First impressions can determine if you land a job, whether you will get a second date, the odds of making new friends, or getting picked for a team. If you don’t give off a good first impression, then you could constantly struggle to get ahead and move your life forward.
However, there is good news for people wondering how to make a good first impression: Many of the aspects people factor in when they meet someone are in your control. Whether you’re adjusting how you look or how you present yourself, you can improve your first-impression skills. Follow this advice to improve your first impressions and start winning people over.
Smile naturally when you meet people
Smiling is a great way to start off on the right foot when you’re meeting someone new and need to make a good first impression. Christina DesMarais reported on one study in Switzerland, where 480 people were shown portraits manipulated to look warm or cold. Most participants not only chose the warm photos over the cold ones, but they agreed it was better for society to kick people with colder faces out of the group, as they were perceived as unlikable and incompetent. Smiling is an easy way to warm your face and make you seem more likable and in control.
Of course, this comes with the small caveat that the smile should be natural. A fake smile can be unsettling and even be threatening in the wrong situations, removing any possible benefits you might have reaped from creating a warmer personality in the first place.
Make eye contact
Along with smiling, making eye contact is a useful tool to create a good first impression. According to Sims Wyeth, eye contact makes you seem more confident and more believable with your message. It also encourages people to engage with you because they see you’re actively engaging with them. If you’re not looking at the people you’re speaking to, they can feel comfortable looking away and may lose focus on what you have to say. This is dangerous if you’re trying to use this first impression to win over an audience.
Like smiling, eye contact is best when it’s done naturally. You want to meet the eyes of the people you’re speaking with, but you don’t want to be creepy. Never leaving the eyes of the people you meet can make them feel uncomfortable, and it has the potential to create a worse impression than no eye contact at all.
Practice good hygiene
One of the easiest ways to put people off from speaking to you is to let your hygiene slack. You might not be able to control your looks of your personality, but you can remember to shower, brush your teeth, and wear clean clothes. If you have chronic bad breath or a sweating problem, try to pack extra mouthwash or antiperspirant before meeting someone new so you can put your best foot forward.
Hygiene also applies to long-term care. Your nails should be clean and trimmed, your hair and facial hair should be neat, and your clothes should be ironed if they wrinkle easily. All these features send a message (good or bad) about your appearance.
You don’t want to be known as the man or woman with bad breath or the person who stinks because people will always avoid you, even if it was a one-time occurrence.
Remember the names of people you meet
When you meet someone, do you hear their name, shake their hand, and then promptly forget what they told you? Many people claim to be bad with names and will ask professional and personal acquaintances to repeat their names multiple times when they meet. While this is common enough to be forgiven, it won’t help you stand out.
When someone tells you his or her name, listen carefully and make a note to remember it. If you don’t have a good memory, try to come up with a mental trick to keep someone’s name on the top of your head. For example, you could remember their name based on a significant feature (such as Barbara with the bunny tattoo) or write their name down when you meet them to add a visual element to your auditory learning.
Remembering someone’s name makes him or her feel valued and respected. If you remember their name, they’re likely to take an interest in whom you are and remember your name as well. Not only does this create a positive first impression, but it will also set you up for positive interactions in the future.
Be prepared
Whether you’re going in for a job interview or attending a board meeting, one of the best ways to stand out is to be prepared. In a business situation, this means researching topics you will be discussing and bringing supplemental materials along that could be useful. In personal situations, such as meeting the parents or friends of your significant other, this means asking about their interests ahead of time so you can bring up topics they enjoy.
Not only will being prepared make you seem confident and smart, but it will also prevent you from looking bad. In a meeting, this reduces the chances of not having answers that management needs, or worse, lying and making them up. Preparedness means you will soon become the go-to person in the office that people turn to for help.
Listen to what others have to say
Listening isn’t the same as hearing. When you listen, you actively focus on what the other person is trying to tell you and how he or she is telling it. It requires you to pay attention to their tone, body language, and even a specific word choice.
Good listeners don’t just wait for someone to stop talking before they can jump in and add their opinions. Instead, they focus on what other people have to say, encourage them to elaborate on their thoughts, and ask follow-up questions about their ideas. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t have your own opinions, but focusing on others can make them feel valued and more comfortable around you.
The next time you meet someone new, either in a professional or personal situation, take the time to listen and remember what your new acquaintance is trying to say. If you can show your effective communication skills, you could win them over easily and make them excited to talk with you again.
For a great second impression, remember what they said and bring it up next time you meet. This shows they’re important to you and that you genuinely care about their opinions.
Put your phone away
One easy way to improve your listening skills is to keep your smartphone in your purse or pocket when you’re talking to someone. Even if you’re not answering the calls or text, the constant vibrations, buzzes, and pings from apps can distract people from speaking to you and turn them off from continuing the conversation. If you really want to command people’s attention and make them think highly of you, put the phone away.
When your phone is away, you can make better eye contact with the people you’re speaking to and smile naturally when they talk. You can also remember what they say better and make them feel valued to hear it back. Even people who typically give great first impressions can ruin them by paying more attention to a text than those around them.
Importance of first impressions
In his book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell writes that people make an assessment of the people we meet within the first few seconds of encountering them. While the information we’re given during that period is often incomplete, it leads us to shape a first impression, which can take several meetings to wear off.
Kristi Hedges writes that presidents have been elected just because of their looks, and job candidates have been selected for interviews purely because of their names. While you can’t always control exactly what kind of first impression you present, you can evaluate the type of personality you give off when people meet you and how you dress (and bathe) beforehand.
Keep these tips in mind the next time you need to make a good impression. By listening, smiling, and presenting yourself in a professional manner, you can set yourself up for success to get the job, the date, and the friends that you want.
