By: Guillaume Pare
Most businesses think about their reputation when something goes wrong. Carson Spitzke thinks that’s exactly the problem. The founder of Spitz PR has spent years helping executives build credible public profiles before they need them. We asked him what happens when brands leave that work too late.
Do most businesses actually take their reputation seriously as a risk?
Not really. Most treat it as something they’ll get to eventually. Aon ranked reputation damage as the eighth-biggest risk organizations face globally in 2025, and only 12% of those companies had put a number on its potential cost. You can’t manage what you haven’t measured.
What does a reputation gap actually look like?
Usually, it’s a company doing genuinely good work, but when you search them, there’s almost nothing there. No third-party coverage, no external voices. That silence reads as a risk signal to anyone doing due diligence. It doesn’t say you’re bad. It says you’re unproven.
Where does that hurt the business most?
The sales process, when more than one person is involved in the decision. Modern B2B deals run through 10-11 stakeholders on average. Your champion believes in you, but procurement, finance, and legal are all running their own searches. When they find nothing, the deal stalls. When they find something questionable, it dies. And nobody tells you why.
Can you give a real example of how that plays out?
A company is close to closing a meaningful contract. The champion is bought in. Then, procurement does their standard vendor check, finds minimal media presence and one unresolved complaint thread from two years ago, and flags it as a risk. The deal doesn’t get rejected outright. It just gets deprioritized, pushed to next quarter, and eventually replaced by a vendor the committee already recognized. That pattern plays out constantly. The painful part is the company never knew they were being evaluated that way.
It also happens at the top of the funnel. A founder gets a warm intro, the other party googles them before the call, finds almost nothing, and the meeting never gets confirmed. The reputation gap killed the opportunity before anyone said a word.
And when results are actively negative?
That’s where it gets expensive. In a buying committee where 74% of groups already have internal conflict, one skeptical stakeholder finding a red flag is often enough to tip the vote. Leger’s research tracking over 300 Canadian companies shows reputation shifts are measurable and sector-wide declines track directly with how companies handle public pressure.
So what actually fixes it?
Build the record before you need it. Third-party coverage, a visible founder, media presence where your buyers actually look. When procurement searches you and finds credible external sources, the deal doesn’t stall. The evidence does the work before anyone gets on a call.
