What is Your Entrance Strategy?

Your photo is in the room long before your feet cross the threshold. How are you making your entrance?

You’ve witnessed it dozens of times, the person that enters a room and instantly commands attention. We rely on various verbal and nonverbal cues when encountering someone in person, but how about when that encounter occurs through a photograph? Time is of the essence here. We take a scant 40 milliseconds to size up a person from a photo. Whoa.

Like many executives, I was an early adopter of researching web bios before meeting in person. Matching faces with names added life to emails and phone conversations and created tangible connections with people I would eventually meet in real life. Now here we are with a Zoom photograph often preceding our virtual appearance and platforms like Yelp requiring a clear image of the person responding to reviews. Your headshot matters.

This wonder woman and I created nearly two-dozen headshot ‘keepers’ recently. Ten days later, her company highlighted her achievements for International Women’s Day. She was ready with this engaging photograph, so truly her. How’s that for an entrance!