Business networking Tips
Is Your Judgment Costing You Business?
Our judgments and evaluations happen instantly and are filtered through memories of our good and bad past experiences. We do this without any conscious thinking. We’re not aware of our how our judgments control our actions. We’re always judging everything and everyone. A lot of the time our judgments and preconceived notions are WRONG! When it comes to business networking our judgements and preconceived notions can really hurt us. For instance;Recall the last time you were driving and saw a cop in your rear view mirror. So, what went through your mind? Were you actually doing anything “wrong”?
Just like the cop in the rear view mirror, we judge people whether we want to or not. We can’t help it. Your mind has a series of pre conditioned responses to what your seeing. That might actually hinder you at networking events. As a quick side note, I’m not talking about your intuition and inner knowings which are always accurate. We don’t always listen to our inner knowings and that’s the problem. Sometimes I don’t.
Here’s a personal example of how “seeing a cop” works. I really like Halle Berry. This attraction has challenged me in both my business and personal life. Whenever I meet someone that resembles ‘Halle Berry’, I ignore my intuition which usually goes something like this:’the outside maybe more attractive than the inside’. Ignoring my intuition has cost me financially, emotionally or both. The same thing happens when we find someone repelling. Sound familiar?
In 3 to 4 seconds, we’ve made up our minds about the other person. You’ve no doubt heard “You Never Get A Second Chance to Make a First Impression”. This is certainly true. Regardless of how we dress, look or present ourselves we have little to no control over how we are perceived by others. But, we do have control over how WE perceive others.
For your business, here’s the bottom line. Don’t judge a power partner (business networking partner) by their cover.