First impressions do count

I had an awesome idea for a post for today, but it'll wait till next week. Instead, I wanted to talk about first impressions.

I've been witness to more than 300 in the last week--that's how many people have been in touch with us at AssistU following our being mentioned on TODAY.

And truly? Only a handful of the people represented themselves well in any context of that word. In email, I've seen people writing in all caps and in all lower case; with typos and misspellings, punctuation, structure and grammatical mistakes; missing words; strange paragraph construction--you name it, I've probably seen it. By phone, ums, ahs, a clear lack of understanding of sentence structure...it's been disheartening, truly, that so many more people are making a poor impression than a good one.

I have to think they'd do better if they knew better, but that brings to mind this question: how do any of us know what we don't know? How do we know how to present ourselves well, and whether we are, or aren't?

I'm betting that at least some percentage of the people who contacted us believed they were looking pretty snappy And I, looking at them through my professional lens, know that the reality was anything but.

So I was thinking about how you, dear reader, come across to your prospective clients--both those you've identified as such and those you haven't. The world really is your proverbial oyster, and all you have to do to start mining those pearls is show up looking like you have brains and the skill to use them well--the actual version of "looking pretty snappy."

Bit O’Moxie: Think about your presence--it really is more than the "look" of your site, or the "design" of your Facebook fan page. It's the moment-by-moment way that you create a digital version of yourself, usually in type; often by voice.

What is it that you want people to see and experience of you? How do you know whether they do? And what would you do if you knew that they didn't? What course corrections would you make? How would things be different?

Inquiring minds really do want to know. :)

Comments

[Sandra]

You are perfectly correct, there is nothing worse than bad grammar or typing errors, especially coming from a VA who is trying to sell herself to a client. First impressions definitely do count.

Thanks for a great post.