How To Make An Executive Impression with Kara Ronin - Part 1

Coming to you from the center for social confidence in Portland, Oregon, welcome to shrink for the shy guy helping men everywhere go from social anxiety to social domination with your host, Dr. Aziz. Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. Today we're going to be looking at the impression that you make on others. And this is important. And now I know that we can actually get obsessed with this and we can be afraid of it. We can imagine that it's not a good impression. We can assume that people won't like us. We can have all these fears and doubts about how we're showing up and how people are going to receive us. And that could be in a work setting, romantic setting, social situation, dinner at a friend, you know, friend of a friend's house. It doesn't matter. Can follow us everywhere we go. So what we want to do is we want to keep working on the inner game to where we just don't care so much about what other people think of us. We stand in our own reality where in my reality, I know I'm valuable. I know I have a lot to bring. I know it doesn't matter if my hair is perfect or if I have hair at all or if I am totally in shape or I'm a little overweight or whatever it is, or my socks aren't perfect. You know, we don't want to buy into these fears because we're not perfect. People won't love us. We won't get the business and career opportunities we want. So we want to work on the inner game to where we become totally solid in ourselves. And my reality is stronger than some potential stranger's judgment of me. And having said all of that, we want to learn how to play the game better. We want to learn how to make good impressions on people. And guess what? Your inner game can be 100% solid. But if you show up to a networking event and people there are wearing suits and you got sweatpants and a stained T shirt on, you might be feel totally okay with yourself, but you're probably not going to get the responses that you want. You're probably not going to get people that want to take you seriously or invest in your business or fundraise you or be your clients or whatever it is you're going for in that setting. And same goes for dating. You know, you could be like, hey, this is me. I wear dirty gray sweatpants and a stained T shirt and I got taco juice on it. And I'm gonna walk over and talk to that woman who's wearing the nice dress and has got the designer handbag. And maybe you have such baller confidence that you just wow her and she's like, oh, my God. But probably not. You know, if she puts a lot of attention on her appearance and really values that, she's probably going to want a guy that does the same thing. Now, if you say, forget that, I don't want to do all that, then, you know, you can approach women that maybe don't value their clothes or designer things as much. But here's the thing. It's okay to play the game. So what I think is extremely valuable is to learn how to make a powerful impression. And that's why in this episode and in next weeks, we're going to be interviewing Kara Ronin, who is an expert in helping people make what she calls executive impressions. And it's fascinating. This applies in all areas of your life, but especially in your work life. How to make an impression on people where they see you as magnetic, as a leader, as someone they want to hire, buy from, be with, emulate, follow. This is powerful. And she gets down to some nitty gritties about what's your appearance, how to pick your attire and clothes, all the way up through mindset, all the way into the specifics of how to start conversations. We dive a lot into networking events and other business situations. So this is an incredibly valuable interview for you if you want to excel in your career, grow your own business, become more of a leader in your field and have people follow you and listen to what you say and be managed by you or hire you for different things or get more clients in that way, too. So extremely valuable. And without further ado, we're going to jump into that interview with Kara now. My guest expert today is Kara Ronan, and she's an international business etiquette expert, also a keynote speaker and a founder of Executive Impressions. And she personally spent 10 years living an international life, working in all kinds of different cultures. Japan, the usa, Europe. And she has worked in business for much of her life and with some big firms and international companies. And she saw just how much cultural intelligence and social skills helped her excel in her career. And she's been able to take that and turn around and teach hundreds and maybe even thousands of people now through online training courses, video programs, as well as workshops and coaching on exactly how they can make and an executive impression. So thank you so much for joining us today, Kara.

Hello, Aziz. Thank you so much for having me.

So I'm sure the first question that people ask you that I want to ask you that people listening are going to ask is, ooh, what's an executive impression? Because I don't even know exactly what that is, but I want to make it.

Yeah, absolutely. Everybody wants to make that. Some people refer to it as executive presence or leadership presence or executive impression session. It's basically when you walk into a room and people notice you. It's when you walk into a room and people stop and look at you and they want to know who you are, they want to come up and talk with you. They want to find out more about what you do and how maybe you can work with them. Since it's in a business setting, that is what executive impressions are. It really makes you stand out and just kind of mesmerize people in the crowd.

Wow, there's a lot of good things there standing out, getting noticed in a good way, in a way that draws people to you and ultimately would want people to interact with you, work with you, do business with you.

Absolutely. I mean, in business, we're going to. We're not going to want to do business with somebody we don't like. We don't like the looks of who doesn't really look appealing to us. So when you have executive and executive impression, you're really going to draw those people to you, just like a magnet.

Yes. Let's get into how to do that. So you teach this in business settings. You have a course about business etiquette. I know you cover a lot of important areas like networking and that sort of thing. So let's drill down to one of those practical areas. Say I'm going to a networking event and I have a business and I want to build my connections or maybe a conference or someplace where I want to meet other people. What can I do to have that executive impresence? What are some executive impression? What is something I can do? I wanted to mix impression and presence together. Impresence. But what are some basic things that I could do to start bringing more of that into the way I interact with people?

Okay, well, the first thing you really need to look at is your outfit, what you wear. And the reason I say this is because your outfit is the first thing that other people are going to notice about you. Just imagine when you're walking down the street and you see somebody walking in the opposite direction towards you, you're going to size them up, you're going to look at them, you're going to try and find out a little bit more information about them, mostly to see whether you're the one who has to move to the side of the sidewalk or if they're going to move for you. But you really want to identify they are. And the first thing you're going to notice to do this is that person's outfit, what they're wearing. So are they wearing a suit? Are they wearing clothes that are more casual? Are they wearing a hood, you know, the jumper with a hood or something like that? So those are the things that you're going to look at. And the same is true when you go into networking events. As people enter the networking event room, you're going to be looking at what they wear. Are they wearing something that is very traditional in business? So the navy blue suit with the red tie, and if you're a woman, then maybe stockings and a black business suit. That is a very traditional business look. Or is it going to be somebody who's wearing a bit more color? Perhaps they work in a creative industry in marketing or advertising, and they have a little bit more color in their outfit and patterns. So you're going to first look at their outfit and try to define who they are in the business world. And that is going to help you work out what topics you want to talk to them about, how you want to introduce yourself. It's going to give you a bit of an idea on the personality of that person as well, whether they're chatty, whether they're a little bit more reserved, whether they're very serious. And you can use all of these cues, all of these areas to create your own outfit so that you can give the impression or the executive impression that you want. So if you are approaching a networking event, you have your own business and you want to sign an important client, and you know that client is very traditional, very conservative, and a little bit reserved as well. You're not going to walk into the networking event wearing lots of colors, wearing a bright jacket, and wearing lots of patterns. You're going to want to match your style with the style of that client you want to connect with. So that is the first thing for networking events that you really need to focus on your outfit.

We're going to pause here, take a quick break, and then get back into our interview with Kara Ronan. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much courage do you have? 10. Being a maximum amount of courage, of boldness, of willingness to do something in spite of your fear. How courageous do you feel? What would your life be like if you had more courage? What would you be able to do to try to take on? Who would you be able to Meet, become friends with, or even become lovers with. The secret about courage is it's a skill. It's something that you can practice and develop over time. And once you understand this and learn the steps to building your courage, your life will transform dramatically. To learn exactly how to generate this courage, check out Confidence Unleashed. It's an eight week interactive confidence training program that teaches you step by step how to get the courage you need to create the life that you want. Go to confidence unleashed now.com to find out more. That's so interesting as you say, that it makes total sense. I mean, we are looking at people's outfits all the time and if someone is wearing something that's totally different than what we think they would be wearing, there's, it's, there's something a little bit unsettling or uncertain about it and why are they, you know, what's happening? It doesn't necessarily mean we write them off, but it does create something in our minds. And as you were talking, I was reflecting about, well, what do I wear? And it's funny because I do a lot of recording, audio, video, writing, phone sessions with people. So I wear sweatpants in a T shirt. That's what I wear. And then if I'm gonna record a video, but then it's funny though because when I record a video, I'll put a button up, suit, shirt on. So it's the impression that I want to create. I don't want to be the guy who's wearing his sweatpants in the videos.

In your YouTube videos. Yeah.

So it's fascinating that we do want to create. So obviously there's a lot to this. So someone who is hearing this and maybe they haven't really put much thought into the outfit they wear and what impression they want to make, how would you suggest maybe a simple way of starting to go about picking what would work best?

Right. So everybody listening is probably in a completely different situation. So the advice that I'm going to give you will, might be different for everybody who's listening. But the first thing I would advise you to do is work out what industry you work in. There are three broad categories of industries. There's traditional industries, which includes people who work in law, in banking, investment banking, management, insurance, very traditional type of jobs. And then the second type is a creative industry. So those are people who work in marketing, advertising, public relations, media, entertainment. So a lot more creative with their outfit. And the third type is the casual industry. So this could include startups, podcasters, just like you mentioned, small businesses, tech, Companies, places where people would commonly wear jeans to work. So the advice that I'm going to give you is first choose the industry in which you work. Because when you do that, you will have more of an idea of what type of outfit is going to suit that your clients are going to expect, that your colleagues are going to expect, or that your boss is going to expect as well. If you are in a traditional industry, then I would suggest you wear the traditional suit. So get yourself a suit and a tie and the proper dress shoes to go with it. If you work in a creative industry, then you can still wear the suit because a certain level of formality is still expected, especially when you go to meet with clients. But instead of the traditional navy blue or dark suit, you can wear perhaps a light grey and then you can add in a shirt that is maybe a green or a blue or a light pink and a tie that is a purple tie. So something with a little bit more color to your outfit as well. And then the casual industry is the last one. If you're going to dress for the casual industry, then you can wear jeans. I wouldn't advise to wear sweatpants to client meetings, but you can wear jeans, that's totally fine. Pair it with a nice dress shirt. White looks really great. Or if you want to wear a colored shirt, then that's totally fine as well. But always, always make sure that your jeans are ironed, they're clean, they're not ripped, they're not dirty or anything like that. Because the biggest mistake, the biggest dress mistake that you can make is dirty, ripped or unkempt attire. That's what they term it as, unkempt attire. So avoid all of that if you want to give a executive impression to your clients and your colleagues.

Yes, the unkept attire equals the slobby impression, which is less desirable than the executive impression.

Exactly.

As you were talking, I, I was thinking about the last event that I ran and I got myself some nice button up shirts. I was like, I'm looking real pro. But then my jeans were old, they were like three years old. So they were kind of like worn around the knees. And my wife took one look at it and was like, no, no, you can't do that. I was like, what do you mean I can't do that? So for those of you who struggle like I do in this area, then getting some, I'd imagine you would suggest getting some advice, feedback or consultation for those people who are not maybe that skilled in getting the outfits that would serve them best.

Is that Right, Yeah, absolutely. There are, there's a lot of people who can give advice out there. Your wife is one of them. Your husband or your wife, your spouse. Getting a second opinion from somebody close to you is really important. If you want to move it up another level, then I am very happy to talk to clients on Skype or by phone as well to give you some more tips and help you out to work out what outfit and what wardrobe is best for you and for your job.

We're going to pause for just one more moment and then get back into our interview with confidence expert Cara Ronan. If you don't think much of yourself, how do you imagine other people will think of you? You guessed it. If we want others to take us seriously, like us and be attracted to us, we must first master our self esteem. That's exactly what you'll learn how to do in Dr. Z's brand new version of the confidence code. Go to YourConfidenceCode.com now to learn more and get your free copy of his ebook, Radical Self. Three Ways to Truly Love Yourself in two weeks. Good. Okay, so I'm sure. I love the way you broke down those industries, by the way. I never really thought of it in that way, but it makes total sense and it's true. You know, my friend is a and my brother, two people I know and love are lawyers and they wear suits to work. That's what they do. And then I got a friend who is, you know, runs his own business and he wears jeans and a T shirt to work. So it does make a lot of sense what you're saying. So, okay, I'm going to my networking event. I'm kind of representing the industry that I'm in and also dressing to interact with the kinds of clients that I want to connect with. Now what's my next step on making an executive impression?

Okay, the next step is to look at your body language because as you walk into the room, people will first notice what you're wearing and then they'll be noticing how you act and how you move into the room. And this is your body language, your nonverbal communication, your facial expressions as well. So what I suggest to do is a lot of people walk into networking events looking around the room, not really looking, not really knowing who to talk to, looking a little bit uncertain or hesitant. That is not the look that you want to portray when you walk into a networking event room, particularly if it's a business event, if you're wanting to impress clients, and if you want to really project Confidence to everybody else in the room. So you need to change your body language and you need to move it from body language that projects hesitancy and uncertainty to body language that projects confidence and authority, even, or a little bit of power. You don't have to be arrogant or anything like that. That's not what I'm talking about. But just project the confidence that you are a great, intelligent, competent business person.

