First Impressions: How Do You Act When No One Is Watching?

A big part of our methodology and our beliefs, not just with SWISH in sales, is integrity. We believe that you should hold integrity in every aspect of your life, and that can have an influence on your sales conversations. What we mean by that, is how do you act when nobody is watching, or when nobody’s perceived to be watching.

Now that might be in a working environment, that might be how hard do you work when your boss walks out of the door, when your manager leaves the room, are you still working as much with as much integrity as you were when they were in the room? On a more personal level, how morally and ethically are you aligned with your beliefs when there’s nobody watching, when there’s nobody listening, when you don’t know whether you can get away with something.

The reason why I’ve been thinking about this is that yesterday, I was out shopping with my wife and our dog, and while my wife was inside the dog decided that he had to go to the bathroom. Here’s the problem – I didn’t have any little baggies with me and there was no one around to ask.

Here’s the conundrum, isn’t it. Do you just hope no one saw so that you can walk away? Or do you do the right thing according to your moral compass?

As a long story short, I stayed next to the little pile until someone came past that I could ask to go get a little bag. I cleaned everything up and life was good. After this, a woman approached me – she’d been inside the shop watching, hoping to get through so that she could offer a bag.

She tells me that she watched the whole situation. I didn’t know she was watching, obviously, and she watched me stand there and she said that she asked herself, is he going to clean it up or is he going to leave it? And fortunately for me I did! It was something really small but it made me realise that we always have to act with the utmost integrity because you genuinely don’t know who is watching. You never know when you’re making a first impression.

In this industry, especially around the Gold Coast in Southeast Queensland where our head office is based, we’ve got our faces out there, our brand is out there, and most importantly our name is out there.

What about your business? What are people thinking when they see you outside of work? What kind of first impressions are you making without even knowing? Because you’re still representing your brand.

This woman might have been a potential client in one of our next seminars, or our next workshop. What if I’d just left after my dog had gone to the bathroom on the path? This person would turn up and all of a sudden I’m already on the back foot because I’ve unconsciously given a poor impression. I know that’s thinking deep down into it but the point is you just never know who’s watching.

The SWISH Sales Method not only instills morals in sales, but we hope that you’re able to keep that integrity throughout every aspect of your lives. You never know when you might be making a contact that you can lean on at a later time, so honest intentions are a staple. To learn more about the strategies of SWISH selling and integrity in sales and life, read about our sales training, sales coaching, and sales courses. No matter if you are located in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast or anywhere in Australia we are able to assist in providing the most innovative ethical sales training.