We judge people by their appearance

Have you heard about the lastest YouTube sensation? Apparently, on the show<a class="wp-caption" href="http://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/TV/04/15/talent.show/index.html" target="_blank"> "Britain's Got Talent,"</a> a woman who is not a) young; b) thin or c) beautiful wowed the judges, because, get this, she can sing.  The show is about talent, and yet the woman was pre-judged on her appearance.

While I think that judging talent by appearance is not wise, it remains part of how the world operates. We do judge the book by its cover. What does this mean for your marketing?

Evaluate what people are seeing about you: website, brochure, business cards, etc.  Will people think you have less talent because your website is outdated or your cards have typos?

Are you projecting what you want people to think? I have written before about this, but if you have a dated look (a website designed in the 90s) are people going to think you are  "with it?"  If you are a graphic designer and you have no samples on your website, what does that say?

Appearance is easy to fix. Talent/quality is a lot harder.