Perception Is Everything

scott-phillips

6 MINUTE READ

As the saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

That’s especially true when delivering a presentation, and exactly why you need to view every opportunity that you present in front of your team or leadership as a chance to develop your personal brand.

Whether or not you realize it, you’re constantly being judged—from the moment you step on stage, stand up in a conference room, or launch your Zoom meeting. So, if you want your audience to like and trust you from the start, you’ve got to nail that first impression.

Here are some tips to help you show up for yourself, show up for your audience, and show off your personal brand.

Why Perception Matters

The way you show up and present yourself and your material impacts others’ perceptions of you. The narrative you share and the visuals you use will create an opinion in the minds of those around you. Every interaction with your peers, team, or customers forms an opinion of you.

And opinions are hard to change.

In a study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, researchers found that “first impressions are notoriously persistent” and tend to dominate people’s thinking even in the context of new information or experiences.

And as we discuss in this article, your audience will form 60% to 80% of its impression of you as the speaker within the first four minutes of a speech, if not sooner.

So, yes, perception matters.

Everything Matters

It’s not just your slides or your story that make up your presentation. You are the presentation. This means you need to pay attention to every detail about how you present yourself.

Know that everything matters. The clothes you wear, your shoes, your watch, the room you’re in, your Zoom background, your body language, anything and everything surrounding your slides—they are all part of the presentation, they all impact the audience’s perception of you.

Yes, it’s very gestalt.

If you want your audience to buy whatever you’re selling, they need to buy YOU first. They need to like you and, most important, they need to trust you.

How do you do that?

You have to show up as your authentic self. Don’t try to be who you think your audience wants you to be.

Many people who stand up to present think they need to act like a professional speaker, so they throw out multisyllable words they wouldn’t normally use, they lower their voice, their body language is out of character, and the presentation suffers, coming across as awkward and inauthentic. No one trusts someone who seems ungenuine. And they certainly won’t like you—after all, you never really gave them a chance to get to know the real you in the first place.

Which brings me to my next point.

Authenticity Is Key

Indeed, authenticity is the difference between a presentation that engages your audience and one that falls flat. In The Art of the Pitch, author Peter Coughter writes: “Great presenters remember that we’re all just human. We’re going to make some mistakes. There will be some slip-ups. It’s OK. In fact, really good presenters acknowledge their mistakes and charm the audience by being so honest and human.”

Coughter continues by saying, “Being who we are accelerates and enhances human connection. And that’s what we’re after. We need to make human connection—a bond that’s based upon emotion. In order to do that, we must be honest, open, and sincere. We must show what we truly feel, not just what we believe. Human connections are emotional. The power of emotion is what binds us together and builds trust. Without trust, we will never achieve what we want.”

And while it can be intimidating to be in front of a room presenting to a group of strangers or senior leaders, it’s important to remember that they all want the same thing—for you to show up as yourself and no one else. As Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

Ultimately, there is only one you—the you that makes up your personal brand. You could be: