How to Make A Great First Impression: The Science Behind It with Sylvie di Giusto
People we meet make quick decisions about us. Should they hire us? Trust us? Buy something from us? Be friends with us? It takes a blink of an eye, and like it or not, you are going to be judged. Wouldnβt you want to limit the risk of wrong assumptions? In this episode, you learn what your first impression says about you, and how it impacts the way you perceive yourself and others perceive you.
In This Episode, You Will Learn About:
What your first impression says about you
How to make a great first impression
How to recover from leaving a bad one
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About our guest:
βYouβve 7 seconds. Make them count!β says Keynote Speaker Sylvie di Giusto, CSP, who helps individuals and organizations explore how people make up their minds very quickly about them or their company, and either open the door for them or slam it shut. Sylvie takes audiences around the world on an interactive and entertaining journey of self-discovery that reveals how the world sees them, their brands and organizations, and ultimately, how they see themselves. With her unique and thought-provoking presentations, she helps audience members to lead better, sell faster, and persuade instantly. She empowers them to master their first impressions and lasting impressions in any professional or business environment and during customer or
employee interactions. Sylvie is the author of βThe Image of Leadershipβ and βFair Advantageβ as well as the mind and producer behind dozens of corporate or individual online courses, including her own innovative βHow You Impressβ mobile learning lab.
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The Science Behind Our First Impression
Youβve got seven seconds, make them count. I always say good looks are great, but itβs not enough. You also have to follow through with your actions, and it is such an honor to be part of the National Speakers Association, a community that has given me so much throughout the past years. Iβm just glad, honored, and humbled to give back.
I have 20 years of corporate experience. I worked in organizations around the world in HR (Human Resource). Usually, I was involved if somebody got tired or fired. What always was interesting to me is that I found that when people entered the room, they said all the right things. They behaved and looked exactly the way we wanted them to behave.
Then we hire because of a total lack of performance. I wondered why we didn't identify anyone within our organization as potential leaders for that position, realizing that some of the great young, ambitious people we had just didnβt stand out to us as someone with leadership material or potential. I got so frustrated that we very often hire people because of their hard skills. Instead, we fire them because of their soft skills and lack of soft skills. I wanted to find the gap between and study a lot about emotional entire chance, first impressions, how you present yourself and how you are perceived, and what people think about you when they think about you.
20 years later, my dream life came true. I moved to the United States and I just switched places. I moved over and said, βIn the meantime, I have this corporate experience and this knowledge about emotional intelligence. Why not just combine that and help leaders in organizations find out how they are perceived by the world and what impact it has on the leadership potential, what impact it has on a customer decision-making process, what it has and how they perceive themselves?β
I donβt make it just a positive or a negative first impression, but there is one more, which is in the middle and that is actually the worst if you donβt make an impression at all. If you are just landing in if you donβt stand out if you are just communicating some sort of average aura around you.
It really doesnβt depend if itβs seven seconds or milliseconds. There are different studies out there with different results, but they all have in common: that we instantly create an opinion about somebody. Do we trust them? Do we think that theyβre successful? Do we think that theyβre knowledgeable? In fact, we even decide instantly. Are we going to buy from them? Are we going to buy into them? Those decisions are based on what I call the A, B, C, D, and E of your initial imprint.
This explains to you why people think of you the way that they think of you. The A stands for your appearance. It pertains to, whether you like it or not, the way you look. We are visual creatures. Our brains are actually quite lazy and we donβt or they donβt like to work, so they take a shortcut through our eyes and that includes our body image. Are you tall or short? Does your body look healthy? The clothes you cover your body with, your hair, your makeup, your accessories, and the entire visual picture that you create. And looking at it is great, but itβs not enough. As I said, at one point, youβre going to behave with your attitude, your emotional intelligence, and your business etiquette skills. How do you negotiate? How do you handle conflicts? How do you behave in micro-moments that might not be important for you, but are very important for the person across from you? At one point, youβre going to say something. Itβs the secret communication, how you say it and what you say.
This also includes the voice. Your voice is a very powerful tool. Itβs like an instrument that we play every day, but we never learn how to play that instrument. It is about what you say and we know that the first 11 words in every conversation are the most important ones. How do you start the conversation? Are you prepared? Are you signaling to the other person that you know something about them? Or do you just waste them by seeing how you are doing and then move on? The ABC is a model that is out. What Iβve added though is the D and E because now most often we donβt make the first impression anymore in person. We make it in some sort of digital. You send out emails every single day. Somebody searches through Google your name right now and makes a decision to call you or not. What do your social media profiles say about you? Donβt be a fool when you think your social media is private and has nothing to do with the professional that you are. If there are two things that donβt belong together, itβs the internet and then itβs private. We also have to recognize our environment, itβs not just about you, so if your environment is something that we take into consideration when we create opinions about each other, who are the people you hang out with? Who do you surround yourself with? What does your office look like? I mean, the pandemic has shown us that we can look in everybodyβs home. What does that say about you? Or whether you go on vacation, which car do you drive? So everything around you will also impact the way people think about you.
