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In the world of business, image is everything. If you want to be seen as a professional, then you must project a professional image that instantly sets you apart from everyone else around you. So how do you look like a professional? You act like one. Below are five crucial keys to looking and acting like a professional.
In This Post:
1. Dress and Groom Like a Professional
People will judge you based on your appearance. It doesn’t matter if it’s not fair. If doesn’t matter if your clothing or your facial hair or your hairstyle have nothing to do with your ability to do your job. Perceptions matter.
So if you want people to perceive you as a professional, then you need to look the part. Make it your goal to be the best-dressed and best-groomed person in the building. If you need to dress like the CEO, then dress like the CEO. If you need to trim your beard—or take it off completely—then do so. But an interesting thing happens when you take pride in your appearance—not only will others see and treat you differently, but you will start to feel more confident and more professional as well. Try it. You’ll like it.
2. Arrive Early and Stay Late
Punctuality is one of the hallmarks of the working professional. There is simply no way to walk in the door late and still look like a professional. The old saying, “If you’re not early, you’re late” holds true, and it should be your mantra. Every day, you should be the first person to arrive at work in the morning and the last person to walk out the door in the evening.
3. Don’t Cut Corners
Many brands rely on a slew of gimmicks to stand out from the competition and try to wow the customer. Some of these are effective, but none of them matter if the basics aren’t done properly. Customers want to feel that they’re getting their money’s worth. They want a high-quality product at an affordable price. They want fast, excellent, accurate service. They want the job done right the first time.
If the core experience is lacking in some way, then all those gimmicks are useless or are even counterproductive and will leave a bad taste in the customer’s mouth, which makes it more likely that they will leave a negative review of your business online and by word-of-mouth.
Greet customers promptly. Don’t sell them defective or poorly-crafted merchandise. Make sure your place of business is well-organized and kept clean. Keep your POS system and payment processing equipment updated. Work professionally with your merchant acquirer. If your company is hired to provide a service, then do the job right from start to finish, without fudging the numbers or rushing the job in a sloppy manner.
4. Work Harder, Faster and Smarter
Many people like to work smarter, not harder. But how can that person compete with the one who works both smarter and harder—and faster?! To be viewed as the consummate professional, you must constantly strive to provide higher levels of performance and results than your peers.
Develop a reputation for speed and accuracy. Never let them see you slacking. Always be the hardest worker in the room. You might not be the smartest person in your organization or the most highly-qualified or the easiest to look at. Those things can be improved upon over time, so don’t feel that you cannot make positive changes there. But they do take time for significant changes to lock in.
But there is something you can do right now, this very instant—something that is fully within your control. You can decide right now that you are going to work harder and get the work done faster. Do you want to be taken seriously? Then take your job seriously—as if your life depended on it.
5. Never Make Excuses
Nothing will undermine your authority and your reputation faster than playing the blame game whenever something goes wrong. From this day forward, you need to banish these words from your vocabulary: “It’s not my fault.”
A professional doesn’t point fingers at others or make excuses. You are above those behaviors. As a professional, as a leader in your company and a leader in your industry, you are not overly concerned with blame. You take responsibility. You take ownership of the problem. You focus on results. You say, “I got this,” and then you get busy correcting the problem and taking the necessary steps to ensure that it never occurs again.
The workplace can be a very competitive space. Not only are you competing with other companies, but you are often competing with others even within your own place of business. That doesn’t make you enemies, but it does mean that you need to take some steps to place yourself at a higher level.
Follow the five tips for professionals above and watch what a difference it makes in making you stand out from the crowd and in making a lasting impression on those around you.
