Mea culpa time for me. I misjudged someone, and there’s a moral to the story.

Remember my post on the Top 10 Networking Mistakes and the guy who made three of them at one event? Well, I’ve subsequently met with him several times, and I think he’s all right.

So what did he do to change my mind?

First, he did email me like he said he would. It took almost a week, but he did finally follow up.

Our first meeting was very positive. We clicked on a particular project, and he set up a good three-way meeting with a potential client for me.

We met at another event, and he was far more low-key in the conversations I overheard. Maybe he was having a bad day when I first met him.

He gets sales and marketing. We’ve had a couple of conversations on the topic, and he understands how it works.

He’s demonstrated that he genuinely wants to help people, me included. How can I not like that?

So it is possible to change a first impression. But it’s hard. I was very wary going into our first meeting. And I was still wary walking out of it. Setting up the three-way meeting and letting me see him in action with a struggling business owner increased my confidence in him.

It’s been a slow process, but I’m starting to think he’s okay. I’m still not ready to refer him (partially because I’m still a bit unclear on who is a good client for him), but I think this relationship has potential.

The moral of this story? A bad first impression doesn’t have to be a death sentence. But you’ve got to work very hard to overcome it. And sometimes, you shouldn’t rush to judgment on someone you just meet. You might be wrong and miss a potentially good contact.

Anyone else have a story to share of a changed first impression?

Tags: Relationship building, reputation

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 21st, 2010 at 10:38 am and is filed under Networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.