Lots of people say first impressions matter. Indeed, the academics and psychologists who study this kind of stuff, say that people take about a nano-second to make up their minds on meeting someone new. You may call it a snap judgement; we think it’s more about the impact you make, and whether it’s the one you want to make.
Impact Factory has run many programmes (both tailor-made courses, corporate programmes and individual one to one sessions) on making an impact and developing personal style.
This work is all about looking at how you come across and what you can do to make the kind of impression you want. In particular we look at how to change the impression you make without having to change your whole personality.
Most people who want to come across more impactfully think they would be all right if they were only like so and so, if they could only talk like this person, or be the life of the party like that person. Most people do this at some point in their lives: look at someone who seems to have charm, poise, confidence, and wish they could be like that too.
Well we all know that isn’t going to happen. The only material you have to work with is you, the person you are right now! The good news is that you probably come across a lot better than you think (but more on that later).
Developing your impact goes hand in hand with developing yourself. It’s done through looking at strengths and developing what you already have, rather than trying to fix the weaknesses.
What’s an impact?
We all impact on the people around us every day of our lives (and in turn, they impact on us). Sometimes our impact is positive and powerful; but it can also be overwhelming (too powerful), inappropriate or weak. The problem is that because our own view of the impact we have on others is, by its nature, so subjective, it is very difficult to know how and why things go wrong, or at least not the way we had hoped. At best, we may just get a vague sense of things not being quite as they should be or how we imagined they would be.
There are many ways we impact on others. For instance, our accent, race, gender, clothes, hair, communication style, body language. We impact on others through our opinions, the amount we contribute, the sound of our voice, the effect of our silence, the expressions we use.
Our capacity to impact on others is greatly affected by our understanding or misunderstanding of what we think the rules and conventions are. This can give rise to a feeling of not being ‘allowed’ to speak our mind or of it not being ‘right’ to influence other people - ‘Oh that’s manipulation, I couldn’t do that’.
It’s also affected by a fear of making a complete fool of ourselves, by who’s in the room, by the room itself, by our ‘excess baggage’ that we lug into meetings (or that others lug into meetings), relationships, presentations, etc. The impact we make can be affected by the weather, by the tube being late, by the time of day, by our attitude towards the person/people we are speaking to.
So the first place to look when you want to start designing the way you impact on others is to identify the pit falls you know trip you up and which will undermine your ability to choose the impact you make.
The Self in relation to others
Do you know how other peoples see you? When you leave a meeting or end a conversation, what impression do you leave behind? What picture do other people have of you? How do you think they perceive you?
Here are common areas by which people build up their perceptions of us in the workplace. Try compiling a profile of yourself using this questionnaire (score 1 for lowest and 10 for highest).
Then ask someone from your peer group who knows you well to fill it out. Next try someone who knows you less well and someone like your boss. You’ll soon become aware of the discrepancies between how you think you are perceived and how you are actually perceived.
How are you at
Giving acknowledgement
Getting acknowledgement
Allowing mistakes
Appraising
Identifying others’ needs
Confronting issues
Goal setting
Disciplining
Resolving conflict
Encouraging
Counselling
Constructively criticising
Negotiating
Asking for help
Giving bad news
Listening
Completing
Seeing points of view
Being Flexible
Following through
Handling confidentiality
Focusing
Warning
Preparing for change
Are there any areas where you scored yourself low to middling, where others had you scored higher? Or vice versa? Any big gaps between how you see yourself and how others see you?
What sort of person are you?
We know that people are complex beings. We are never one thing or have just one kind of impact on others. But even though we know this, we still carry a picture inside our heads of how we think others see us. Indeed, there may be a whole catalogue of pictures: ‘My father sees me as a wimp, my girlfriend as an ogre.’ ‘My boss sees me as dedicated, my secretary as a layabout.’ ‘ My best friend see me as compassionate, my neighbour as a busybody.’
What labels do you imagine other people attach to you?
Do you pigeonhole yourself? It’s very easy. We’re quick to categorise ourselves and therefore limit the person we can be. Then we go out and make sure that others see us that way, as we stick resolutely to our ‘type’. We may even say, ‘Oh, that’s just the sort of person I am.’ No! That’s the person we’ve become; and if we became it, we can un-become it!
So what sort of person do you think you are?
