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By:

Divyaa Advaani 

2 November 2024 at 8:58:38 am

Your First Impression Is Delegated

A prospective partner called your office last week. You do not know his name. You were not told he called. The phone rang four times before it was answered, he was asked to repeat himself, and he was promised a callback that arrived two days later as a message with no greeting. He formed an opinion of you in under three minutes. You were not in the room, and you will never know that opinion existed. Most founders believe their personal brand begins when they walk into a meeting. It does not....

Your First Impression Is Delegated

A prospective partner called your office last week. You do not know his name. You were not told he called. The phone rang four times before it was answered, he was asked to repeat himself, and he was promised a callback that arrived two days later as a message with no greeting. He formed an opinion of you in under three minutes. You were not in the room, and you will never know that opinion existed. Most founders believe their personal brand begins when they walk into a meeting. It does not. It begins at the first point of contact, and in any business of real size, that point is almost never the founder. It is the assistant who manages your calendar. The sales executive who sends the first proposal. The person who handles your WhatsApp, the receptionist, the coordinator who confirms the meeting. These people speak for you every day, in your name, using your reputation, and most of them have never been told what that reputation is supposed to feel like. Many are loyal, hardworking and capable. That is not the issue. The issue is that nobody ever showed them what a first impression of this founder should feel like. Here is what a prospective client experiences. They do not separate you from your team. They cannot. To them, the speed of a reply is how seriously you take them. The tone of the first email is the tone of your leadership. A proposal with a spelling error, a late response, a careless "will check and let you know" becomes evidence about the person at the top. If this is how the organisation presents itself while trying to win my business, they reason, this is how it will treat me once I have signed. And they never tell you. They simply go quiet. The deal that stalls after a promising first call. The partner who becomes "busy". The client who chooses a competitor and offers a reason that has nothing to do with the real one. Across a year, that is every enquiry that stalled, every proposal left unanswered, every introduction that never became a meeting. This is a personal brand problem, not a staffing one. A founder can spend years refining how they present in a room and still lose the room before they enter it, because the impression was formed by someone else, in a conversation the founder was never part of and never heard about. The founders who avoid this are not the ones with the most polished staff. They are the ones who have made their brand legible to the people around them. Their team knows how the founder speaks, what the business stands for, what warmth looks like in a reply, how a delay should be explained and how a client should feel in the first thirty seconds. The team is not following a script. They are carrying a standard, because someone took the time to define it. When did you last experience your own business the way a stranger does? Not a test call arranged with your team's knowledge. A real one. Send a first enquiry from a number nobody recognises. Notice how long it takes to be answered, what the tone is, and whether you would want to do business with whoever replied. Then ask yourself honestly whether that person sounds like you, and whether you would be proud to be represented that way. If the answer is uncomfortable, it is worth acting on now. Every week of that experience is a week someone forms a verdict about you without your knowledge. Your personal brand is not only what you say. It is everything said on your behalf. If you have a suspicion about how your business is being experienced before you ever walk in, that suspicion deserves a direct, focused brand consultation, not a casual chat. Book yours here: https://www.calendly.com/divyaaadvaani/founder-brand-audit — Divyaa Advaani, Personal Branding Strategist (The author is a personal branding expert. She has clients from 14+ countries. Views personal.)

Elite Enablers

Correspondent
Mar 23
2 min read

The recent arrest of Ashok Kharat, a self-styled ‘godman’ accused of rape, blackmail and occult manipulation, has rightly horrified Maharashtra. Yet to view this as the story of a lone predator is to miss the larger, more uncomfortable truth. Men like Kharat do not rise in isolation. They are legitimised and ultimately shielded by networks of influence that extend deep into the state’s political and social elite.


The investigation, now in the hands of a Special Investigation Team, has widened its scope. Temple functionaries, staff and associates are being questioned, revealing the ecosystem within which Kharat operated. Kharat’s enterprise was one sustained by credibility, access and patronage of the elite. The more investigators dig, the clearer it becomes that the crimes alleged were enabled as much by social validation as by individual depravity.


That validation came, in no small measure, from high-profile figures who lent Kharat their presence and, by extension, their endorsement. Photographs, visits and public gestures of reverence were not incidental. They told followers and victims alike that this was a man to be trusted, even venerated.


The political storm that followed has centred on Rupali Chakankar, whose resignation, reportedly at the behest of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, came only after intense public pressure. Her defence, that the association was old and rooted in personal belief, is revealing. It underscores precisely how figures like Kharat embed themselves within respectable circles, blurring the line between private faith and public responsibility.


But the issue goes beyond one resignation. To suggest that Chakankar alone bears responsibility would be convenient and misleading. The uncomfortable reality is that Kharat’s rise was facilitated by a broader class of enablers: politicians and social elites who either failed to question or actively promoted his persona.


Allegations now suggest that concerns about Kharat’s activities were not entirely unknown. Questions had been raised in the past; even journalists who probed too closely reportedly faced pressure. Yet these warning signs were ignored, dismissed or suppressed. The result was an environment in which a serial predator could operate with impunity, his authority reinforced by the very people who should have exercised scepticism.


The consequences of such negligence are now evident. Victims, already vulnerable, were drawn into a web of exploitation by the aura of legitimacy surrounding Kharat.


Focusing solely on the accused risks reducing a systemic failure to an individual crime. What is now required instead is a broader reckoning that examines how legitimacy is conferred and how institutions can be insulated from the distortions of personal belief and political convenience. Given the nature of the case, it can be safely assumed that more skeletons are likely to tumble from the closet.


Maharashtra prides itself on its rationalist traditions, yet the persistence of such episodes suggests a disquieting gap between aspiration and reality. As long as high-profile figures continue to patronise dubious godmen, lending them visibility and credibility, new Kharats will emerge to replace the old. 


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