SELF BRANDING & IMAGE is critical in today’s fragile world…How are you behaving?
Paula Jane Cox
People & Business developer: Coach : Director C R Hope Foundation , Zanzibar
What's happened to basic respect in the business world? Ignoring people, Carte Blanche, is highly dangerous for your image...
The impression you may be creating if you ignore someone's messages! BEWARE : stop and think for a few minutes….
It's a VUCA vibe, busy world. We know.
People are inundated with online noise and messages. Its wrongly, almost become trendy to say ‘I am busy’ … this is marred with many issues, but mine starts at the basic humane level…
A personally directed, professional message, with relevance... is exceptionally damaging and rude to ignore. End of!
Image being face to face, someone approaches you , directly speaks to you ….and you completely ignore them?... Its no different!
Firstly, it creates an image and brand of yourself, and/or your organization. It's disrespectful , at most.
I can get hit with 200 plus messages a day via LinkedIn, email , WhatsApp .
As long as they aren't "cold scam sales blurb"...if relevant and clearly, directed to me ...even if I'm not interested , I always reply ! Most message systems also make it clear you've read the message! Which is worse: ‘I read it, and openly choose to ignore you!? ‘
Secondly, it's a small professional world currently ... and this connection may swing back around, and you need something one day... good luck with that!
If you seriously cannot cope with the incoming messages you receive, or control your daily effectiveness, please seek help; you are overloaded : and only you can fix this! Its not cool, or influential to be so very ‘’busy’’. It creates an awful image, not one of importance.
Ignoring others sends a negative message that they are invisible, non-existent, and unimportant. It doesn’t matter much why you ignore them; the impression is set!
E.g.:
"I'm so busy sorry" = displays you are not competently in control of your work life ...
"Oh, sorry I meant to reply , but forgot" = displays you are insignificant.
Ignoring is also a way of silencing people, which can harm those on the receiving end. Its also perfectly acceptable to say ‘’I am very focused with projects currently, I will respond as soon as I can, please feel free to follow up in a couple of weeks’’ (I have similar on templates). Just don’t ignore people!
Lift away from the self-centered excuses of being too busy to respond, it's not cool or trendy. When people say this to me, I can't help but think how uncredible they are..... Get planned to reply to messages, I can do it in less than 30 seconds each message. That means in theory, I could respond to some 600 messages across 10 hours? Of course, I don't and… I don't need too : however, I do respond to all relevant , personally directed contacts.
I find , the people that tend to respond directly, are often the highest levelled, influential people…. Odd that isn’t it?........
Stop and consider how others may perceive you , be respectful, at least ... watch out for your personal brand and image.
Everyone in this world has an equal right to be respected ... be thoughtful and kind. Make the world a nicer place, and create a personal brand and image that will take you further than any job title ever will……
We are all busy! Let’s be respectful too.