The science behind first impressions, why we’re quick to judge and how appearance is key in developing trust.
First impressions are so key to success in any relationship, whether you’re closing deals or looking for someone to spend your life with. There’s a commonly quoted statistic that we make our mind up in the first seven seconds of an interaction.
The meanings of different facial expressions and gestures give us endless fascination. Much of your communication comes across through your facial expressions, before you’ve said a word. When you’re working across cultures, striking international deals and speaking to clients from around the world, a little awareness of how your face comes across is really important.
In our personal relationships, interpreting expressions is one thing – think how often you can tell your partner is annoyed, just by the look on their face! In international business though, an expression can mean one thing to you and another completely different thing elsewhere.
What does it mean to be good looking? Does facial symmetry have any effect on attractiveness? And does being ‘good looking’ affect how we’re perceived in the world of work? Is it different for men and women?
There’s a perception that good looking people get ahead in business. Dwight Schrute from comedy programme the US Office thinks so:
First rule in road-side beet sales: Put the most attractive beets on top. The ones that make you pull the car over and go, “Wow, I need this beet right now.” Those are the money beets.
Leadership relies on trust. But how can we learn from politician’s – often carefully crafted – public personas and apply it to our own professional image?
Multiple scientific studies imply that humans are biologically wired to trust their first impressions.
You have seven seconds (or less) to exude trustworthiness and competence during a first meeting – what you do immediately on meeting someone is crucial. In the digital age, friendly faces, warm video presentation or reassuring voices become more important when it comes to trusting someone.
More than ever, your headshots are your first impression.
Think your LinkedIn or other social profiles, your personal website or your company marketing materials.
People buy from people. This means your first impression is key to getting ahead in business.
This means that your headshot should make the impression you want to make.
Our professional headshot services are the perfect accompaniment if you’re kick-starting your sales campaigns with a motivational event for employees.
Promoting your brand and products in a professional way
If your employees have the same style of professional headshots that support your brand, potential clients will know they are dealing with a credible, serious business
Saves time & money
The headshot guy can attend any location in the UK and set up a pop-up studio to take professional headshots of all your sales teams and senior managers in one day. (Don’t worry we can also offer top-up services for new starters and team changes at a later date.)
Quality & assurance
A professional headshot will set your company apart from competitors. ‘The headshot guy’ guarantees to capture the best angle and natural smile of each employee, helping your sales people come across as approachable and welcoming
Talent retention
Your employees will benefit from having a professional headshot and feel valued and supported by management. It will help them build a professional networking profile online and a professional photograph is also ideal to feature on email accounts and business cards
Easy booking and administration
An online gallery is provided for all event delegates so they can choose their best picture. We supply images quickly and efficiently and all are supplied in low or high resolution, professionally edited and cropped for online and/or print uses.
For information and to book today
When it comes to business, LinkedIn is surpassing all other social media platforms and is used a lot more than you may realise. Did you know that more than half of B2B companies are using LinkedIn to source customers and nine out of ten recruiters use LinkedIn to check potential employees? The importance of your LinkedIn profile is immeasurable.
It’s clear that to maximise your opportunities it is vital that not only people can find your LinkedIn page but that your LinkedIn page finds them.
We have put together the most effective tricks you can do to get more views on your LinkedIn page and rank higher on Google.
Complete your profile – probably one of the most obvious things you can do to make your LinkedIn page more visible is to complete your profile! The more content you have available the more views you will receive. Include sample links to your work, fill out your job descriptions, ask for and give recommendations. If you need more information on this don’t forget you can use LinkedIn’s “Profile Strength” tool to help you cover all your bases.
Choose a Professional Picture – Feel free to put your drinking, partying and social pictures on other social media plat forms (with very good privacy settings) but do not do this on LinkedIn! Show off your profile with a professional headshot that can capture an element of trust and authority that is hard to express in any of your less professional images. Uploading a good photo will also improve your Google ranking as it will now be listed on Google Images.
Claim your Name – Change your URL for LinkedIn so that you are more easily found by real life connections. When searching for you, your LinkedIn profile will appear higher as your URL mentions it too! Not only this but a custom URL that looks clean looks undoubtedly more professional.
Add Keywords to Your Name – Adding a keyword such as your job role in your name field on LinkedIn, makes it easier for potential businesses and employers to find and target you on Google. A great example of this would be if you worked in Search Engine Optimisation enter your name as “John Smith – SEO”. Take note, LinkedIn will allow 40 characters in your “last name” field but this doesn’t mean you should use all the characters (make it short and sweet!).
Enhance your Professional Headline – After reading your name, most people will view your professional headline next. Most people use this section to write their job role and where they currently work, the only problem with this is that there can be thousands of people with the same job role and you won’t stand out from the crowd. Use this section as a chance to highlight some of your achievements that make you outstanding in your job role. For example, “SEO Specialist, Delivers ROI of 200%+, Worked with Apple” etc.
Strengthen your Page with Links – You will have the option to include additional information, this is where you can include links to your website and other social profiles. Lots of trusted links = higher Google rankings! Simple! A trusted link is one that gets many views already such as a popular website of your own or a news article that speaks about you and your business. You can even use your Youtube channel, Twitter, WordPress or any other social media platform that has a significant number of views. However, do try to relate the links in your additional information to yourself or your business.
For more tips and tricks click here.
Now that we’re all a brand, a great personal website is the perfect way to promote yourself. Here’s a few tips on how to use your site to best present yourself to potential employers.
We all know stress and skin don’t go together well but, while many of us do everything we can to cover up our concerns, a chronic cortisol problem has many ways of creeping to the surface. As October is Mental Health Month we’re examining how the internal has a way of affecting the external, and reveal how your colleagues probably know more than you think they do. [Read more…]
It’s a common, tortured lament: “why do I look different in photos?” The short answer: your eyes and the camera are playing tricks on you. Yes, you really do look different in photos, so don’t worry. Brace yourself as we reveal the quirky reasons why you may sometimes fear looking more freaky than photogenic. (P.S. You don’t.)
