How to Create the Right First Impression with Bruce Scheer and George Torok

Bruce Scheer: Well, George, hey. Thanks so much for being on the ValuePros Show. Everybody, this is George Torok. If you're listening or watching, you're you're you're in for a treat. Now George is a consummate pro working with executives and helping them with their, presentation skills and capabilities, confidence, etcetera. And I had the honor of and delight of being on George's show. He's interviewed over 600 executives on his own show, and I got onto his podcast. And, George, I was relistening to it, and damn, I sounded good.

Bruce Scheer: You got the no. I'm joking. But you got the best out of me. And so I I pray that I can do you justice the way you did me justice. So, George, the topic today is how to make the right first impression. And I wanted to give our listening and viewing audience just a little bit of context, George, before we get into it, kind of what brought us here together in thinking about first impression. So, we've crafted a buyer ready, type of framework, and we we call it the value ready framework. And it's got 4 key stages.

Bruce Scheer: If you're a b2b seller, selling value, enabling your buyers with value at each critical touchpoint of the buyer's journey, we've got 4 phases, build trust, understand needs, deliver insight, and then finally, drive execution. Those are 4 phases. And then we have 10 disciplines under each one of these phases. One of them is called under building trust, which, gosh, if you're gonna sell anything, you need to build trust. You know, everything kinda starts there. And I was talking to George around this framework and talking about, hey, George. You know, we've put a lot of, emphasis into helping people be credibility ready. And George really kind of, you know, said, Bruce, we need to do a drill down into what it means to make a great first impression.

Bruce Scheer: And, you know, and I I've been reading George books and which I George is a hell of a writer. But, one one of the things he was talking about is just the seconds it takes for somebody to form formulate that first impression. And, so we really wanted to double down there. It all starts there. So, George, why don't I kick it over to you to begin this dialogue? Just why get your first impression right?

George Torok: And, Bruce, you have made a positive first impression with the start of this podcast because you talk about how it's important and what your audience is gonna get from you. So your first impression, in general should be about the listener. And and why is it important to get it right? Because we make decisions quickly, and we make them even quicker today. And whether it's seconds or fractions of a second, we look at you. When we first look at you, the first thing we do is we decide who's this person? What's he mean to me? Should I bother listening? Does he really care about me? And then we might start listening to the first words. And if the first words reinforce a decision we've already made not to listen, we go, well, this is gonna be a waste of time. Or this guy is different. He's talking about me to me.

George Torok: I think I'll listen. Just imagine the magic in that moment. That's a magical moment to grab attention and make a powerful first impression which can last for years. It's curious. I attended a meeting with a CEO event this week and there are about 300 CEOs in the room and many of them I knew, I've seen before. And 2 of them in our discussion recalled a first impression that I had made on them years before the pandemic. Imagine the power of that.

Bruce Scheer: Absolutely. No. I yeah. The first impression, I guess, the the phrase goes, you know, could be the last impression. I've I've spoken a lot about that in terms of being credibility ready. And, yeah, and it might even be the last time you get to talk to somebody if that first impression doesn't deliver. If it does, it could be a lasting impression that that just goes on and on and on, just like how you talked about those CEOs and the impression they had of you years ago. You know, it just it's it's stuck in their brains, which is just so powerful, so interesting as well.

Bruce Scheer: George, I bet there's a lot of human biology stuff going on in there chemically. We're retaining that memory, etcetera. I don't think we'll probably go there, but, god, the the human condition is so interesting. But, that first impression, it does get implanted. And, I I think it's incredibly important. You know, if you want somebody to tune in to you, as you say, you really need to nail it and just get it right. You know? And that's why I've spent $25,000 or 25100, excuse me, not 1,000, remove a 0, getting the nice camera, getting nice lighting, etcetera, even as part of this ValuePro show, just, trying to punch up that first impression.

George Torok: And and, Bruce, you raise a you raise a valid point there. When we when the pandemic came along, we all stumbled into the virtual world with cameras and microphones. And at that time, people accepted it's okay that you look like you're in your housecoat and, you're in the kitchen and there's something cooking in the background and, and you've got a lousy microphone and the sound is lousy. And we accepted that at the beginning of the pandemic. But then as time went on, our standards started to get higher, and we expect more. And yet I'm surprised there are still people today that I have meetings with, and these are executives. These are senior executives who should be setting the example for their teams. And what do you think their clients are gonna think about them when they call them up? Let's have a virtual meeting and their sound is lousy.

