Would you like to increase sales, service, referrals, and new hire belonging, and retention? One of the first steps you can take is to understand how hidden blind spots and unconscious bias can affect crucial first impressions that either promote trust and success or derail the sale or belonging, motivation and productivity.
What kind of first impressions are your employees and managers making? Could hidden blind spots or unconscious bias be interfering? You may only have one chance to gain the confidence of the potential customer or employee.
Most people have heard the phrase “a picture is worth a 1000 words”. Non-verbal emotions and messages paint pictures, because eighty percent (80%) of what is understood in an interaction with another person is realized through non-verbal communication or body language (Gupta, 2004, 2013). Non-verbal ques such as facial expressions, tone, body movements, stances, handshakes, and eye contact, not words. Blind spots pertaining to stereotyping and unconscious bias can greatly interfere and derail success.
If words and body language don’t match, it is quite possible that you may be perceived as non-caring, inauthentic, and untrustworthy and can harm the sale and repeat business. Without understanding this, unfortunately you may turn people off. Imagine this happening with new hires and how this could harm a sense of belonging and motivation right off the bat.
A widely known statistic in the auto industry is that women either purchase or influence up to 85% of the automobile purchases and 70% of repairs, yet according to the U.S. Women’s Car Dealership Report, “one third of women are nervous, overwhelmed and apprehensive when buying a car”. In addition, over 54% of women are buying vehicles outside of their home turf. Think about why this may be happening. Here are three things to consider improving blind spots and first impressions:
One: Managers and employees need to become aware of and understand their blind spots and how they promote success or derailment. Consider assessments to highlight gaps and developmental areas.
Two: Training or coaching is needed to understand best practices and to provide the groundwork to develop action plans for improvement.
Three: Ingrained blind spots take time to improve. Ongoing leadership development, coaching and or training can provide time for participants to practice and to garner support to serve as a catalyst to improve first impressions and other important success factors.
UpShift Training, Certifications, and Consulting provides an Everything DiSC Management Assessment and a rich feedback report in the Leadership Certification, Session 2: Employee Retention and Satisfaction. Consider registering for this session. You can also contact https://askpattytraining.com/ for a proposal for our consultants to come into your organization to provide group assessments, coaching, and training. In turn, you may be able to increase your sales, service, referrals, inclusion, retention, and profit.
Dr. Martha Rader
UpShift Consultant: Professor
Rader Coaching, Training & Consulting, LLC, dba Rader Leadership
Certified Wiley Everything DiSC, Five Function of a Cohesive Team,
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Denison Culture
JCM Certified Independent, Coach Trainer, Speaker, and DISC Behavior Analysis