Lesson 2 of 10: First Impression

Sharing the “power” of dressing well and the basis for how dress factors into the overall equation...

What It Is & How It Shapes Everything

In this session, we untangle the work involved in making an impactful and lasting first impression and depending on how you look at it, the latter is easier than you think. The first impression is formed in the first seven seconds of meeting an individual and it’s what a person uses to determine if they like or don’t like a person, if they want to talk or walk away from a person, whether a person is credible or not, and how they’ll treat that individual moving forward.

Whoa!

The game is essentially won or lost in under 10 seconds.

And what exactly is it that you use to “calculate” your decision in those first seven seconds of meeting an individual? Well it’s a combination of lots of things not the least of which is how a person look. Studies indicate that the way an individual looks accounts for upwards of 55% of that first impression[i].

More than half of your first impression is purely based on the look.

Let’s keep going because over 90% of an individual’s first impression is based on non-verbal factors[ii] such as eye contact, firmness and dryness of handshake, stature, posture, the whiteness of your teeth, your smell…to name a few.

You can literally make a fabulous [or horrible] first impression without even saying a word. The power of the first impression is largely influenced by your non-verbal cues in the first seven seconds of meeting someone, and over half of that is based on how you look!

Numerous psychological studies will prove this out: if you see a person on the street and they appear ‘dressed to the nines’ – sharp, professional, and stylish; and then you see that same individual later on looking tired, haggard and a ‘hot mess’, and someone asks you about your impressions of that person, you will likely say that the person is stylish, successful, or a host of other positive attributes because, psychologically, you are conditioned to rely on your “first” impression. The reserve holds true as well.

Your takeaway from this is powerful and twofold: not only does your first impression influence ongoing interactions but it has a lasting effect. In fact, it takes an average of 4.6 additional interactions to influence, sway, change, recalibrate or change your first impression.

So now think about going into an interview, or meeting on a date for the first time, or connecting with your boss for the first time in an elevator on the way up to your office floor... Now think about when you were too tired to put on makeup for the first date, or you were more concerned with being “comfortable” at work and decided to wear a wrinkled polo shirt instead of an ironed button down, or you left that little stain on your shirt for your interview because you thought no one would notice even though they did.

You haven’t ruined your chances but you have significantly increased the amount of work you have to do to not be “behind” the eight ball.

This information applies not only to your professional interactions but to your personal ones as well. Plan accordingly. Do you remember the television series “Suits”? If so then you’ll remember that the main character was always suited because, as he stated in one of the initial episodes, “first impressions last”.

Your big takeaway when thinking about first impressions: they last, are lasting, and are the foundation for starting out ahead of the game!

Our next session will start us into the building blocks of dressing well. We’ll start with Footwear because it’s the basis for how you move and provides your foundation, literally! That lesson will help you decide which shoes to get and understand why you need them…because sometimes that helps make the purchase a little more palatable.

[i] Stats from BusinessInsider.com

[ii] Stats from BusinessInsider.com