George Torok: Their their video the the the lighting is lousy. What kind of impression does that make? You don't even care how you're coming across. Whereas if you were to show up in my office, I expect you to you had a shower, you combed your hair, you put on whatever makeup or whatever makes you smell better, and you you and you wore a shirt that's been pressed, not the one you've been wearing for 3 weeks, and you look like you belong here. And and that's all happening in seconds. I see you walk in the room and I go, who the heck is this? Is that the guy I was talking to on the phone? Man, he looks terrible. Or wow, this one, this Bruce, look at him. Look how sharp he looks. Look at his face.

George Torok: Look at the energy coming from him. I'm gonna listen to this guy.

Bruce Scheer: Yep. Yep. No. It's so critical. George, I, I was working with a a client called Domo out of Salt Lake City, area. And, I was talking to one of the executives there, in in the c suite, and I was telling him about just how important it is to make the the right first impression and show up credibility ready. You know, one of my catchphrases anyways. And he goes, Bruce, god.

Bruce Scheer: You're so right. I I I guess I wasn't thinking about it this way. But as you were speaking, Bruce, I remember an executive, CEO had a meeting with our executive, committee, our ex co. And, we were looking for a vendor and we had narrowed the vendors down to 3 vendors that had to meet with the Exco so we could choose 1. And this was a multimillion dollar contract that we were giving to a vendor. So, you know, the Exco had to get involved at that level. And the CEO of 1 of the, you know, top vendors that we were considering decided to take our meeting from the airport. And he goes, Bruce, you know, you know, after that meeting, we all just talked about it.

Bruce Scheer: We all had a bad feeling, said, don't they're off the list. And, which was so darn interesting to me. And he goes, you know, I wasn't really conscious of it, Bruce, until you talked about it, but that's probably the reason. He chose to take the call from the airport. He looked terrible, sounded terrible, everything went wrong, hence off the list.

George Torok: And, Bruce, here's here's an example of, this is a client that I helped, I coached them to present a presentation. They were bidding on a $10,000,000 contract and the president brought his head of manufacturing with him and so the head of manufacturing started the presentation and he had on the table in front of him a handmade birdhouse that, so he's pitching a $10,000,000 deal and on the table he's got this handmade birdhouse that he had made when he was a child. And he's holding this in front of this, immediately grabbed everyone's attention and he said this. He said, when I was a little boy, my grandfather taught me to make this birdhouse and he taught me to make a quality product and that's what I still do today in this business. And when we serve you, I will ensure that you get quality. How's that for an opening?

Bruce Scheer: I love it. I know you're gonna break all this down for us and why that's an awesome opening and why that created a positive first impression. But, yeah, that that that's a zinger. That that that's a huge winner, George. What a great story. How how fun. Well, let's get into it. You know? So we talked about the importance of it, and when it goes wrong, it can go really wrong, multimillion dollars of wrong.

Bruce Scheer: And when it goes right, the other way around. But then also just, god, do we respect ourselves? Do we wanna show up with confidence and and and just exude that and and nail it, you know, as part of our first impression? So I, boy, George, it it's it's time to teach, you know, how to make the right first impression. And, just to prompt you, George, a little bit, you know, what are some of the steps that we should take? You know, you know, we can dig into that if you'd like.

George Torok: One of the first steps is to make a visual impression. And you want to disrupt you want to disrupt their thinking, their vision. So in this case, the the image of the the handmade, child made birdhouse was a visual disruption. So that was something they weren't expecting, which raised their curiosity. And now they're go and and this is not something that's offensive and it and and there's so there's no harm in saying, well, I wanna know more about this. What's what's this got to do with our $10,000,000 project? This is kind of interesting because it's because it was a sophisticated project. So a birdhouse is not the technology they're looking for, but it demonstrated a concept. And the speaker tied the analogy of a little boy learning from his grandfather into lifelong principles that everyone can relate to.

