How can I make a winning first impression?

When it comes to phone calls and face-to-face encounters, we often forget the importance of a winning impression. Even our emails and letters can set the first impression, or a voice message. We know what first impressions mean, but day-to-day, we tend to forget or get careless about first and ongoing impressions.

Who should care?

Everyone! Especially anyone involved in influencing clients, senior managers, their team, anyone in a sales or customer service role, new employees and job applicants of course.

Why is it so important to create a winning first impression? Why are impressions so powerful?

First impressions are important because one of the common traits of human beings is they want to know and trust a person they are dealing with. They want to be able to quickly understand a situation that they are presented with. So, when presented with a person for the first time, people want to make some judgment about them and they want to do it quickly.

This judgment is usually formed on the basis of very superficial information how they look, what they say, how they are dressed, how they behave. But this is a very powerful psychological principle. In a job interview situation, interviewers tend to reach a final decision about an applicant within the first three or four minutes of the interview. The rest of the interview is usually an exercise in selective perception, where the interviewer sees what he or she wants to see, to support the decision that has already been made.

Even on an everyday basis our impressions are critical for building trust, motivating others and setting a role model for others.

How do you make a good first impression? How can you improve the impression you make every day?

1. Be positive
Creating a positive impression involves looking at the person, smiling, not being distracted, showing interest and concern for the other person. It is mainly a matter of body language as this is a very powerful form of communication, and a positive tone of voice. So for phone calls it will almost totally be based on a positive tone of voice. Even emails can be worded in a positive and enthusiastic “tone”.

2. Be Helpful
There are many situations, particularly when dealing with staff, team members and especially customers, when you can be helpful. You can anticipate issues, concerns and offer assistance. This can contribute to creating a very positive first impression and a good ongoing impression. If a problem arises, of course be helpful and responsive, but you do not have to wait for a problem to be responsive.

3. Be Professional
It’s of course important to dress well for face-to-face situations, with neat and tidy grooming. It may be tempting, if you are having a bad day, to let the other person know the difficulties you are having and share your mood. Complaining does not create a professional impression, and as far as first impressions go – complaining is a no no! Being professional is about creating an impression that everything is under control and being taken care of. This is particularly important for managers with their staff, and of course frontline customer service personnel.

4. Be Organised
A first impression may be about how organised or disorganised you are. The folder of notes you carry to a meeting, your diary – all give an impression. A follow up email summarising what was agreed to makes for a good impression. A person whose desk is a mess, forgets appointments, is late or doesn’t keep promises will give a bad first impression, or reinforce an ongoing bad impression.

If you are going to a new client be prepared with exactly what you need without excess papers flowing out of your briefcase. Take a lot of care for a job interview – have all your references, resume and other paperwork organised and ready to show the interviewers. Not being ready with paperwork, lists, dates, examples, budgets, reports (especially those promised) creates an impression that you are disorganised. This can lead to people doubting your ability to deliver.

5. Be Special
Being special involves finding some way in which you can do something or say something that will surprise the person you are dealing with. It usually means offering them something that they will want before they even realise that they want it.

In a job interview it might be bringing in samples of your work or bringing in additional written references, or showing that you have researched details about the company. In a customer service situation, being special might involve anticipating a need that a customer has and then satisfying it.

In a meeting this might mean bringing in a jug of water before anyone has asked for it, or calling a client ahead of a meeting and offering a special parking spot. Being special means thinking ahead and thinking of some way of really grabbing the person’s attention.

A few days ago a client whom I did a lot of work for over 10 years ago suddenly sent me a wonderful reference out of the blue. I asked her what prompted it and she said many people ask for references after small jobs, and she realised that there were people in her past who has done great work and had not asked and she wanted to acknowledge them first. This is very special and makes me want to do the same for someone else.

View Winning First Impressions clip.

Eve Ash is the author of Rewrite Your Life! and producer of 140+ award winning training videos distributed by her company SEVEN DIMENSIONS.