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INTRODUCTION
When you go into business for yourself, image is very important. Your professional
image affects your reputation. Your reputation affects the number of clients you'll be able
to attract. The number and the quality of the clients you attract will affect your success as
a nutrition and fitness professional.
The image you project on the phone, in your advertising, on your web site, and in your
transactions with clients will directly influence the success of your practice. While your
practice will always retain your personal touch, there are a few general guidelines and
suggestions you can observe to help project a positive and respectable image to your
clients and other business associates.
Make a Good First Impression. Anyone you meet is a potential client. You never
know when you're going to gain another clients. So keep your antenna up. Make sure
everyone you meet is favorably impressed with you. This means you need to make
sure you are personable, helpful, attentive, and concerned about your prospect's needs
or problems. Dress for success. Pay attention to our voice. Make sure you web site
gets a favorable review from several colleagues before you launch your site.
Your billboard for advertising who you are, what you can do and how well you can do
it. Your professional image should be a genuine expression of who you are and the
expression should be appropriate to the situation, environment or culture in which
you are functioning.
Professionals are adjudged by the way they present themselves. A poor image is self
defeating - it affects your performance. Show how you value your self and respect
others.
Strive for Excellence. Deliver when you say you will. Deliver more than you
promised. Charge what you said you'd charge. Don't cut corners on quality. Spellcheck everything. Constantly strive to improve your product. Innovate. Look for new
ways to do things better and/or faster. Package your products professionally.
Differentiate yourself with a high-quality product and unsurpassed service. These are
the foundation for the growth of a sterling reputation.
Set Your Working Hours. Consider indicating your hours of operation in your
stationery and advertising. Letting people know when you're "open" makes them far
more understanding when they get your answering machine during your non-business
hours. Be available during your working hours or have phone coverage when you're
in session or otherwise unavailable. You may well have to work more than your
posted work hours... there are lots of rules for success, but none of them work unless
you do.
Set Up Your Professional Web Presence. If you're running a small nutritionrelated business, you should have a web presence. There's really no good excuse
anymore. The technology you need (an image editor and the HTML markup
language) are simple. And consider this: your competitors are working night and day
in an effort to take your existing customers away. And to make matters even worse,
your own customers are actively surfing the Web and looking for these new services.
Setting up a Web presence is vitally important.
HOW TO START
Begin with your attitude.!
One of curiosity - use your senses to take in data and use your mind to interpret
those data.
You must be open - open to new ways of looking at your self and the world, to
your own potentials, to taking risks and trying things, to what others can give you and
letting go of old perceptions that no longer fit.
Willingness to tolerate your own ambivalence - being authentic (to express who
you are) and appropriate ( having that expression fit in to your business environment).
Having fun and adventure - this is a journey of knowing yourself better.
Professional image is a composite of three perceptions : the way you see yourself from
the inside, looking out; the way others see yourself from the outside looking in and the
way you wish to see yourself and be seen.
YOUR GOAL: the way you wish to see yourself and be seen.
External
Clear mental picture of who you would like to be, realistic, achievable,
observable,measurable. Identify role models. Study differences between the real image
and ideal image. What do you have to change? Change the tangible things people observe
about you.
Elements of Image
Fee.
Sound.
Touch.
Smell.
Taste.
Appearance
For women:
Tall or short
Slender or solid.
FOR MEN: Make sure your shirt fits properly, avoid ties with large
patterns, go for subtle and symmetrical patterns with no more than four colors,
be sure your shoes are well-polished and your socks patterns are understated.
o
o
o
Relaxed or formal?
Flamboyant or conservative?
Sound
Fast or slow.
Movement
Body language.
Expression of your face.
Alert or relaxed.
On guard or at ease.
Environment