George Torok: The other connection that he made, again, the first impression, he talked about his grandfather who who he clearly honored and loved, and he showed how his grandfather helped him as a little boy learn a lifelong lesson. And each of us, the one thing we all have in common, you wanna connect with anyone, you talk about family because we all have family. So when you talk about your grandfather, I think about mine. So you now trigger memories in my mind. You touch those chemical reactions that bring back the good feelings of my grandfather. And so now I can connect with you because, oh, we both have or had grandfathers who were good to us, who taught us lessons, who we remember fondly. So now we have this strong connection and then you build on it as a speaker. So that grandfather family connection is powerful.

George Torok: And in this case, the group of people he was speaking to were a group of old guys, old men, probably were grandfathers themself, and they're probably sitting there thinking, oh yeah, you know I help my grandchildren with things too, and it's probably time I should give them some more of my grandfather Lee advice.

Bruce Scheer: God, George. You're really making me think. He was creating an emotional connection with them big time as they were share thinking about that sentiments, good sentiments, bad sentiments if they're underperforming as grandfathers, but really hooking them on on that thought. Yeah. That's really powerful.

George Torok: The the emotional connection is powerful. And the lack of an emotional character is boring, is dissuading. And I'll I'll I'll give you another example that of one connection that didn't work. I got a phone call, and if if I'm in my office and I'm not deeply into something, I'll answer the phone because I'm curious. I wanna hear how people I picked up the phone and the person a person who I don't know, who doesn't know me, their first words are how are they haven't identified themselves. They haven't said who they are. The first words are, how are you today? And I'm thinking, who's calling me, and why would you care how I am today? Do you know me? Do you care about me? And and I said that. I said, is it is that why you called to ask how I am? Because I don't know you.

George Torok: And then the person said feebly, well, I was trying to be polite. And I said, no. You're you're not polite. You're actually being insincere. You're pretending that you care when I know that you don't. You're trying to sell me something, aren't you? And then the person made an excuse. Well, I'm sorry if you're having a bad day. Well, it went from bad impression to worst impression.

George Torok: And I said, well, this conversation is over. And yet people don't get it. Those first words stop and why do people do that? They say, how are you today? Well, you know, if we're meeting if I know you, I have the right to say, how are you today? Because you and I, we care we care about each other. We have acquaintances. We have a relationship. So I can believe that that you actually care and you wanna hear something. But if I'm meeting you for the first time, don't use those trite meaningless phrases that everyone else uses because it doesn't connect. What you do is you just put yourself into that group of people who don't care.

George Torok: You think you you think you you think you care because you say how are you today? I know you don't because you couldn't be bothered to come up with a better saying, hey. I know you don't know me. I'm with this company. Is that something that you're considering looking at in the next 3 months? Or here's a here's a special offer. Would you like to hear more about it? Oh, okay. Maybe.

Bruce Scheer: Yeah. Yeah. You're you're talking my language. You're showing up relevant, etcetera. Hey, George. You know, one thing, we could talk about if you're game, I was reading your fantastic book, Open Your Presentation with Pizzazz, how to win the audience at the beginning of your presentation. So I you know, you are, you know, the consummate executive coach in how to have a presentation with pizzazz, which which I love. You don't want one with without pizzazz, that's for darn sure.

Bruce Scheer: But, within your book, you had this powerful framework, which I think sets us up for creating that fantastic first impression. Let me kick us over to that. And you were calling it in your book the 5 keys. Would you mind telling the audience about that?

George Torok: Yeah. These 5 keys and and for listeners who who, who can't see it, I'll I'll read them out and then I'll go through them. The first is confidence that and understand, credible, relevant, and important. So the 5 keys in your opening is first of all, for you, when you are the speaker, when you're the communicator, to demonstrate that you are confident. That you convey confidence because your confidence attracts our attention. When we see you and hear you sounding confident, we want to listen because, oh, this person is confident. They must believe in their message. As opposed to someone who's shuffling around and washing their hands or playing with their ear or with their jewelry, we're going, this person obviously doesn't feel good about the message.

George Torok: It's probably not worth listening to. And we want to know the next key. You need to demonstrate to us that you understand me, that you understand me as an individual. Not you understand the group, that you understand me, talk to me. And when I believe that you understand me, I'm gonna listen. I'm gonna think, oh, there's something in it for me. This person understands me. They're talking to me.