Our Own Branding
Iβm so glad that you brought up this digital kind of footprint because there have been times where Iβve done workshops for companies and we talk about branding. Branding is where we associate a brand with Starbucks, Nordstroms, and yet we forget sometimes that we are actually our own brand. Our brand and the secret sauce to our brand is how do we show up in person? How do people feel when we leave the room? What impression, as you said, do we make? What is our brand representation on social media? Which is why Iβm a big advocate of everybody being on LinkedIn, which is part of your brand as well as your accomplishments and your performance and, following up on the actions that you say that youβre going to do. Iβm glad that you brought up the digital aspect of our impression.
You know, there are two extremes to go: some people decide to not care at all and just put out whatever they think they want to put out, and they frame it under the title of being authentic. But I think there is a misbelief that authenticity means that you donβt have to. It simply doesnβt mean that authenticity means that you are true to yourself. But for example, on social media, they still show the things that speak for you and not against you, and that cannot hunt you down low.
After a while, and then there were other extreme people saying, even as a professional in your organization, I donβt feel a need for a digital footprint. Why should I be out there? But the reality nowadays is, have you ever Googled a name and didnβt find anything about that person? That is weird, right? Does that person even exist? What I always encourage professionals to do is to have at least a LinkedIn profile so that they at least can find you with your skills, your experiences, with your achievements, because you also donβt know what opportunities you are missing out on because they canβt find you.
There is no reason for you to be active on all other platforms, however, get your name. Make sure that you own your name on the internet. Own your name on Instagram, Twitter, on Tiktok, or whatever platform comes out instantly, go online and reserve your name. You donβt have to tweet and you donβt have to post. You can just even create an inbox with an email address where all those emails from your social media accounts go there and ignore them. But the reality is, if you donβt own your name on the internet, somebody else can own it. And at one point, you could fight against somebody elseβs footprint that he or she lives behind, and then itβs hard for you to catch.
Iβve experienced that firsthand because Iβve had multiple people who have taken my profile. They have screenshots of the images and then they create these fake profiles. What Iβve noticed is, as Iβve started to be more active on social media, Iβve also seen some more imposters trying to act on my behalf of me, which Iβm glad that you say you own your social media, handle your name, whether youβre active or not. Just make sure that you are in control of your brand representation on social media.
This is very easy to say if you have a very uncommon name like I have, right? Chances are little that there is somebody else with that handle. It was easy for me to grab all the handles. Itβs a little bit more difficult if you have a very common name, then think about variations. Maybe you have a middle name that you can put in there, but make sure that you are identifiable as an individual on all the platforms, that itβs you. Because in the worst case, what if tomorrow Iβd be a celebrity, for example, who gets famous and then with the same name is all over the internet or somebody gets famous for something horrible, he, she or they have done and takes over your space and people donβt take the time to research. Is that you or is it not you? So be very careful with the social media space. Remember that you have to own the internet.
The Impact of First Impressions
In addition to first impressions, how do first impressions impact how others perceive us, as well as how we perceive ourselves?
Have you ever tried to memorize a list of 20 items? Which ones do you usually remember the most? Usually, we remember the first ones and the last ones. And we forget a lot of things that happened in the middle. Sometimes when we go into meetings, we remember the first things that happened and then the last things that happened, and with both pieces of information, we walk out and are incredibly biased. So a lot of my work is about unconscious bias.
Unconscious bias: it works for you or against you. It is the way you think about yourself as well as how others perceive you. That is the biggest problem with first impressions. Itβs not so much about the first impression and what you can do in those seven seconds or four seconds, it is what happens afterward, which biases are working against you.
For example, if you have a jock candidate applying to your company and he, she or they walk in and youβll notice something sloppy on their appearance or anything. I promise you, your brain is wired in a way that you automatically look for more sloppiness. Itβs confirmation by us working against that candidate, you will find the sloppiness in their behaviors and the words that they say. You will find the sloppiness in the material they brought. If they printed their CV, there is one type of your brain that will find it and confirm that this person really must be sloppy, and then you make your decision. But you can also use that to your advantage. By giving people in the beginning what you want them to think about you instantly, confirmation bias will work for you. And to do that, you have to identify first, what should be my first impressions be and what should be the end goal, and what the lasting impression be. And only if you know that you can adjust your appearance, behavior, communication, digital footprint, and environment based on that goal that you to imprint, that information and hopefully buyers will be working for you rather than against you.
Can we use it to our advantage if we go in really thinking about what we want, the perception of us to be, and how it models our behavior?
