top of page

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.)

SIT flooded with calls, complaints being verified

Quaid Najmi
Mar 27
3 min read

Mumbai: Sharpening knives, several women political and social leaders called on the Nashik Commissioner of Police Sandeep Karnik and Special Investigation Team (SIT) chief Tejaswi Satpute, seeking action against several bigwigs allegedly linked with the Ashokkumar Eknath Kharat scandal that has scalded Maharashtra politics.


A delegation led by Shiv Sena (UBT) Deputy Leader Sushama Andhare, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Rupali Patil-Thombare, Sangeeta Tiwari of Bitiya Foundation, Swati Patil, Saroj Ahire and Prerana Balkawade met the two top cops in Nashik.


“We have urged them to include the names of ruling ally Shiv Sena’s ex-minister Deepak V. Kesarkar and NCP State Women’s Wing President Rupali Nilesh Chakankar as co-accused in the case and initiate investigations against them. Check their CDR’s financial dealings and their role in promoting the fake Godman,” Andhare told ‘The Perfect Voice’.


Karnik said that since the FIR’s have already been registered and the entire case has been transferred to the SIT, he would forward their plea to the SIT, which would be in a position to address the women leaders’ concerns. Thereafter, the ladies went to met Satpute and held detailed talks with her.


“We discussed the case status, shared some additional inputs we have collected, names of certain officers or prominent persons plus certain potential victims. We strongly requested her to bring both Kesarkar and Chakankar - who quit last week as Chairperson of Maharashtra State Commission for Women - under the probe radar to ascertain their exact role in this sordid affair,” added Andhare.


SIT Works

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) conducting a probe against rape accused and self-styled godman Ashok Kharat has received more than 50 calls in the last five days providing information or reporting crimes allegedly committed by him, officials said on Friday.


The Maharashtra government-appointed SIT earlier published two mobile phone numbers for citizens to share information regarding Kharat or report any offence committed by him, they said.


The police have so far registered eight FIRs against Nashik-based Kharat after receiving multiple complaints involving allegations of sexual assault, extortion, and circulation of objectionable material.


Kharat, who heads a temple trust at Sinnar in Nashik district and had several political leaders visit him over the years, was arrested on March 18 after a 35-year-old woman accused him of repeated rape over a period of three years. Following his arrest, multiple rape complaints were filed against him.


A senior official said that since the launch of the two dedicated mobile numbers, the probe team received an average of 15 to 20 phone calls daily.


Of the calls received in the last five days, more than 50 were about complaints against Kharat, he said, adding that the team is verifying the complaints.


The SIT has assured that to keep the identities of those providing information or reporting a crime strictly confidential, he said.


The SIT visited Kharat’s office in Nashik on Friday, accompanied by the forensic science team.


A team of police officials recovered several documents and files, a diary and papers from the office, the official said.


The Nashik district administration has, meanwhile, suspended the former Merchant Navy officer’s arms licence, citing that with multiple cases against him, he might use weapons to threaten and intimidate victims.


Nashik collector Ayush Prasad on Tuesday issued an order suspending Kharat’s arms licence, another official said.


Kharat, a resident of Mirgaon in Sinnar, obtained a revolver licence on October 15, 2012, renewed it on January 1, 2024, with validity till December 2028, he said.


After a case was registered against Kharat at the Sarkarwada police station, the police recovered a weapon and bullets from him.


The licence was suspended under section 17(3) of the Arms Act. Moral turpitude is a valid ground for suspension of the licence, the order stated.


- With PTI

Comments

bottom of page