Quick way to blow a first impression

First impressionWe all hear — and goodness I’ve said — that “Good is good enough” and that’s often the case.  After all, I’d rather something be “good and done” than “perfect and incomplete”.

Yesterday I received a postcard from a local business consultant.  It’s a decent card, nothing to write home about and has a few typos, but it gets the job done, except for one fatal flaw:

The website URL goes to a “this page is coming soon” page from GoDaddy.

Now, I understand (and have occasionally had to do) sending something out before it’s 100% complete and getting “it” (website, info page, etc.) finished before the marketing hits.  Things happen, life interferes and deadlines get pushed.  But to do that, you have to pull out every stop and get the thing finished before your target audience receives the info.

First impressions matter.

And my first impression of this business consultant who’s going to show me “the key components of my business” and “how to make more money” is that he doesn’t have his act together.

I’ll be doing lots of things on the day of presentation — attending his free seminar won’t be one of them when I otherwise may have gone out of curiosity and to network locally.

Honestly, why would we even consider going to a seminar telling us how to run a business from someone I don’t know and whose website isn’t up.  Makes me think of those gurus who tell us to just call ourselves an expert and POOF! we’ll be one.

What are your thoughts? Am I being “too harsh”?

(And “yes”…I did leave him a message letting him know that his website isn’t up on the odd chance he didn’t know.)