Reputation Design 101
Are you leaving your reputation up to chance?
How we perceive is how we understand.
Our minds are constantly building mental models of everything we encounter.
Those models ultimately shape what we believe to be true.
Which means understanding isn’t something we get.
It’s something we create.
The Myth
Most people think understanding is automatic.
Build something good. Communicate clearly. Repeat often.
And eventually, people will “get it.”
Right?
But that assumes understanding is passive—like filling up an empty cup. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.
Understanding is the active construction of perception.
And if you don’t design the conditions for that, you leave your reputation and trajectory entirely up to chance.
Managing vs. Designing
Most try to manage perception. Tweak the copy, adjust the graphics, and clarify messaging after the fact.
But that’s like trying to rearrange someone’s thoughts once they’ve already made up their mind. Or rewriting a book after it’s been read.
The best brands don’t manage perception. They design it.
They control the moment of encounter before it happens.
They build the mental scaffolding that shapes how they're perceived—and ultimately understood.
Design shapes the default. Management plays defense.
From Presence to Position
Every interaction builds more than just awareness.
It trains recognition, which forms in a sequence:
Presence → Perception → Position
Presence is your identity, character, and voice in action. It’s the way you consistently show up across time, space, and context.
Perception is the shape someone forms in their mind from that presence. The interpretation of who you are and what you have to offer.
Position is the place that interpretation cements in their mind—relative to other choices they’re aware of.
In other words:
Presence feeds perception.
Perception over time crystallizes position.
That’s the basic blueprint.
Break the chain anywhere, and everything changes.
That’s why just “showing up” isn’t enough. It’s literally the bare minimum.
What matters is how each moment stacks.
Understanding vs Knowing
Understanding isn’t what you know. It’s what you comprehend.
You can know something is objectively good—but that doesn’t mean you comprehend its value.
How we perceive and ultimately understand the world around us are based on 3 things:
Knowledge + Lens + Angle
Knowledge is what we learn. Facts. Experiences. Observations.
Lens is how we interpret that knowledge. Assumptions. Beliefs. Biases.
Angle is our method of approach. Orientation. Context. Framing.
Simply put: knowledge is what we know, our lens are how we see, and the angle is where we’re standing when we look.
Change any variable and the outcome changes—even if the message stays exactly the same.
The Shift
Most businesses obsess over the knowledge piece.
The content. The pitch. The offer.
But they ignore the lens and the angle.
What ends up happening is we invest in every interaction based on assumptions and deliver them as if they exist in a vacuum.
That’s how great ideas go unseen. Great teams stay underfunded. Great products fall flat.
Because no one designed for perception.
So if the best don’t rely on luck, but rather, design for perception… What does that actually mean?
They curate Knowledge—not everything all at once, but the right thing at the right time.
They shape the Lens by naming the problem, reframing expectations, and owning a worldview.
They adjust the Angle by crafting the moment of discovery. Where. When. How.
When all 3 elements are in place, people don’t have to be convinced of anything.
The ones winning marketing don’t “do” marketing.
They control the narrative.
The Truth
The moment you start seeing your business as a way to construct meaning (not just a means of distribution) you stop swimming against the current.
Most people think understanding is what happens after you explain something.
But being seen accurately and understood isn’t just something that happens to you.
It’s something you create the conditions for.
The truth is, other people don’t have a “better marketing strategy.”
They have an inevitable conclusion.