George Torok: The 3rd key is that you want to come across as credible. Credible in your message, credible with your authority. And by the way, by the way, please don't, and especially if you're making a sales presentation or presentation of any sort, don't start with this line. Don't go into this silly mess where oh and now a little bit about me. Guess what? When you say, as soon as you say that line, we shut down because we don't care and we also know it's probably not gonna be a little bit because your idea of little bit is a lot more than my idea. So avoid the little bit about me. They you need to arrive with credibility. Perhaps the way you've been introduced or based on the the relationship you've had to start the conversation.

George Torok: So you need to demonstrate credibility for this topic, not not for everything, just for this topic that you're planning to talk about. The

Bruce Scheer: next step One one thing I wanna talk about on credibility, and I love what you say, you shouldn't be talking about it, hopefully, because people will, turn off and or see you as having a big ego and maybe I don't even wanna deal with this person. But, you know, I we work with sellers to really punch up their LinkedIn profiles and post the right things and, you know, because I even myself, when I'm doing my outreach, you know, I I constantly see executives going to my LinkedIn profile. You know, who is this guy that just left me a message that shot me an email is is he worth talking to? And, that that's where I'm you know, trying to show up in a very credible way. Even this show that we're producing, the ValuePro show, you know, my hope is our our target prospects and executives will see that and go, hey, pretty solid stuff. You know? And and that, you know, that's credible, and then we can continue the dialogue.

George Torok: And and and, Bruce, you're right. The first thing that all of us, I think, do when someone reaches out to contact us, we go search their LinkedIn profile, first thing we do. I I noticed, Bruce, on on your LinkedIn profile, here's what stood out for me. You said that our mission, my mission, is to inspire others to inspire others. And that captured my attention, and I thought to myself, I don't think I've ever seen that before. So it's different. And I also like it. Here's why it appealed to me because it's not about you.

George Torok: It's about other people and that whether it's me or my colleagues, my team, but you are working to help others. That is a positive first impression, strong impression. So yes, it's credible. And there are so many people who make the mistakes of writing their LinkedIn profile to, to meet the criteria of an AI resume evaluation. So the ones with with the silly phrases like, results oriented professional. Really? What the heck does that mean? And by the way, are you suggesting that everyone else on here is not results oriented? And do you think when you say results oriented, that makes you stand out? If you do a search on results oriented on LinkedIn, guess how many people you're gonna find? Tens, hundreds of thousands. I did a search months ago. I don't know what the number is now.

George Torok: But yeah. So those those silly cliche phrases don't build credibility, don't make a good first impression. No. Not at all.

Bruce Scheer: Yeah. Perfect. Well, we talked about confidence, understanding that that buyer, making sure you're, that they know that, you understand them, credibility, being credible. Then what are the other 2 that you have on the 5 keys?

George Torok: The next key is that it's relevant. That it's relevant to me, the listener. Your message is relevant to me. If I get a call, from the duct cleaning people, I'm not looking for that. I'm not interested at that. I might someday, but I'm not today. It's not relevant to me. If, if you're selling childcare services, well, I'm long past that.

George Torok: So, in fact, I probably should be looking soon for senior care for myself, but, but the childcare so the the message and the service and the value that you offer must be relevant to my needs, my desires. And and you might tell you, well, well, everybody needs what we're selling. Know what? No. Guess what? They don't. Oh, maybe they need it, but they don't care. It's not relevant to them right now. Something else is more relevant. So it otherwise, they don't listen.

George Torok: We don't listen. The next key is that what you're saying is actually important. And that means that it's important. It's in high importance because there's a lot of things on our to do list that we'd like to do, but it's not all important, most important today. It depends what's important to us. And the and this point is that and, actually, the relevant and the importance is one reason why we need to follow-up if we see possibility. It's why because what you're offering today, what you are offering to me today, you might you might have confidence, you might understand me, you might be credible, but if it's not relevant now or important to me now, it might be in 3 months or 6 months. Yeah.

George Torok: Yeah. Which me which is why, 1, why we have a database to remind us to follow-up is why we publish on a regular basis so that we put out content that's relevant so that when it is relevant and important, people go, oh, there's Bruce. Oh, yeah. He's the one that sends me that information. I like what he writes. I haven't talked to him for a long time, but we did talk 2 years ago. I think it's time I should reach out to him because it's important and relevant now.

