You know when you advertise something, or make an offer, whether or not it’s true or disingenuous. It can be tempting to throw in “not quite true” statements that are “almost” factual because, hey, these statements make you, your company and your offering sound better. The issue is that they aren’t true, and these statements are risky business. They have the potential to tarnish your reputation and hurt your business rather than to improve it (which is ironic because the reason you tell these little white lies is presumably to grow your business…).

Take a good look at your business. Remember why you started it. Remember what you love about it. Remember what you want other people to love about it. Use that passion to promote your business, because that passion is real, that passion is genuine, and that passion will keep you authentic in our ever more skeptical business landscape.