Tweet

Like Books Entrepreneurs Are Always Judged By Their Covers

Written by: Tim Knox

Article Overview: Entrepreneurship requires not just hard work and knowledge of business but also a number of other things that are many times not considered too important. Grooming yourself to look good is just one of these things that entrepreneurs need to focus on.

Like Books Entrepreneurs Are Always Judged By Their Covers

Raise your hand if you’ve heard these snippets of wisdom before: you should always dress for success; you only get one chance to make a first impression; and of course the ever-popular: you can’t judge a book by its cover.

These old analogies came to mind recently when Megan Williams, North Alabama Director of Business Network International (BNI) was a guest on my radio show and shared the story of how she made the successful transition from worker bee to entrepreneur (you can hear the replay of the interview at www.timknox.com).

Megan graduated from Auburn University with a degree in Civil Engineering and went to work for the construction arm of Chevron in her early twenties, until a few years later when an experience with a business coach lit the fire of entrepreneurship in her own furnace. Within a short time Megan, who is from the small town of Union Grove, was back in Alabama seeking the right business opportunity for her.

To make a long story short, Megan purchased the BNI franchise for North Alabama at the age of 28 and formally launched her career as an entrepreneur. BNI is a networking organization that serves to bring entrepreneurs from all industries together to network and share leads.

You would never suspect it by looking at her now, but there are a couple of things that you should know about Megan before we continue: Megan grew up a self-professed tomboy and started her business after years in the construction industry, so her standard manner of dress was khaki pants and button down shirts. She didn’t mention steel-toed work boots, so I’ll leave her footwear to your imagination.

By her own words, her hair was "long, straight, and air-dried" and she wasn’t a big user of makeup. So when she started attending networking functions and chamber mixers to promote her business she noticed that she wasn’t getting the warm response from other entrepreneurs that she expected.

Eventually, Megan was pulled aside by a well-meaning friend who said, "Girlfriend, if you’re gonna be a success, you gotta dress for success."

OK, that actually sounded like Oprah in my head, but you get the point. With the help of her friend Megan went through an extreme makeover and began dressing and acting like a successful entrepreneur. She cut her hair, donned more professional attire, started conducting herself in the manner of a successful entrepreneur, and immediately saw the difference.

"It was like my credibility went up a thousand percent," Megan said. "Because I looked the part of the successful entrepreneur, people started treating me differently. They were all of a sudden talking to me and listening to me and taking an interest in what I had to say. It was amazing!"

Megan learned a great lesson that all entrepreneurs learn at one time or other: we live in a shallow world where people do judge books - and people - by their covers. You are judged by the clothes you wear, the way you talk, the people you hang around with, how you conduct yourself in public - even your handshake. That’s just the way it is. Live with it or get out of business.

Now some of you may find it offensive that we live in such a judgmental world, but consider this: if you were to consult a brain surgeon and he came in wearing a dirty t-shirt, baggy jeans that dipped below the waist of his boxer shorts, and worn out flip flops, how much trust would you have that this person was capable of working on your brain? Probably not too much.

In business and in life people judge you everyday, just as you judge everyone else. And most of us base our opinion of others on our first impression of them. We make the decision to either like them or loath them within the first minute and you know as well as I do, my holier-than-thou peers, that we do not do business with people that we don’t like. First impressions are hard to change, so make every effort to make every first impression a good one.

Just use your commonsense. Consider the industry you’re in and dress and act accordingly. If the standard dress code in your industry is a suit, wear a suit. If your industry dictates khaki pants and work shirts, wear khaki pants and work shirts. If you show up at a job site wearing a suit you’ll never hear the end of it.

And more than anything act like a professional. Wearing a thousand dollar suit and acting like an idiot just makes you a well-dressed idiot. Customers must have faith in you before they will even consider your product. Remember that the next you think about being rude to someone or making a public spectacle of yourself. You never know who’s watching.

Related Articles
  Your Reward - Sales and Marketing Training
  Losing The Deal - Yeah, It Does Happen To All Sales Professionals too!
  Winning at Your Next Job-Simply Working Hard May Be The Answer
  Others Treat Us The Way We Treat Ourselves
  Is it Worthwhile to Re-brand E-Books as an Internet Marketing Tool?

Article Tags:



Related Forum Posts
Top 19 Copywriting books - 1. Ogilvy on Advertising. David Ogilvy. Wiley. 2. Positioning: The Battle for your Mind. Al Ries and Jack Trout. Warner. 3. The New Positioning. Jack Trout. McGraw-Hill. 4. Tested Advertising Methods. John Caples. Prentice-Hall. 5. How to Make your Advertising Make Money. John Caples. Prentice-Hall. 6. Guerrilla Advertising. Jay Conrad Levinson. Houghton Mifflin. 7. Direct Mail Copy that Sells. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall. 8. Sales Letters that Sizzle. Herschell Gordon Lewis. NTC Business Books. 9. Herschell Gordon Lewis on the Art of Writing Copy. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall. 10. Romancing the Brand. David Martin. American Management Association. 11. The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, George Gribbin, David Ogilvy, Rosser Reeves. NTC Business Books. 12. Confessions of an Advertising Man. David Ogilvy. NTC Business Books. 13. My Life in Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books. 14. Scientific Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books. 15. How to Become an Advertising Man. James Webb Young. NTC Business Books. 16. The Lasker Story as He Told It. NTC Business Books. 17. Advertising Concept and Copy. George Felton. Prentice Hall. 18. The Copy WorkShop Workbook. Bruce Bendinger. The Copy Workshop. 19. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads. Luke Sullivan. Wiley. This should keep you busy for at least a year. Enjoy!
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
CEOs and Email - Slaves? - I wonder if the emails they are responding to are filtered thru their assistants first 'cos they seem to spend a lot of their off hours responding to them. True they are successful but I'm not sure I'd be willing to pay that price. I'd be interested to know what's the in the typical day planner of Entrepreneurs on the Forum. Entrepreneurs are a different breed than Paid Employees- so it would be interesting to view the contrast.
Fundraising for 3rd world Entrepreneurs - How great to learn that Evan is doing something for Entrepreneurs in Africa! It just makes me even more thankful to be part of this forum! After helping create a new charity for animals in my local community last year, I created a vision for a charity empowering Women Entrepreneurs. It won't happen for a while yet, but I know it is something I will do within the next few years. As we allow ourselves to think bigger, the opportunity to impact people becomes much bigger as well. Does anyone else have a desire to really make a difference in the world through this means?
Re: 20 Reasons why you must be a reader - 18. Books shaped the world we live, the Bible gave the Christians direction. Lenin change the way Russians should be govern when he read the book of Karl Marx on communism


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Starting A Set of Books

Executive Blind Spots

Soda Vending Machine = Energy Hog

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.