Impact ‘Talk’
Whether we open our mouths or not, we are talking, saying things to others about ourselves.
Having looked at some of the elements that go into your making impact, the next step is to see what you are actually saying. For instance, if I always wear black I might be saying, ‘I’m a gloomy, introvert who’s trying to hide’; or I might be saying, ‘I’m glamorous and mysterious.’
If I always introduce myself first instead of waiting for people to come up to me, I might be saying, ‘I’m a confident person and am looking forward to meeting you’; or I might be saying, ‘let’s get this over with so I can get back to my corner.’
Only you will know what it is you are trying to say. It is rare that people make no impact at all; but common to make one they didn’t intend. By this we mean, that if you aren’t conscious about how you come across to others, you relinquish pretty much all control of how you will be perceived. It will rest in other people’s hands.
Now, of course, you can never completely be in charge of how others perceive you, but you can have a lot more say in the matter than you may think.
Don’t look inside!
Just about the worst place you can look to see the impression you are making on others is inside. How you feel about how others see you is not a good indicator of how you are coming across, yet that’s usually the first place we will go to collect the ‘evidence’.
You talk to someone, you feel nervous, you look inside yourself and see a gibbering wreck. Therefore, you imagine that the other person sees a gibbering wreck as well. Then what usually happens is that you will start to compensate your behaviour (damage limitation) in the hopes that the other person will see someone who’s confident. This usually makes it worse, of course.
So if you don’t look inside for the ‘evidence’, what happens instead?
How do you want others to see you?
Having looked at how you think you come across, you need to identify how you want others to see you and then see if any of it matches up. Sometimes, it’s all in alignment: how you feel you come across matches up with how you want to be seen.
More often there will be a gap. The above example is a case in point. You don’t want to be seen as a gibbering wreck; you want to be seen as confident and competent. Except you really do believe that you’re seen as a gibbering wreck. How do you break through that ‘vicious cycle’?
It is only once you’ve identified the gap that you can do anything about narrowing it.
The self in relation to the self
One of the ways we communicate is to tell ourselves what’s wrong with us. It’s as though there’ a constant self-assessment going on that in most cases, tends to be negative. ‘I didn’t do that very well, did I?’ ‘I could have said that better.’ ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’ And so on.
We’re taught it’s not good to be too self-congratulatory - I’ll be seen as bigheaded and conceited.
If you begin to take more notice of what’s already working: what you do well, the qualities, individual traits and idiosyncrasies that you have and that make you a unique individual, you’ll be working with positives. Positive qualities require no work. They make us feel good and can be displayed or used far more easily than things we should be better at.
Start looking at where you are most effective and how you do that. Start noticing when you do things well and then congratulating yourself for it.
Start telling yourself what’s right about yourself. Go back to the questionnaire at the beginning of this document and see if you can up some of your scores by reassessing yourself from a positive point of view. Here’s an example: Say you’ve given yourself a 6 or 7 for Encouraging. Your self-talk might go something like this: ‘I’m pretty good at encouraging others, but really I don’t notice things enough and I should praise people a lot more.’
That’s one form of the truth.
Try this version: ‘I’m pretty good at encouraging others. I like to let people know when I’ve spotted their efforts and help them do better.’
That’s another version of the same truth.
Here’s how it could work every time.
The Virtuous Cycle
A virtuous cycle is something that reinforces your own good opinion of yourself.
Virtuous cycles can be used to change one small thing about your impact. In time these small changes can lead to larger changes.
The Cycle:
Make a small, deliberate change in your behaviour. Let’s say you never speak up in meetings. A small change might just be to agree with someone else’ comments, just so your voice is heard in the room.
That will change, even if only slightly, how you are seen or experienced. You will also start feeling better because you’ve given yourself a doable objective which is far more easily achieved than telling yourself, ‘I need to speak up a lot more in meetings, so the next time there’s an opening I’ll take it.’ (You won’t, by the way. You’ll be so busy waiting for the opening it will pass you by.)
How you are viewed, in turn, changes the way you are treated (e.g. people will start to ask your opinion at meetings; they may start looking for your agreement).
Which, in turn, reinforces your change of behaviour. Having spoken up and seen it’s had a positive effect, you will be more comfortable speaking up at meetings.
And so the cycle goes round.
