Question

1)Which of the five rules for making a first impression do you most often overlook? Which one do you think you could gain the most from?

2)Think of somebody you’d like to positively impress, and assume you’ll be able to meet this person next week at a networking event.

3)Describe your intention or goal for the introduction.

4)Describe how you can appear interested. What questions might you ask?

Answer 1

1) In my view we often overlook the following five items while making a first impression:

1. Killing time on phone – we generally use our phone not thinking that we will miss the chance of making an eye contact when someone walks in to networking hall or venue, instead we should notice everything around us, observe others and focus on ourselves how we will going to present to those few peoples.
2. Not silencing devices – we often miss switching off our devises, this is very distracting both to ourselves and to others, suppose you are in deep conversation with someone and suddenly you hear the sound of an alert, one this will be not give a positive impression to other person and second it will change the entire mood of discussion.
3. Not asking interesting questions – we often don’t conduct proper research before going for an event and don’t make the list of interesting questions specially for the people we want to target or meet at the venue
4. Reaching venue late- We often undervalue the importance of reaching the venue well before the time, by doing so this give chance to settle ourselves, observe things around us, catch those senior leaders before everyone make a move.
5. Be natural while speaking to others – we often jump right into the super professional conversation by overlooking the power of connection, as not everyone will have the opportunity for you but by making a powerful connection at the start you will set the tone for right future

In my view out of the above points, I think the importance of asking interesting questions is most important and by doing some serious efforts through researching we will gain tremendously as this helps to set a tone, make a connection with other person, they will present you as a professional.

2). I think I will meet Carmine Di Sibio next week at a networking event, who is global CEO and Chairman of big four consultancy firm.

3) My main motive while introducing myself to Mr Carmine is to secure an internship at his office and i will set up my introduction accordingly so that i can impress him.

4) In my view it is 4 step process of how we can appear more interested towards others while speaking to them:

STEP 1: What is the other person feeling?

Try to identify what other person is feeling, try to see her non-verbal cues to help you on this one. Is she smiling? This is typically an indicator that the other person is happy or excited. If you’re not quite sure how she is feeling, you can also mirror back her expressions to match her feelings. For example, if she is smiling try smiling back. Now that we’ve identified how she feels about what she just said we can move onto STEP 2.

STEP 2: Give an emotionally reflective response.

Now we use the emotion we just identified and give an emotionally reflective response. This means we are reflecting back his emotion to him in a statement. For this example we can identify he is excited because of his high(er) pitched voice and smile. We can mirror that back with a statement like, “I’m so happy for you” or “How exciting!” He would then be likely to respond with a thank you or talk a little more about his excitement.

STEP 3: Ask one or two questions about it.

This is when we ask one or two follow up questions about the information she has just given us. This shows we are interested because we are taking a moment to find out more about what she said and allowing her an opportunity to talk about her news.

People love to talk about themselves or something they are interested in. You may ask, “What is the new job?” or “How is the move going?” This shows interest because you are actively trying to find out more about what she is talking about.

STEP 4: Close with an emotionally reflective statement

This is when you can close the conversation politely to continue on with your day. For this step you want to use a reflective statement again (just like Step 2) except this time you will also add a closing statement.

Some of the questions which we can ask to appear interesting:

1. How did you hear about this event?
2. What is on your reading list
3. What did you think about the event
4. What is your story
5. How did you decide to do what you do
6. What are some of your go-to resources for getting guidance in your field of work