How to Make a Great First Impression

Have you ever wanted to win over a new client? Or to wow your potential employer at the hiring interview? When the stakes are high, it can be challenging to leave a great first impression.

Now that most of us are still working remotely, it’s even more difficult to connect with someone on a personal level when we meet them for the very first time.

That’s because when you meet people you don’t know well—remotely or in person—their brain perceives the encounter with you (at least at first) as a possible threat.

As social psychologist Dr. Heidi Grant Halverson explains in Nobody Understands You and What to Do About It, this happens without them realizing it. Their brain subconsciously analyzes what you say and do so it can classify you as a friend or a foe.

This is how people decide whether they can trust you or not, and they make up their decision in the very first seconds of meeting you.

In particular, Grant Halverson explains that their brain is looking to understand whether

• You have good intentions (are you are a friend or a foe);
• You have what it takes to act on those intentions (because if you don’t, then you’re not really a threat even if you’re a foe).

People will conclude whether you’re a friend or foe based on your warmth—your friendliness, loyalty, and empathy. And they will evaluate your capability to act on your intentions based on how they perceive your competence or strength—your intelligence, skills, and effectiveness.

According to research conducted by Harvard psychologist Amy Cuddy, these two aspects of your character—warmth and competence—account for roughly 90 percent of other people’s perceptions about you.

Once people form an opinion about you, everything you say and do gets filtered through that initial opinion. This is what psychologists call the primacy effect. As Dr. David Lieberman writes, “If his (a person’s) first impression of you is favorable, then he will tend to be kinder in his future evaluations of you.”

Research also suggests that first impressions are very difficult to correct as they do not fade with time, but they subconsciously shape a person’s opinion about you even if they forgot they met you six months ago.

Therefore, the first time you meet your client, boss, or hiring manager, make that initial encounter the very best. Show that you’re trustworthy and that you have what it takes to do the job.

Now here’s the tricky part: Projecting both warmth and competence at the same time isn’t always that easy. You may have met people who appear warm and approachable, but you haven’t necessarily perceived them as competent. Perhaps you even felt pity for them.

And then there are those whom you view as highly competent, but they appear cold and distant. You respect them, but you can’t connect to them on a personal level.

It seems that warmth and competence often exclude each other. Here are some tips on how to balance both:

• To project warmth, smile, and practice empathy as much as you can. Take the time to see the world through another person’s eyes. This is especially important in the modern working world, where most of our interactions happen online and the opportunity to make eye contact is reduced to a minimum.

• To project competence, show that you have willpower. “All those things you know you shouldn’t do – … being lazy, late, disorganized, excessively emotional, or quick-tempered—may be even worse for you than you even realized, because of the collateral damage they are doing to your perceived trustworthiness,” Halverson writes. Also, pay attention to your voice and speak up. The goal is not to outshout everybody else, but as The New York Times reports, when you speak a bit louder than you normally do and vary your voice (speaking both more loudly and softly), you’ll come across as more confident.

Of course, if you don’t genuinely care about others, your attempt to smile and show your warm side will come across as inauthentic. On the other hand, if you don’t believe in your competence, others will sense your self-doubt, too. They won’t see you as a strong and competent partner.

To build your confidence, pay attention to your self-talk. Are you usually talking to yourself in a gentle and encouraging way? Or is the little voice in your head constantly saying, “I can’t handle this. What if I don’t get this right?”

A great way to find out is to keep a journal for a few days: Set a reminder for five to six times a day where you’ll write down the thoughts that come at those exact moments. What are you saying to yourself? Most people are surprised about how much negative language they notice when talking to themselves.

When you consciously choose to project warmth and competence over and over again, this type of behavior will eventually become second nature. You’ll naturally inspire trust, confidence, and respect in others so they can look up to you as a true leader.