You make an impact anyway, so with a little effort, you can choose the impact you want to make. With the right approach and some support from those around you, you can start to add brighter colour to your life.
And as we say at Impact Factory, make the smallest change for the biggest impact.
Jo Ellen and Robin run Impact Factory who provide Personal Impact Training Presentation Skills, Communications Training, Leadership Development and Executive Coaching for Individuals.
“I started off speaking because I had always heard that it was a good way to build your reputation. In the beginning I would speak to anyone who would invite me. In a way that was good, because it gave me the chance to hone my speaking skills, which weren’t that great in the beginning. Toastmasters and a personal coach help me gain the confidence I needed.
After a while I started to develop a reputation as someone who could deliver an interesting talk and the offers started to multiply. This was somewhat of a mixed blessing. While I enjoyed the audience attention, I began to realize that there were precious few people in the audience who could potentially become clients.
Eventually I realized that I started to focus on trade associations that served my targeted group of clients. These groups were a much more productive use of my time. Speaking to these audiences both enhanced my reputation as an expert in my field and also led directly to some new accounts.” Michael Schonefield, Electronics Distribution.
A key component for building your reputation for expertise is public speaking.It’s important not only for building your success in rainmaking, but also for gaining visibility with the senior management in your company. One of the most effective ways to build your organizational visibility is through making presentations, so you’ve got to learn the basics.
Where can you go to learn? Lots of places. Your company may have an internal presentation skills program that they offer. If they do make sure you sign up to take the class. There are also a lot of outside resources available. Perhaps the best known is Toastmasters, and it is excellent. You learn how to structure a speech and present it before an extremely supportive group of audience members. Aside from toastmasters, there are a number of training companies, mine included, that offer this type of training.
When you’re starting your speaking career, it doesn’t make a great amount of difference who’s in the audience. The general rule is to speak to any group that will have you. In the beginning you just want to get experience. Public speaking is like many other things in life, it’s frightening the first few time you do it, but after a little bit of experience you wonder what the big concern was.
As you develop your reputation for being able to give an interesting speech, you’ll find that it’s pretty easy to get speaking opportunities. At this stage in your speaking career you’ll want to be selective about where you spend your time. I recently spoke to a local civic group and think I lowered the average age in the room down to about 70. It’s not that they weren’t a wonderful group of people, but they were all retired. Unfortunately, I can’t market my services to the retirement set, although a few of them did promise to pass my information along to their grandkids. Maybe I’m being short sighted, but I still don’t think it was the best use of my time.
Although there are no hard and fast rules to this, after you’ve gotten comfortable with your speaking skills, you’ll want to make sure that you ask whoever is requesting your speaking services the following questions.
1-How many people will be there?
2-What’s their background?
3-What’s their motivation for attending?
I find that the answers to these questions are extremely helpful in determining how beneficial the speaking assignment is likely to be.
Mark Satterfield is the author of How To Overcome Marketing Inertia and Get More New Clients in as Little as 7 Weeks. Find out more by clicking here http://www.gentlerainmarketing.com/report_6weeks.html
Seminars provide the opportunity to learn from the best. Those who put on a seminar are there for a reason, they are very good at what they do. They offer their expertise willingly to anyone wishing to listen to it, for a price of course.
Let’s look at four solid reasons why seminars pack the most punch for your learning dollar.
1. You will learn more in a day than you will in a month. Seminars are designed to give you the maximum amount of information into a predetermined period of time. Seminars can range from a couple of hours to a full week retreat.
2. As mentioned before, you get to learn from the best. You get to sit in the same room with an expert and listen to them share their wisdom and knowledge. It’s a shame that many people cannot see the opportunity in this. An expert knows what information to provide to achieve maximum results in the least amount of time.
3. You are right there in the room with no outside distractions. No phones, no television, no kids yelling. We learn best from direct experiences. What better way is there to absorb information quickly than being a part of the action? Why do people go to the movies? Maybe it’s because they want to watch the movie in a room without any outside distractions. A movie theater provides them the environment to focus and absorb what is being presented to them.
4. Seminars provide tools of the trade. It may be a workbook or a physical product like a software CD. It may be included in the cost of the seminar or it may be offered for sale after the conclusion. Many people underestimate the value of these tools. These products were designed to help you continue and re-enforce what you have learned from the seminar. Why spend the money to attend if you are not planning to put the information learned to good use? If the seminar provided value to you it should be a sure bet that the book, workbook, audio or video series should also have value.