Absolutely. So when I walk in, what's an alternative to, I know exactly what you're talking about. You're kind of scanning the room, like, trying to figure out who's going to invite me to talk to them, what should I be doing here? And so what could we do instead? How do we enter more powerfully with more authority?

The first thing that you need to focus on is your posture. And I know this might sound silly, you might think, oh, my mum always told me that. My grandma always told me to walk with good posture. But it is so true. I often tell my clients, you cannot project confidence if you are slouching. It is just impossible. There is no way you're going to believe in that person or have confidence in that person. So you need to first look at your posture. So that means keep your shoulders back, keep your head high, because when you reveal your neck, your neck is actually the most vulnerable part of your body. And when you reveal your neck to other people, it's like you're saying, I'm not afraid. And that is a fantastic impression and executive impression to give. Now, you don't want to keep your head up too high because then that can make you look a little arrogant, like you're looking down at people, looking down your nose at people. And that's not a good look either. People might not want to talk to you because you don't look so approachable, but by keeping your head high just a little bit more, it will make a huge difference to the confidence that you project and to the executive impression that you give other people.

Absolutely. And, you know, those are fundamental things that we may have heard from our mom or whatever, but there's a reason for that, because they do convey way more powerful of a message long before you open your mouth and you can try to sound powerful or say the right words, but if your body language is not aligned with that, then it's going to be a lot harder to make those connections. So these are extremely important pieces of advice you're sharing.

Absolutely, yes. Your body language always has to be, I like to use the term in sync with your verbal communication. So if you're. If you are saying one thing to somebody, if you're saying, I really believe in my product, you should contact me next week. Let's see if we can talk with confidence. You're saying that with confidence, but you're slouching. You're not looking the person in the eye. That person is going to put more reliance on your body language than on what you are actually saying to them. So they always need to be in sync and aligned, as you said.

Absolutely. And the most frustrating part I found around that is if you're doing that and you're saying the right things, but you're just slightly off in how you show up, people aren't going to say to you, wow, your body language is really not in sync with what you're saying. Now I'm going to move away from you. No, you just get. You know, they just sort of move away or they're not as engaged or they go on to someone else and they don't want to buy from you or work with you or partner with you. And it can be very frustrating to not know why. And what you're sharing is really valuable because this is the first thing to check is what am I wearing? How am I showing up? Because these are. The beauty of these are. These are very basic things that anyone can handle and address with some attention on it.

Oh, absolutely. You just need to know what to do, what to look at, and how to change it.

That brings us to the end of the interview for today. But there is more and some really good stuff in the next interview, so stay tuned for that. But before we leave for today, we gotta leave you with an action step. Time for action. Your action step for today is to look at that piece that we talked about in the interview about your attire and how you show up. I know I personally used to have a lot of blocks around this, and I felt like I had so much judgment about buying nicer clothes or clothes that fit me better. I don't even know why. Not even that it was expensive. You could find that stuff for cheaper, too. But it was like, who do you think you are trying to look all good? And it's bullshit. You want to break through that. You want to let yourself look really good. So use the kind of system she shares about looking at what industry you're in and who you're talking to and what kind of impression you want to make. And just kind of do a check over your wardrobe and see what you can do to enhance and, you know, if you're like me, like as I'm actually recording this, I'm wearing board shorts and a T shirt and no shoes. And you can pull that off. Awesome. But if you're going to business networking events or you are an insurance salesman, you probably gotta change that up and you might already be doing that. But just see if there's a way to find the stuff that really fits for you. And one other thing which is key, which we didn't touch on in the interview, which is worth saying, is it's not just a matter of having the clothes, it's a matter of rocking them. Because you can wear like you put me in a suit and I am less confident and less impactful than if I'm wearing just like nice jeans and a button up shirt. Because when I teach my events, that's what I put on. That's like as formal as I go. Now I can wear this suit and I do it in some situations, almost never now because I don't really need to. But you know, I'm like fiddling with the belt and my shoes are uncomfortable and you know, I just. It doesn't, it's not exactly. I don't wear it all the time and you can tell I don't wear it all the time. So to get more confidence for you is to pick that outfit or those outfits that you want to wear to have that effect and then rock it. Practice wearing them, own it, and know that you're awesome as you do it. So stay tuned for next week. We get into the rest of the interview. Super valuable stuff about starting conversations, specifically what to say and all that good stuff. And until we speak, then may you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos. We're related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence. Go to socialconfidencecenter. Com.