- Do you want to capture the hearts and minds of your clients?
- Do you want to build a tribe of fans and followers?
- Do you want to be influential like celebrities and business leaders?
Let’s look at the 5 C’s that will unlock the genie in you to attract high paying clients.
- Connection
- Credibility
- Confidence
- Courage
- Charisma
1. Connection
People are looking for leaders that they can relate to. A leader who can connect with their audience is someone who they can trust. It is not the words that a leader uses but the way they make you feel that is most important. This is creating an emotional appeal for an argument or message.
It is only when you connect emotionally and move people at a fundamental level that you can inspire them to change their thinking and take a particular action. After all, who could resist a heartfelt plea from someone who really cares about what’s going on in their lives!
A positive reputation isn’t something that you can obtain overnight. The only way to achieve this is by earning the respect and trust of others is through your communication, competence and your character. By being genuine and caring, it will be a lot easier for others to relate to you.
You must develop a deep understanding of each person’s needs so being able to assist them can feel like what you’re doing is working for them rather than for yourself. This is all about having genuine concern and sensitivity to their needs and wants, empathy developing an understanding where they’re coming from.
How deeply you listen, how compassionately you communicate, how you empathize, all this determines how you build and nurture your relationships. Develop your “people skills” and learn how to develop rapport quickly and easily. Your ability to make small talk, connect, and share your vision will help you build a strong network of relationships that will be valuable to you both now and later.
2. Credibility
Credibility is your mastery in chosen domain that establishes authority and respect.
Credibility is essentially a function of your expertise and proficiency in your domain. It also includes your character, competencies, and your believability when you present. Establishing your credibility with your audience increases the likelihood that listeners will accept your opinions and take action on your recommendations.
The key questions to ponder for every audience are:
- How to showcase your strengths and reveal your relevance?
- How to convey your credibility convincingly?
- How to put across a powerful profile that portrays you as a polished professional?
- How to articulate and tell your story powerfully?
3. Confidence
To develop an executive presence, you need to have confidence in your skills and abilities, and also know how to inspire confidence in others. A healthy balance of humility and confidence is essential for executive presence.
Confidence enables you to engage in daily responsibilities in a self-assured manner. This means exerting boldness and composure when leading or attending meetings, conducting presentations or interacting with team members.
There are many factors to confidence, including nonverbal communication skills and consistency among mannerisms when communicating with team members of all levels.
- Self-confidence means that you have developed your own unique personality based on your rich experiences. You know why you are an asset to your organization, and you can clearly articulate your value proposition while not being arrogant.
- As Harvard business school professor Amy Cuddy writes: “Quiet confidence is best. The truly ‘present’ executive is one who doesn’t need to trumpet his achievements as he has an internal resolve driven by a solid sense of self-worth.”
- An ability to gain confidence of others – You have the confidence of your subordinates, peers and leaders. You are a leader that your team wants to trust and follow; describe as capable and reliable. You are an employee that senior leaders look to when the organization needs to achieve next-level goals.
- An ability to make others feel confident of themselves – Something must transpire outside of you. If you truly have executive presence, you inspire others to grow, lead and achieve for themselves.
4. Courage
Courage is the conviction with which you put your message across, and determines how you handle tough situations.
Courage requires an understanding your flaws and aligning your character traits with what you want to offer the world. When personality meets character, you will build and enhance presence.
When you make a commitment to a bigger future vision and then show courage to reach a new level of capability and confidence, you demonstrate true leadership.
Courageous leaders should not walk away from having potentially difficult or uncomfortable conversations. Instead, they must be strong enough to initiate difficult conversations and work through them in order to move forward. This means having real, honest conversations, even when there is a possibility of conflict.
Courage is the quality that distinguishes great leaders from excellent managers. Courageous leaders take risks that have the potential for revolutionary change in their markets.
5. Charisma
Charisma enables you to portray yourself as a polished professional with poise. Charisma is essential to put forward an impressive persona that commands the attention of an audience.
Some other terms that are interchanged with charisma are: commanding presence, magnetism, charm, persona and aura. How you groom yourself, the etiquettes you project, how you dress to impress and display a unique style statement is all part of Charisma.
If you’re in business, role or holding any kind of leadership position, it’s extremely important that other people like you and admire you.
In order to carry yourself with presence and ensure that the right sort of messages come across about your personality, don’t undervalue being impeccably well-groomed!
A well groomed appearance makes you look attractive, impressive and stylish. Have a unique style statement and showcase your personality with some professional attires and accessories that complement your persona.
All five elements—connection, credibility, confidence, courage and charisma, must be woven together if you want to move people and persuade them to your point of view. By doing so, you create a robust foundation for executive presence that exudes trust and success.