Take the time to attend at least one seminar this year. Whether you are looking to improve your life, make more money, plan for your retirement or even learning how to tie fishing flies. Someone is out there willing to help you achieve your goals with the tools in hand to get you there as quickly as possible.
Mr James started MyBusinessTipsOnline to provide business advice, etc and write articles about his industry-full article here
Engraved business cards appear luxurious and elegant. If you want to convey a sense of your company being head and shoulders above the competition, look into buying some engraved business cards. These cards will surely show your prospective clients that you care about everything-even the smallest details. Compared to your standard glossy card, these engraved business cards will do a great job in setting your business apart from the others. Not many businesses will go the extra expese, so when you do, you know the image you will be projecting will be tops. In today’s “cut throat” businesws world, every extra edge you can gain will be that much more to the bottom line.
There are advantages and disadvantages to engraved business cards. One advantage of engraved business cards is the look and the feel. These cards, simply put, look and feel like ones that would come from a profitable firm. The paper is very high stock, and the engraved look really stands out in a group of other cards. You have the option of choosing which parts of the card you want engraved, and which parts you want to leave alone. Often companies will only engrave the company name in order to make it stand out. Though it is not common, some companies do engrave the entire card.
The main disadvantage is the price of these engraved cards. Due to the fact that it takes a special process to produce engraved business cards, the price will be driven up quite a bit. You need to decide how important conveying a good business image is. Especially if you are a small firm, this could be the “make or break” part of a business deal.
Though it is not necessary to buy engraved business cards, it may be worth your time and money to try some out. Buy a few to start and see what kind of response you get. You may be surprised to find out that these cards will garner a higher response rate at whatever yo are promoting. Engraved business cards definitely stand out in a sea of cards. Contact your regular printer for a price quote; if they do not offer this service, there are plenty of companies who will be able to accommodate your needs. It never hurts to try out a new technique that could improve business. Everyone, large and small businesses could use that extra advantage. I’m not sure if they do engraved cards, but one of the best online business card printers is Vistaprints.
Keith Londrie II is a well known author. For more information on Business cards, please visit Business Card Information for a wealth of information.
You want to start a home Internet business and have your idea and web design accomplished bigtime. Now you need to add the content that will get people coming to visit your site.
The best way to fill your site and make it appealing is simplicity. You don’t need to have tons of graphics and bright colors plastered all over. The clean simple design is the best and attracts the most people.
Too many things going on throughout a site can be overwhelming to the viewer and drive them away, not get them to stay and come back. Stay away from playing annoying music of any kind on your site. This a sure fire way to drive away business.
You also want to stay away from things that require time to load. This slows down the viewer’s access to immediate information. Just because you can put it on a site does not mean you have to or should. You want to have value to your site. K.I.S.S. keep it simple and sweet.
What works is good content. This will make the viewer linger and become more interested in what you have. There are tons of ways to accomplish this and you will get to use and decide what works for you. Pick a few tools of the trade, use them, and apply them to your site and monitor the response and traffic.
If you notice that some are not producing remove them and try something else. You will have to be diligent but remember that simple is better. Remember K.I.S.S. You don’t want to implement every tool at once. It can make your viewers feel uncomfortable so use a few and ditch the rest. Here are just a few possibilities.
1. E-mail lists are great to allow customers to talk about your products and services. Yahoo groups offer this service free. Members can post comments and questions to you, or each other, and an e-mail is generated to all users. The group can be private, subject to approval, or public.
You will want to see daily traffic and post frequently in the beginning to get things going. Eventually your customers will start talking to each other. These lists are a great tool and keep people active and coming back.
2. Polls for viewers to vote on a specific issue related to the site’s content. You want to keep people interactive so they don’t get bored. Writing a poll from scratch can be tricky but they make great templates today that can be of great help. You would fill in the blanks and then copy and paste the code to your site.
3. Weblogs or blogs are like an online journal that is frequently updated. You will add some good links into it to help out your business of course. It is also a form of communication that allows people to stay updated on what is going on with your business and what they can expect in the future. Today blogs have taken on a life of their own and are sweeping through cyber land.
