Sales Success Key # 3 -- Creating Great First Impressions

Today my daughter is being interviewed for a short-term role at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

No fooling here: I am proud. Whether she wins the opportunity or not, she got exactly this far—and that’s proof enough for me of her star quality.

We were in Philadelphia so I took her to the train station and she would make her own way from there. That seems to be the formula.

When we unloaded her bag from the back of the car there would only be time for a few words and a hug. We’re not really a long-goodbye kind of family. I dug as deep as I could for my best fatherly advice.

One thing that came to mind is a blog post from a couple of weeks ago—Sales Success Key #1—about mustering the right attitude. “As you’re walking into the office or boardroom, wherever the interview is going to take place, give yourself a shot of positive attitude! Let there be an energy about you!"

The other little offering might be seen as two things because there are two traits involved. But they need to be in balance, and that’s the key.

Here it is: don’t forget that first impressions are made out of quick assessments of your warmth and your credibility. If you have warmth and not enough credibility, you’re undoubtedly lovely, but not quite good enough. If you have credibility but lack the warmth, you may not play well with others.

Indeed, I think this advice is good for salespeople too.

It sounds easy, I suppose. But I don’t think it is. I think the warmth and credibility one projects tend to derive from years of complex personal programming. The good news is that they are also self-programmable. We all have the circuitry for compassion and we all have whatever our left-brained cognitive functioning can offer; it’s a question of whether we can flick the right switches at will. Managing to be genuine while keeping those traits front-of-mind is an art.

Which is why my own daughter will wear the badge of modern art, if I say so myself.