Service professionals get hired not just because of the quality of the work that they do, but because of the quality of the presence that they have. And very often, whether you are the service professional yourself or the leader of service professionals that need to be good to be hired, very often, you don’t think about it until it’s too late. You don’t think about it until the interview comes along and you recognize, hey, this person is going to be in front of a room full of decision makers and they just don’t have it. And very often you kind of scramble to get that person up into shape to be able to present. It’s great that you’re willing and able to make that investment, but sometimes it can be too little too late. sometimes the distance that they need to go to be successful in that crucible experience of an interview because they haven’t really thought about it until that moment. So, our recommendation is to treat all of the everyday opportunities to interact with anybody, definitely clients, definitely prospects, even co-workers, projectmates. As long as they’re interacting with someone else, they can practice their presence. They can elevate their presence by just focusing on very simple things like connecting to people, being authentic, projecting confidence, speaking in a way that other people can understand no matter how technically or non-technically oriented they are. and being interesting with their body language so that the people that they’re talking to sustain their attention and sustain their interest in what’s being discussed. It’s very basic but absolutely crucial and critical things that shouldn’t get saved just for an interview. It’s stuff that should get focused on all the time. And again, whether you are the person I’m talking about or you’re a leader of the kinds of people that I’m talking about, I really want to urge you to think about building these skills when it doesn’t matter so that the muscles are strong when it matters the most.
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