anyone they met, as well. As you might imagine, they found it a very useful talent.
Several skills you can master with relative ease will help you create a good second impression: a good handshake, a friendly recognition glance, smooth, measured movements, a pleasing voice, conversation skills, listening skills, and the ability to send a friendly message. I could spend a chapter on these skills, but a few simple instructions will suffice.
If you’re not sure of your handshake, practice it with both male and female friends. When you first catch a person’s eye, an I-am-about-to-smile look announces that you’re friendly. While you don’t want your movements to be quick or jerky so you appear nervous or unsure, you don’t want to appear stiff or dull either. Try making a video of yourself greeting people, and become your own body-language coach.
Next, record yourself speaking in different situations. Go to a speech teacher if you don’t like what you hear. (Make sure you find someone qualified. Go to a local college or university and hire someone from the speech department as a coach.) If you aren’t a good conversationalist, become an expert on one or two noncontroversial topics that interest most people, such as sports, the arts, the latest best-selling book or hit movie, the stock market—any subject you believe will interest people. (Avoid religion and politics until you become more comfortable.) Then say a few words about the topics. Be confident without being pompous. Keep your remarks short and leave “air space” for the other person to respond. Good conversationalists are good listeners, and good listeners spend at least three times as much time listening as they do speaking.
Role-play the part of a pleasant, friendly person while speaking into the tape recorder for ten to fifteen minutes every day for two to three weeks. It’s important that you don’t just look friendly and upbeat but sound friendly and upbeat, as well. Try not to judge your voice. You’re used to hearing yourself in your own head, and most of us sound better there than anywhere else. Many people are unpleasantly surprised by what they hear, while others miss obvious flaws such as an unflattering accent.
Ask friends for their opinion or—even better if you can arrange it—get more objective feedback from strangers. Give your tape to a friend and ask him or her to play it for someone who doesn’t know you, then solicit from the listener their impression of the person on the tape. If the description is negative, work on improving and retest. The good news is, almost everyone improves—some dramatically—within a few months. If you don’t see improvement, take acting classes, or put yourself in situations where you’re meeting strangers on a casual basis in low-risk settings that almost force you to interact—volunteer to help organize a local charity event, for example.
Unfortunately, to create a good second impression, you’ll need to master at least one very difficult skill: You have to maintain that pleasant, friendly look. It is harder than it sounds. Once you stop thinking about looking friendly, you’re likely to fall into old habits, coming across as your old, less approachable self. The message most of us send is no message at all: I’m not happy or unhappy, I’m simply here. Worse, 20 percent of us, without realizing it, send the message that we’re unhappy and do not care for most of the people we meet. The main reason men don’t like women when they first meet is that the women nonverbally announce they do not like the men. That isn’t the message most women want to send or think they’re sending, but it’s all too common.
Old habits are hard to break, and how you hold your facial muscles is just another habit. After you’ve mastered looking friendly and upbeat in front of a mirror, practice doing so two to three times a week for fifteen minutes. Once you can maintain a pleasant expression on your face for an extended period in front of a mirror, you can move to the next exercise.
Role-play meeting men in front of a mirror. The goal of this exercise is making that pleasant and positive expression part of your everyday life. You want that look to become your everyday “walk-around” face—the face you wear when you go to the supermarket, mop the floor, shine your shoes, eat lunch, talk to a friend, attend business functions, and, of course, encounter men you would like to meet. It should become as natural as breathing. You will have succeeded when you can maintain that pleasant expression without thinking about it—unless, of course, you have good reason for not looking pleasant.
After the mirror work, the best way to make that positive look a permanent part of you is to record yourself with a video camera, trying to maintain that upbeat, friendly look and sound. After fifteen or twenty minutes, play back the video and see how well you’ve done. Don’t despair—most people have to practice in front of a mirror repeatedly, using a video camera to test their progress. It’s far more difficult to maintain your new pleasant expression on camera and in real life than in front of a mirror.
Just as with other forms of exercise, you need to build endurance. Once you’re able to maintain your new face for a minute, practice two minutes in front of the mirror and then two minutes on videotape. Keep doing this until you can maintain your friendly expression in front of a camera easily for ten minutes.
The mirror helps monitor your nonverbal messages, and this improves your performance. Don’t become discouraged by your first sight of yourself on camera. More than 90 percent of those I have known who practice using a video camera make life-changing improvements.
If in addition to looking and sounding positive and friendly, you hold yourself erect without becoming stiff when sitting, standing, and walking, people will find you more attractive. This usually is not too difficult for women, who generally have better posture than men. Still, we found it was necessary for members of both sexes, if they wanted to create a great first impression, to monitor their posture. Start by videotaping yourself while you’re sitting, standing, and walking. If possible, have a friend or family member videotape you when you’re not aware you’re on camera.
It’s not a matter of remaining West Point ramrod straight. That doesn’t send a positive message; it says, I am stiff and uptight. Keep your head erect and your shoulders back. The best way for a woman to do this is to put a book on her head and a tightly rolled washcloth on each shoulder. Practice moving from place to place while keeping all three balanced. When you can keep both the book and the washcloths in place for ten minutes—or better still, when you can keep them in place without even thinking about it—go to the next step. Sit with them in place. Wear them while you watch television or do some desk work until you can keep them in place without effort.
Erect posture says to most people that you’re positive and self-assured, which in turn makes you more attractive. Men like women who like themselves.
When you’ve mastered these skills, you’ll have no trouble making a good first and second impression. Life in general will become easier.
Charm Crosses Over
Sending positive nonverbal and verbal signals not only makes you more attractive to men but also helps you marry. I knew the exercises in my sales training brochure had done this for some women, and I assumed it would work for others as well. I was right—and the results were better than I would have guessed. Since the afternoon Margie asked me about using sales skills in social settings, at least three hundred women who tried it reported back that it had worked.
Once you learn to make a good first impression in a business setting, the skill is transferable to social situations.
What your Clothes Say
Of course, what you choose to wear is just as important as the body-language messages you send. I tested the class message sent by women’s clothing and its impact on the people they meet years ago while researching the Dress for Success books. I assumed the reaction that
