7 Ways

to Make a Good
First Impression

So that your prospects feel good, talk

to you, and become your clients

Josh Braun

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 Contents

Introduction

Way 1. Give Relevance

Way 2. Give Clarity
Way 3. Give Surprises
Way 4. Give Knowledge
Way 5. Give Solutions
Way 6. Give Fame
Way 7. Give Flare

Conclusion

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 Introduction

It’s never been easier to send communications to people, but

never been harder to actually get their attention.

February 23, 2007.

It was my first week as a salesperson. I was asked to book a

meeting with a major insurance company. I spent an hour writing
the perfect cold email. Then I sent that same email to twelve
different people at the same company, hoping that one of them
was the decision maker.

Guess what? Not one of them was.

But what each one of those twelve people did was forward my
email to the decision maker, Michael.

Michael had twelve emails in his inbox, all saying the same exact
thing. All from the same person — someone he didn’t even know.
For Michael, it was like getting a 12-touch sequence all at one. My
wife didn’t want to be touched 12 times on our honeymoon, so I
can only imagine how Michael felt.

Do you think Michael responded?

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He did. With a 3-page response.

I’m going to share the first sentence of Michael’s response now

and tell you how the story ends later:

“Josh, a little insider info. Anyone who has used this

approach has ended up on my blacklist once I found out. It’s
one of my biggest pet peeves.”

After the incident with Michael, I never wanted to make a bad first
impression again.

Eleven is a Michelin 3-star rated restaurant in New York City.

Here’s why people pay $375 per plate to eat at Eleven:

The owner once overheard a guest saying she’d had a great

vacation in New York but regretted that she didn’t have a dirty
water hotdog. So he ran into the street, got a hotdog, sliced it,
plated it perfectly, created some fancy mustard, and served it to
the guest as a course. All of it took no more than ten minutes and
became the guest’s most memorable part of her trip to New York.

Eleven has hired what they call “Dream Weavers” to create

legendary experiences. They have these Dream Weavers listen in
on their guests’ conversations and create legendary experiences
for their guests based on what they hear. They make dreams
come true.

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What does this have to do with sales? What does Eleven do that I
failed to do with Michael from the insurance company?

They make a good first impression.

When you make a good first impression, you make people feel
good. When you make people feel good, they’re more likely to
speak with you. And the more people you speak with, the more
sales you’ll close.

But when you make a negative first impression — or no

impression at all — you don’t make people feel good. When they
don’t feel good, they won’t want to speak with you. And the fewer
people you speak with, the fewer sales you’ll close.

Every time you approach a prospect, they’re asking themselves

four questions. I want you to remember these questions. I want
you to memorize them. And I want you to keep them in your mind
when you’re making a first impression. Here is what your prospect
is thinking when they get your cold outreach:

1) Should I pay attention to you?

2) Do I like you?
3) Do you help me do something better?
4) Are you competent?

I want to zoom in on the first question before we continue.

Imagine a sea of white dots. They all look the same. Would one
white dot stand out amongst the hundreds and thousands of
other white dots? No. In order to be noticed and in order for

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people to pay attention to you, you need to be a red X in a sea of
white dots.

David Trott is a creative director, copywriter, and author. He came

up with this analogy of the red X. To stand out, you need to be a
red X — you need to do things differently.

When you’re a red X, other people’s brains pay attention to you

because they don’t recognize the pattern. In other words, you get
noticed. You answer the first question on your prospect’s mind —
should I pay attention to you? — with a resounding “YES.” If
you’re a white circle, the answer is “no.” You get ignored and don’t
even get to pass to the second question.

To make a memorable first impression, you have to first be

noticed. Then your prospect can decide if they like you, if you help
them do something better, and if you’re competent.

So what are you going to start doing right now to make a good
first impression with your prospects? What memorable
experiences will you create with them and for them?

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Read on to see how showing that you care, listening, and giving
are at the heart of making memorable first impressions.

But first, a disclaimer.

There is no “one way” or “best way” to make a good first

impression. The best way is your way and one that reflects the real
you. If you’re funny, use humor. If you’re an artist, draw a picture.
The important thing is to be you, so that the way you approach
people is authentic. That, in itself, will help make your first
impression an unforgettable one.