Bruce Scheer: Great points. Great points, George. Well, let me just do a recap here, and I wanted to mention something to you that I hope will get you to laugh a little bit. But the 5 keys, confidence, understand, credible, relevant, and important. So re really well articulated. I love the rule of fives. On confidence, George, my brother told me a long time ago, he's a extremely seasoned trial attorney. And, he he's so good that when other when the stakes are super high, and it's a big bet, very often he'll come in and replace the the current attorneys because, you know, hey.

Bruce Scheer: Now now it's it's big time, and we gotta nail it. And, my brother was telling me a long time ago that, my clients hire me for my confidence. Mhmm. And he goes, Bruce, if I'm right, I'm gonna be damn right. And if I'm wrong, I'm gonna be damn wrong. But they they are hiring me for my confidence, and I gotta show up with confidence. And, it it should you know, I I learned that such a long time ago, but so important. I've seen him work the courtroom, work the jury, and, you know, he just shows up with confidence and belief and and what he has to say.

Bruce Scheer: He's got integrity. He's got moral, a moral compass. So he's not lying or or trading a charade. But that did that really does flow through, and and and it's infectious effectively.

George Torok: And and and that is overpowering it. It's when you see a person who knows what they're doing, who has integrity, and is confident in their message and in their service, that is is so attractive. It's magnetic, and we just want to hear from that person. And we because we know that person means what they're doing and what they're saying. That that is that is so overwhelming.

Bruce Scheer: Yep. Yep. No. It's awesome. Well, hey. Let's, turn the corner here or perhaps even conclude, George, just on, you know, what didn't you mention that you might wanna mention to people, some, you know, takeaways around how to make that, the right first impression, one that's really good versus not not so good.

George Torok: Well, here here's a here's a a tip and a technique. First of all, if you're speaking, ensure that people are listening. So don't start talking until they're listening. Some people start talking right away and I see this a lot with people making a presentation whether it's they're in a networking event, they're talking 1 to 1, or whether they're, they're speaking on a stage or they're walking up to the stage. They start talking on the way to the stage or to the way to the front of the room. People aren't listening yet. So first, be if your first words are important, which they should be, then make sure people hear them. So here's a technique that I recommend to any time you speak.

George Torok: When it's your turn to speak, pause. Pause before you speak. So for example, let's say you're in a you're at a discussion in a group and and they say, well, Bruce, we haven't heard from you for a while. Tell us your insight on this. So when they say, Bruce, your turn to speak, depending on the room, you might stay seated or you might stand. If it's a bigger room, you need to be seen. So so let's say you're gonna stand. So what you do is you stand up and you look around the room, not say anything for the first 2, 3 seconds.

George Torok: You ensure that everyone is looking at you, and then you say those first words that are on purpose, on point, and people hear it and they go, wow, Bruce really knows what he's saying. Let's hear more. Powerful technique.

Bruce Scheer: Absolutely, George. Yeah. And and I love that in your book. Again, I'm gonna mention the book title so people can grab it. Open your presentation with Pizzazz with George Torok. Great book. But I I loved how you frame that up front there. Pause for 3 seconds.

Bruce Scheer: And if you're really confident and and wanna own the show, maybe even 8 seconds, I think you were saying, you know, just let people go, woah. I wonder what he's gonna say. But but that's powerful, and it gets everybody into the posture ready to listen versus just coming out rat a tat tat. You know? You go ahead and pause. So I I did like that a lot, George. That really, really makes sense. I'm sure there's science behind it too. Well, George, thanks for that. I know you're gonna have so many different tips, etcetera. How can people connect with you, George?

George Torok: The easiest way to connect is, I I suggest that they get a hold of my weekly presentation tips and a place to find that is at toroktips.com.torok, toroktips.com.

Bruce Scheer: Excellent. Oh, wow. What a lovely URL. So toroktips.com. I'm I'm racing there myself. So, George, thanks so much for being on the ValuePros Show. This is gonna be really helpful to a lot of people.

George Torok: Delighted to be helping people and being part of your mission to inspire others to inspire others.

Bruce Scheer: Yep. That's what it's all about for me. Thank you, George. Really appreciate it.

George Torok: Glad to be on the ValuePros Show, Bruce.