Making the successful First Impression. How do you do it? You only get one chance to give a great first impression and it is a make or break situation for you. Experience and research has proved that it hardly takes a few seconds, just a glance and people have determined you - determined your economic and social level, you educational level and your success level. In this few seconds people can assess your intelligence, friendliness, how trustworthy you are, are you friendly, are you a confident person. More than this, it has been found that these impressions that happen in an instant last for years. These impressions are often indelible. First impressions are very crucial because everything thereafter, what we hear with our ears and what we see with our eyes gets filtered through this first impression.

So let us see if we can learn to make a fantastic first impression. And the answer is a big YES. It is actually quite simple. Experience has taught us and research has proved that people like people who are like them. A similar dressing style, a same kind of appearance and demeanor, and speech, make people automatically believe that they are equal and similar in social and educational levels and even in values. This makes people tend to like each other very quickly. The second thing that enables you to create a great first expression is body language, facial expressions. These two factors are the most important aspects of a first impression. It has been found that our body keeps sending out hints revealing precisely how we are feeling at any given moment of time. From our head to toes, each part keeps sending out information to all around us. This process of sending information, cannot be controlled by us consciously. This process works similar to our heart beating and breathing. It is controlled by our subconscious mind. The subconscious mind cannot differentiate between what is real and what is imagination. We can use this to our benefit by sending messages to our subconscious mind those that we want it to believe. For example, if we are going to meet someone and create a trust and friendship then we can imagine a very close friend, someone whom you trust and have a very good friendly relationship. This will make you subconscious mind believe as reality and your body will begin to send out hints revealing trust and friendliness. Next you must synchronize your body language with the other persons. When people like each other it has been found that they unconsciously begin to behave in a very similar manner. Handshakes are a very important part of a great first impression. A sloppy handshake is not going to take you any where. Give a handshake that is firm, your hand is fully open, fingers are spread out and the palm is open for the hand shake. The palms should come into full contact during a handshake and the thumbs should be locked with the other fingers encircling the hands in a firm grip. Always avoid the politicians handshakes with both the hands.

Conversations. Focus your conversation always on the other person. He should feel he is more knowledgeable and clever. People always like to be treated with importance. Give importance to them, make them talk and give your full attention to them when they are talking. It is very important they get a feeling that you are all eyes and ears to what they are saying. Ask open ended questions. Such questions will give an opportunity for the other person to talk more and you don't have to immediately think of another question to keep the conversation going. For example if you ask a question like "When did he start his business" it will be a closed ended question. Where as if you ask him a question like "How he got the idea to start his business" will make him more eager to give a full descriptions of his experience, how he got the idea and more.