And if you’re thinking, “This

approach won’t work for my
prospects because they are in IT” or
some other “serious” or
“professional” role, step back a little
bit and ask yourself this: “Are my
prospects people?”

If you come to the conclusion that

they are, in fact, people, then guess
what?

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They’re just like us.

They watch Netflix. They buy fresh flowers. They like to laugh. Your
prospects don’t morph into different people when they get to
work. They still like to feel good and that’s what you can do for
them.

And if you’re thinking, “This won’t scale,” I dare you to think this
instead: “What if I selected 50 of my highest value accounts and
was able to start conversations and make memorable impressions
with 20% of them? What impact would that have on my
business?”

Let’s find out.

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 Way 1. Give Relevance

According to LinkedIn’s 2019

state of sales report, 62% of
prospects look at your profile
before meeting with you. Yet
most salespeople’s profiles make
them look like they’re searching
for a job.

But if your prospect is sick and looking for medicine, they don’t
want “a quota crushing rep” who went to Fiji because he made
the Presidents Club. Your trip to Fiji and your abstract quota
crushing don’t help your prospects do something better. This way
of presenting yourself has no relevance for your prospect.

Instead, try this:

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 I help X with Y.

Or do what Nelly did:

You’ll get your prospects’ attention if you give them something

relevant to them. And to be relevant, you need to show them how
you can help them solve their problems.

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So when you’re presenting yourself on LinkedIn or on your
website, turn the problems you solve into questions that your
prospects will be answering in their minds: “Yes! That’s me!”

I was giving a presentation not long ago and I had to explain the
concept of mail merge to a group of people who’ve never heard of
it. I told them to imagine that they’re a landlord with over 150
overdue rent payments a month. Next, I asked them which would
be better: a) to hand write each notice; or b) to copy/paste from a
spreadsheet? The answer was: c) with something called mail
merge, you use all the names on your spreadsheet and each name
gets plugged into an electronic notice that you’ve written.

If I’d started the talk with the concept of mail merge, I’d have lost
their attention. When you speak with people, you need to use
language, words, and concepts that are relevant to them. You
need to explain things in ways that they can relate to. Same with
your prospects. If you give them jargony jargon, you’ll lose their
attention. But if you speak their language, they’ll keep listening.

That’s being relevant.

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 Way 2. Give Clarity
It’s pretty hard to be relevant if you’re not understood. So in order
to be relevant, you have to explain things clearly. The trick is to
activate your prospect’s prior knowledge by starting with
something they know — that’s the art of explanation.

And how do you make sure you’re clearly understood by your

prospects? You let your customers do the talking.

Steal the exact words your customers use to describe their

problems, fears, and desires. Collect these in a Google doc, then
assemble those words into a logical sequence.

Here’s how I do it: I’m currently writing a sales page for a new
course I’m launching called, “How to Create High Converting Cold
Email Sequences.” These are a couple of bullets from that sales
page:

● Are you getting your teeth smashed when cold

emailing prospects?

● I’ll show you how to write cold email sequences even if

you’re not a copywriter.

Why did I choose those words on my sales page?

I didn’t. My ideal customers did. When I spoke with people about

cold emailing, they said things like: “I want to write cold emails but
I’m not a copywriter.” Or, “We’re moving from inbound to

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outbound and we’re getting our teeth smashed in.” I took my
customers’ words and turned them into sales copy.

Am I a creative genius? No. I just listened and responded clearly to

my customers’ fears. You don’t need to be a better writer to create
high-converting sequences. You need to be a better listener.

By being a better listener, you give your prospects clarity about

their problems and how you can help them.

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 Way 3. Give Surprises

While it’s important that you’re clear so that your prospects know
what you’re talking about, feel free to spice things up and throw in
the element of surprise. Why? Because (good) surprises make
people feel good. The more you make people feel good, the more
they’ll want to speak with you. The more people want to speak
with you . . . you see where I’m going with this!

Take Jessica, for example. Jessica is a Sales Development

Representative at Remerge. For context, here’s how Remerge
makes the lives of marketers better: A marketer spends $10 to get
someone to download Grubhub. The customer logs in but never
orders anything. Grubhub just lost $10. With Remerge, lapsed
users come back to the app and order $20 worth of food. This is
better because Grubhub made $10 instead of losing $10.

