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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.)

US Vice President JD Vance, his family arrive in Delhi

PTI
Apr 21, 2025
2 min read


NEW DELHI: US Vice President J D Vance arrived here on Monday on a four-day visit to India against the backdrop of ongoing negotiations for a bilateral trade agreement between the two strategic partners to address a variety of issues, including tariff and market access.


Vance is accompanied by his Indian-origin wife Usha Chilukuri and their three children Ewan, Vivek, Mirabel and a delegation of senior US government officials.


The US Vice President and the Second Lady were received at the Palam air base by Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.


The American leader was also accorded a ceremonial welcome on his arrival.

In the evening, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will host a dinner for the Vances after holding wide-ranging talks with the US Vice President.


External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, NSA Ajit Doval, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and Indian ambassador to US Vinay Mohan Kwatra are expected to be part of the Indian team to be led by PM Modi at the talks.


The focus of the meeting is likely to be on early finalisation of the proposed bilateral trade pact as well as ways to boost overall trajectory of ties between the two countries.


Besides Delhi, Vance and his family will travel to Jaipur and Agra.

Vance's first visit to India comes weeks after US President Donald Trump imposed and then paused a sweeping tariff regime against around 60 countries, including India.


New Delhi and Washington are now holding negotiations to seal a bilateral trade agreement that is expected to address a variety of issues, including tariff and market access.


Vance and his family are scheduled to leave for Jaipur on Monday night.

In Delhi, the US Vice President and his family are staying at the ITC Maurya Sheraton hotel.


On April 22, the Vances will visit a number of historical sites in Jaipur, including the Amer Fort, also known as Amber Fort. The fort is a UNESCO world heritage site.


In the afternoon, the US Vice President is scheduled to address a gathering at the Rajasthan International Centre in Jaipur.


Vance is expected to delved into broader aspects of India-US relations under the Donald Trump administration during his speech that is expected to be attended by diplomats, foreign policy experts, Indian government officials and academia.


The US Vice President and his family will travel to Agra on the morning of April 23, people familiar with the matter said.


In Agra, they will visit the Taj Mahal and Shilpgram which is an open air emporium showcasing various Indian artefacts, they said.


After concluding their visit to Agra, the Vances will return to Jaipur on the second half of April 23.


The US Vice President and his family will depart for the US from Jaipur on April 24, according to the people cited above.

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