YOU Are Vying for Attention!

Let’s face it.  First impressions are highly important.  As much as we’d like to pretend that the world doesn’t judge us based on first impressions, we all know, deep down, that it truly does.  Simply put, if you can’t grab people’s attention immediately with whatever you are trying to do, then you’ll have an uphill battle to fight from that point on.  In the business world, this is all too important to ignore.

Branson, MO

I just returned from a week-long vacation to Branson Missouri.  Now, if you’re not familiar, Branson is basically a tourist destination, much like Aspen CO, Las Vegas CA, or Orlando FL.  A tourist destination is created with only one objective in mind, to lure people there and to get as much money from them as possible!  There are a variety of ways that places such as Branson do this.

During my trip to Branson, I got to see a lot of the ways that people make money there.  For a town with a population of only 6,000 people, over a million people visit the town every year, and everywhere you look, you can spot ways that all of the entrepreneurs try to use in order to create an impression on the visitor, in an attempt to convince them to spend their dollars at a specific place in a very crowded marketplace.  Often times, the first impression of a business will be the deciding factor for a visitor to determine where to spend their money at, because with so many other businesses vying for attention, the businesses don’t usually get a chance to leave much of an impression.

You Only Get To Make One!

This brings me to my main point, it is highly important to leave good first impressions in your career.  I’ll get back to talking about Branson shortly, but for now, I want to relate what I saw there to your career, and how you can use it to make a better first impression in whatever it is that you do.  It doesn’t even matter what you do for a living, because no matter how you make a living, at some point you will have to make a first impression to someone.

Now, we ALL have to make first impressions in our lives.  If you are a salesperson, then you have to make an impression on your potential clients.  If you run a website, such as mine, then you have to grab the readers’ attention immediately and entice them to continue to read on, and even if you are an everyday nine to five worker, you still have to make a first impression on your boss, your co-workers, and your customers or clients.  For every person that you deal with in your professional life, you only get ONE chance to make a first impression with them.

First Impressions Directed Toward You

Let me turn this around and present this from another point of view… yours.  We’ve all had to make this particular decision in our lives at one point or another.  Do we want to eat at this restaurant or that restaurant?  Assume that you’re in unfamiliar  city and you want to try something new.  You must choose which place to eat at, and since you will be trying a new restaurant, all of the places that you will consider will, in essence, be vying for your attention and your money, and will rely completely on your first impression of them.    Now, you’ll make your choice based on all kinds of things, such as word of mouth, the items on the menu, the presentation of the establishment and their advertising, but it all boils down to the fact that you will be making a conscious choice to do business with the place that created the BEST first impression on you.

And then when you went in and sat down at that restaurant, you were most likely greeted by a server whose job is to basically make the meal as pleasant as possible for the patrons.  I don’t know how it is in other parts of the world, but servers here in the U.S.A. pretty much work on tips, and usually get paid a very low base wage.  These servers know the important of a first impression, because they must create MANY first impressions every time they go to work, because every time they seat a new table, they start over with a clean slate and have to work on creating a brand new positive first impression with that table if they plan on making a nice tip.

Your First Impressions on Others

This is how you must approach the way that you handle your first impression on others.  Much like the hungry person in the above paragraphs, who is the target of the first impression by the restaurant and the server, you must identify who it is that you are “introducing” yourself to and how you are going to meet and exceed their needs.  That’s the key word there, exceed.  You don’t create a good impression on somebody by simple meeting their needs, you have to exceed it.  If you haven’t thought about the way the way that you “introduce” yourself to people, then it’s never too late to start!

If you have to, ask people what their first impression would be of you.  Check your ego, and prepare to have it damaged, because the answers won’t always be good.  I know this for a fact, because I’ve always made lousy first impressions with people.  Most people don’t know how to handle me until they get to know me for a while.  However, I accept that this is simply an excuse, and is an indicator that I need to work on my first impression and make it more conducive to my actual personality.  I’m working on it, so I practice what I preach!

How Many First Impressions Do You Make?

So in a typical week, how many people are “introduced” to you for the first time?  How many potential clients do you make sales pitches to?  How many new visitors are reading your website?  How many customers are you serving?

Do you make too few impressions?  If you’re not regularly meeting new people or clients and trying to leave a positive impression on them, then you’re never going to get better at it.  Like any skill, it is going to take practice and introspective thought to improve on it.  Or maybe you make too many?  Perhaps you are so focused on what people think of you and winning people over that you are losing sight of what you are trying to achieve?  I can’t give you the magic number for what the ideal amount of daily first impressions are.  That’s up to you to decide.

Coming Full Circle…

Finally, let me finish my points about Branson.  While I was down there, I was able to choose from over 100 live shows, 350 restaurants, all kinds of activities, such as golf, para-sailing, jet-skiing, fishing, museum tours, antiquing and numerous other things.  There were even several places to get tattoos at if I wanted to!  Not to mention that if you know where to look, you can sit down and hear sales pitches for timeshares, vacation packages, and other things of that nature in exchange for a “free” gift such as cold hard cash.

I took part in a couple of these sales pitches, which help to illustrate my “first impression” point quite well.  These people will offer promises of a lucrative reward to dozens of people every single day without any guarantee that the listener will EVER buy something.  My friends, these people know the value of a first impression, because their line of work DEPENDS on it.  They must create such a great first impression that people will be willing to write a check for upwards of $10,000 on the spot for the services that they provide.  And when they’re losing hundreds of dollars a day in the pursuit of “buying” their first impression, you can bet that they are doing everything they can to make it a good one!

Put Yourself In The Timeshare Seller’s Shoes!

Chances are, however, that you aren’t “buying” your first impression from your viewers or customers, and I’m not advocating that you should!  I will pose this question though.  If you had to pay every single person who did business with you in order for them to witness your first impression to them, wouldn’t you want that first impression to be the absolute BEST that you can make it?  Of course you would!

However, I’d be willing to bet that, unlike the timeshare industry, you DON’T have to pay people to hear your message or to try your product.  But why should your first impression suffer for it?  Go ahead and make your first impression the very BEST it can be anyway.  If those shady timeshare people can make a living while giving away $80 to everyone who listens to their sales pitches, then why can’t you make a living off of what you have to offer?  You don’t have to pay your listeners, do you?  Well, take advantage of that fact, and get working on the first impression that you are leaving on people, so that you can maximize your potential in your career!