We are all cluttered thinkers, our minds preoccupied with numerous thoughts, feelings, and unresolved information.
You can see that clearly as you walk down any city street.
Faces are contorted with angst, inner dialogues, and multilayered emotions. People even walk and move in an uncoordinated way.
Examine your own thinking, and you’ll see that hidden agendas, conflicts, and internal upsets constantly interfere with the clarity of your logic.
This is both an opportunity and an obstacle for salesmanship.
It is an opportunity because you can offer people something that they need to improve their lives, ease their pain, and end their confusion.
Your product may very well provide the relief that your customers need.
It may be a way for them to make more money following a specific technology.
It may be a way for them to develop will power and self confidence.
It may be something that makes their lives easier to organize, maintain, and evolve.
It may be a way for them to get rest, relief, and peace.
Or it may be a way for them to recuperate energy, health, and well-being.
Yet you also have an obstacle. They can’t see you, hear you, or even respond to you-again, because of their preoccupation.
As a psychologist this happens to me quite often.
People write to me about some difficulty they are having. I write back, proposing a simple, common-sense and highly-doable solution.
Then they write back repeating their complaint, completely ignoring the solution.
In other words, they weren’t even able to understand that they had been presented with a solution.
The way most marketers try to break through this preoccupation is to increase their marketing signal to break through the customer’s internal noise.
They amp up their marketing message-playing on the customer’s spectrum of desires with a hammer. It’s called hype.
In their desperation, customers often respond in the way that the marketer desired.
Encouraged, the marketer then rolls out the next pitch with the same tactics.
Eventually, however, even this does not work. The customer becomes numbed out, tone deaf, and utterly indifferent.
In addition, everybody else is assailing the customer’s sensibility, trying to attract their attention, with the same dramatic techniques.
A better approach is to tone down the customer’s inner noise, rather than raise your own marketing signal.
How do you do this?
You simplify and clarify your message at every point of contact.
Rather than hype things up, you present your information in an increasingly simple and direct way.
Whether you’re into internet marketing, network marketing, mail order or sales, you will always have a better response if you simplify your marketing message.
This is why USP’s, slogans, and other techniques are popular-they give a handle to the brand or product.
Sometimes even an unusual company, brand, or product name can awaken a whole train of familiar associations in the customer’s mind.
However, the principle is more important than the technique being used.
And the principle is keep it short and simple.
If your message is clear, it will be received and acted upon. Your sales will improve. And if you get really good at this, they will soar!
Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas with you. Hunting everywhere for a life worth living? Discover the life of your dreams. His book Never Ever Give Up tells you how. It is offered at no cost as a way to help YOU succeed. http://www.theempoweredsoul.com/enter.html
In this article, the first in a series of related articles on public speaking, we are going to discuss the nuts and bolts of speech, in order to better understand how to hone and harness them in our efforts and attempts at becoming masters of public speaking.
The fact is that, paying close attention to all vocal elements: Enabling Breathing, Harnessing your vocal physical utilities, Vocal routines and care, are essential factors at play in the mastering of the fundamentals of public speaking. Even if you feel confident in your own ability, prowess and competence, there is always room for improvement so getting back to basics is always a good first step. If you strengthen your fundamental skills, you will have that much stronger base to work from, laying a secure and strong foundation for the more advanced aspects of public speaking.
If you pay close attention to relaxing, posture and a variety of breathing techniques and exercises, you will benefit tremendously from the conditioning and before you know it, it will become second nature almost overnight.
Posture is everything and as you prepare for your daily regimen and routines, vocal exercises, prepare yourself by taking the following steps:
1. Standing relaxed, easily and naturally
2. With good body posture and standing tall and upright
3. Your chest area will be engaged in breathing and your shoulders lowered (not anxiously raised!)
4. Hold your chin relaxed and level
5. Stand with one foot slightly forward (left of right that is up to you, whichever you feel most comfortable) to stabilize and balance yourself.
6. Place your heels at a 45-degree angle and keep your knees straight Place the full weight of your body on your toes
7. Place your arms at your side
8. Breathe in and out deeply, gradually and naturally.
9.
Try and practise this as a set-up routine as regularly as possible. In doing this, not only will it help you with the discipline and establishing good public speaking habits, it will breed familiarity and comfort in these routines and they will soon become as natural to you as