Very often we talk about unconscious bias, people have an approach that we need to eliminate unconscious bias. But that is something we cannot achieve because we all grew up in different cultures, and environments, with histories and personal experiences, and we will never be able to eliminate it. What you can do though, is the self-awareness that, first of all, you are biased too. I am biased and so are you, and so is every listener. What can you do for yourselves to conquer those biases? Best possible to be aware of them and realize, βOh, I made that decision because of that trigger here, so letβs go back and remove the trigger and look at it from a new perspective.β And second, being aware that everybody approaches you through their filters. That is why no one fits all formulas. I canβt tell you what the best first impressions are because even if you create your first best impression in your mind, itβs still perceived by different filters, different generations, different genders, and different races, but this is your only opportunity to control it. And if you donβt control your brand as you know, then somebody else will control it.
Taking control of the narrative of what people will say about us, and what we want people to say about us. What happens if we make a bad first impression and how can we recover from a bad first impression?
First of all, you need to realize we all make (bad impressions). I make bad first impressions. You make bad first impressions, so I always encourage people, to forgive you. That is the first step because the great thing is you are at least aware that you made a bad first impression. Instead, it depends a little bit on who it impacts. Did it only impact you? You, yourself, donβt feel great about yourself? Well, then go back and think about what I could have done better and learn from this. Itβs a little bit different if your bad first impression impacted somebody else because you offended somebody knowingly or unknowingly well, and there is no better way than to apologize.
Go to that person and apologize in a serious and empathetic way and own your mistake and say sorry, not just sorry to say sorry, but because you really mean it. But also draw consequences on how you will behave to a peer or communicate differently in the future and follow through because consistency is the key.
If you want to change somebodyβs opinion about you, you can only be successful if you can stay consistent with a specific appearance, behavior, and communication, over and over and over again until they are limited. They are unconsciously biased and thoughts about you and say, βWell, it was just a one-time thing and it happened.β
What Iβm hearing you say is, in addition to owning it, and apologizing for it, but also communicating what that person can expect from you moving forward. And thatβs an element that I donβt necessarily know a lot of us to speak when we take that.
We say way too often, βIβm sorry.β We apologize for things that we aren't even responsible for. For whatever reason, it's really tough for us to say sorry when we know we were responsible for that, and then we need to make a promise and follow through to showcase that we have actually learned something from the incident, and really try hard to be consistent.
For me with the European background, it is beautiful to observe the American culture here, because you are in the country of second chances. It is very different from a European cultural background where I always used to have, without going into politics, right? But things that happen to former presidents, that they have done, and then they have gotten another chance, and another and another chance. There are a lot of politicians out there that make a mistake, because we all make mistakes, and they just make it on a public platform, if they apologize and then follow through with their actions. This is the country of forgiveness.
We do all make mistakes and I can only imagine how difficult it is when you are in such a high public platform and youβve got everybodyβs eyes scrutinizing every action that youβre doing, whether youβre in politics or celebrity, weβre so quick to judge. Instead of taking a step back and saying, βWeβre all humans, weβre all gonna make mistakes, letβs be empathetic and give each other that second chance.β
Youβve shared a lot of advice and taken into how we can make great first impressions, what do we do if weβve made a mistake and made a bad first impression, which I say typically, βItβs okay to make mistakes, just make sure that theyβre new and original.β
How to Make a Great First Impression
What kind of three words of wisdom do you want to leave our audience with now knowing that we remember the first of the conversation and the ending of the conversation? What do you want to leave our audience with today so that they can be making that great first impression?
Self-awareness. I think we really take the time and the effort to invest into ourselves in the way that we become more self aware. Especially about the amazing human beings that we are, the strengths, the experiences, the values and beliefs, the accomplishments that we have. I have an exercise where I lead us for 15 questions to discover their peer advantage. It is amazing for me to see how we really sit down and create a profile and our avatar about ourselves, and figure out how unique we actually are. What a unique gift we are to the world.
Self-care is the second one. Self-care is probably one of the most underestimated, yet most important elements of the way you are perceived. Because if you donβt take care of yourself first, people do not think that you have the capability to take care of others. Especially important for leaders in organizations or even if you are on the way to create your own business, if you donβt take care of yourself first, people will not buy into the fact that you could possibly take care of them.
And then self-control. So itβs self-awareness and self-control. We are human beings. We are filled with emotions. We so often, you know, we follow our gut feelings and those emotions very often, very easily get triggered, triggered by circumstances. I know those circumstances are in us. We are tired, we are overworked. We didnβt take care of ourselves while they are around us. Itβs noisy. Itβs stressful. Itβs a critical situation. I think the moment you try to better control yourself, the more effective will be your appearance, your behavior, your communication, your digital footprint, and even your environment around you.
So itβs self-awareness, self-care, and self-control, these are the three words of wisdom youβre leaving our audience with on how we can make our first impression.