With that as a backdrop, let’s see how Jessica does with the four
questions prospects are thinking when you approach them.

The first question.

Should I pay attention to you? Jessica

sent a green handwritten envelope in the
mail. She’s a red X. She already stands out
from the rest.

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Onto question 2.

Do I like you? Let’s see how we feel when we read Jessica’s first
words:

Lovely. Casual. No jargon.

I feel like this is coming
from a human and that
I’m special. Jessica gets a
“yes” for question 2.

Onto question 3.

Do you help me do something better? Is Jessica offering

anything of relevance to me?

Perfect. I’m a gaming app

developer. I have lapsed
users all the time. I’d love
to get more in-app
purchases.

Onto question 4.

Are you competent? Can Jessica actually do what she says she
can do?

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 By the looks of it, it
sounds like Remerge
might know what they
are doing. I’m going to
check out their website
and read some case
studies.

But wait. What’s this?

A surprise!

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The pug and the cookie recipe make the prospect feel good. They
make them smile. And guess what? They book a meeting with
Jessica.

Jessica and other SDRs at

Remerge create first
impressions that are so good
that prospects feel compelled
to share their outreach.

Not only do they nail the four

questions, but go beyond and
give their prospects a surprise
that makes them feel good.

And they get the meeting.

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Jimmy is another SDR who notices that his prospect is really into
Justin Timberlake, so he writes this in his letter:

And includes this picture.

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The prospect writes a letter back to Jimmy:

Moral of the story? A little thoughtful surprise goes a long way in

making a good first impression on your prospect. Make them feel
special. Show them you put in the effort.

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Last year, I decided I wanted to take better pictures with my
iPhone, so I started looking for some lenses. A Google search took
me to photojojo.com. It was 9:30 at night.

While surfing their website, I got this pop-up from “Jerome”:

Thinking it was a robot, I played along.

Me: Who’s there?

“Jerome”: Cows go.
Me: Cows go who?
“Jerome”: No, cows go mooooooo.

Clever little bot, I thought. So I decided to test it.

Me: Good one, “Jerome.” Would you like to hear a joke?

Jerome: Sure!

Then it occurred to me that I wasn’t chatting with a bot. I was

chatting with an actual person.

Me: Knock knock.

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 Jerome: Who’s there?
Me: Little old lady.
Jerome: Little old lady who?
Me: Jerome, I didn’t know you could yodel!
Jerome: There’s a lot about me you don’t know.

Photojojo has a real person telling knock knock jokes at 9:30 at

night because they know how important it is to make a good first
impression. They surprised me. They made me laugh. I bought a
lens from them that night.

And do you think their shipping notification looked like this?

Of course not! That would be a white dot shipping notification.

Photojojo’s shipping notification is written by the product you

ordered.

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Dale Dupree is a copier salesman. He calls himself the Copier
Warrior. He fights copy machines that are jammed up and
spewing toner ink. He also fights long support wait times from
copier providers.

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When Dale visits his prospects, he says: “Tell Lisa that the Copier
Warrior is here.”

Dale is already a red X because he describes

himself differently than other copier providers.

Dale also does something none of his prospects expect. He sends

them a brick (made of sponge) that looks like this:

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And he sends it with these instructions:

If your copier machine is acting up, here’s how to use this brick:
Step 1. Put the brick in your hand
Step 2. Align yourself with the broken copier
Step 3. Aim
Step 4. Wind up and chuck
Step 5. Call Dale Dupree, the Copier Warrior

When Dale makes a cold call, he opens with: “Hi Lisa, it’s Dale, the
Copier Warrior. I’m the one who thought it was a good idea to
send you a brick to throw at your copier machine.”

Dale has been the number one copier salesman in Florida for 10
years. Why? Because he makes me people feel good by giving
them something they’d never expect.

Jeremy is an SDR at Lead IQ and he’s a red Xer.

He found out his prospect was having a third child and sent him
this:

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 A onesie with the logo of the
prospect’s company along with a
handwritten note — a cold outreach
that made the prospect feel so good
that they shared it on LinkedIn.
The prospect was even surprised to
get something via snail mail
(compared to every other white dot
email they get every day).

Peep your prospects on social media (it’s okay — it doesn’t make

you a creep!) Check out their Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter
accounts. What are they into? What are they up to? Jiu-jitsu?
Cooking? What can you send them that relates to their interests?
How can you surprise them and make them feel good?

Wendy Liebman is a stand-up comedian. She uses a common

device called the rule of three when telling a joke. Here’s an
example:

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The top and the bottom are expected. The blindfold is the zinger.
You can apply the rule of three to your cold email outreach too.

Here’s an example:

Expected trait, expected

trait, unexpected trait.

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The takeaway:

Don’t give your prospects only what they’re expecting.

Stand out.

Be a red X.

Surprise them.

Make them feel good.

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 Way 4. Give Knowledge

Are you buying a computer this week?

Are you going to buy a computer one day?

That’s outbound. Most of your prospects aren’t ready to buy when

you first contact them.

You might have a problem — maybe your laptop is slow when it’s
booting up, but the struggle isn’t enough to get you to buy a new
one. Yet.

This is the struggle-o-meter (a scientific term):

Your computer is slow, but you’re still in the green/yellow struggle

zone. Maybe you’ll take a computer demo, but you can still get by
with the computer you have. So you won’t buy.

A few months pass and your hard drive is now making a loud
noise. Plus, you have a very important presentation coming up.
Now you’re in the red zone. You can’t risk your computer crashing
in front of a large audience.

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What does this have to do with giving knowledge? And what
does giving knowledge have to do with sales?

The question is, how do you stay top of mind with your prospects
who might buy a computer one day, but not today? How do you
make sure that when they’re finally in the red zone and ready to
buy, they think of you first and not your competitor? Easy. You
give them knowledge.

If you just put them on your follow-up list and contact them in six
months, you may have already missed the boat. To stay top of
mind, make your prospects smarter about a topic they’re
interested in (not a topic you’re interested in) and do it every
month. You can set the stage for this in your cold outreach. Here’s
some phraseology:

Most cold emails go for the demo or the sale. Most connection
requests go for the ask too. Instead, this is something I do:

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Once we’re connected, you’ll get content that teaches you things:

Here’s another example.

At one point, half my BBQ stopped working. It was annoying and I

started browsing online for a new one. But I wasn’t ready to buy

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yet — I was only cooking for myself and my wife. I was still in the
green zone on the struggle-o-meter.

Fast-forward a few months. We’re throwing an outdoor party and I

need to feed 40 people. Half a barbecue just won’t cut it.

Who did I call? The BBQ Guys. Why? Because when I first started
searching for BBQs months before, I found them (as well as a few
other BBQ providers). But the BBQ Guys did something different.

Every month, they sent me a video with tips and recipes. They
didn’t just wait a few months to follow up with me and see if I was
still interested in a BBQ. They stayed top of my mind by sending
me educational videos regularly. Naturally, when I was in the red
zone and it came time for me to buy, they’re the ones I called.

Another way to teach your prospects new things that make them
smarter is to give them access to experts. An easy way to do this is
by interviewing people on topics that your prospects would find
interesting.

All you have to do is get on a video call, record your interview with
your subject expert, and share with your audience.

These are two examples of expert guests I’ve had on my show.

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Your prospects will appreciate the additional insights you’ve
brought to them through your chats with experts and the
knowledge you’ve been regularly sharing with them. They’ll be
more likely to trust you, more likely to speak with you, and more
likely to buy from you when the time comes.

After all, you’ve been making them smarter all along.

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 Way 5. Give Solutions

Even more than the knowledge you can give them, your prospects
value the solutions you can provide to their problems.

Every week I get about 19 LinkedIn connection requests that look

like this:

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Or something like this asking me to be in someone I don’t know’s
“network.”

You know what? I don’t want to be in a stranger’s network. I don’t

even want to network with my wife’s best friend’s husband on
Saturday night, let alone this guy. I don’t even know what, “I love
to network” means.

When you send me the 20th request that looks like this, I will
ignore it.

I ignore it because it looks like another white circle in a wide sea of

other white circles. You look like and read like everyone else’s
connection request.

I got a red X LinkedIn message recently from someone I didn’t

know. It looked like this:

The blue rectangle stood out in the sea of typical white dot
messages I get every day. Nelly answered the first question I ask
when I get sales messages — Should I pay attention to you? —

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with a “yes.” And so she got a crack at the second question I’m
secretly asking: Do I like you?

How do you make prospects feel with your words and your voice?
Let’s see how Nelly makes me feel. Let’s see if I like her. To hear the
first part of Nelly’s voice message, see Play LI 16 in the Badass B2B
Growth Guide.

Nelly sounds like a nice person. She’s not using an amped up sales
voice. It’s not jargony jargon. It’s not salesy. She has a friendly tone.
Her compliment feels authentic too because it has detail — she
didn’t just say, “Hey Josh, I love your work.” I like her. She moves on
to the third question.

Everyone wants to progress and become a better version of

themselves tomorrow than they are today. Can Nelly help me do
something better? Hear the rest of Nelly’s voice note here.

The best sales people don’t ask about problems — they find them.
Nelly shined a light on a problem I didn’t even know I had. My
writing had grammar mistakes. Grammar mistakes make me less
credible and people might talk about my poor grammar on social
media. Negative word of mouth could cost me sales. Plus, it just
doesn’t feel good to produce content with grammar mistakes.

Nelly answers “yes” to my third question, so she moves on to the

final question: Is she competent? Can she actually help me? In
other words, can she give me a solution?

Nelly didn’t tell me how competent she was. She showed me by

editing a page from my book.

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I viewed her LinkedIn profile and looked through several of her
grammar lesson videos and posts. They were informative and
delightfully delivered.

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I’m a better version of me after Nelly because she gave me a
solution. My content is free from grammatical errors. That makes
me more credible and I feel better knowing that poor grammar
won’t be something people talk about when they read my
content.

Get your prospects’ attention. Be likeable. Find their problems.

And make them better by giving them solutions.

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 Way 6. Give Fame

Imagine you’re walking in the mall. All of a sudden, you lock eyes
with the aggressive mall kiosk person. She looks you in the eye
and says, “Can I ask you a question?”

You look away and pick up the pace, frantically walking in the
other direction. Why? Because you don’t want a sea scrub demo.
You don’t want to be sold a sea scrub that you don’t even want.

Your prospects feel the same way when you try to pitch them.

Why not try this instead? Give your prospects fame.

Here’s what I mean.

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Mark is the VP of Sales at Outreach. If I were to email him about
sales training and coaching, my chances of starting a conversation
with him would probably be low. I’d be like the mall kiosk person
and Mark would run the other way.

So I didn’t do that. Instead, I sent Mark this cold email:

I invited Mark to be on my podcast and he agreed. I gave him

fame. Not that my podcast is watched by millions — no, but the

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point is: everyone likes to be acknowledged. It makes them feel
special and it makes them feel good. And that’s how you want
your prospects to feel when they hear from you.

Long story short, that podcast interview led to several other

conversations and Outreach has since been my biggest source of
revenue. You don’t need fancy podcast equipment and a website.
You can host your own show with Zoom and post the episodes to
LinkedIn similar to what I do with my “I teach my wife sales”
videos. Talk about subjects that interest your prospects, then invite
them to chat with you. Congrats! You’re the executive producer of
your own show and you can now give the gift of fame!

Another way to make people feel famous (and feel good) is to give
them props.

Years ago, I was working on a major deal with Metlife. Like all
enterprise sales, that Metlife deal was an exercise in patience. We
spoke on the phone for several months before I was invited to the
finalist presentation. There were seven people in that meeting.
Before the meeting, I printed out their profiles and memorized
their names with their faces as well as a fact about each of them.

When I walked into the room, I greeted each of them by name.

“Marissa, how does someone go from being a chef to being a VP of

Marketing? Were you not a very good chef?”

“Cary? How’d you like Austin?

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“Bob. You’ve been with this company for 15 years. What’s kept you
here for so long?”

They laughed. Everyone felt like a celebrity because I knew them

by name without an introduction, and I also knew something
unique about each of them. They felt good within just a few
seconds of me entering the room.

They felt famous.

We won that deal.

Give your prospects props when you meet them in person for
the first time. Invite them to be a guest on your show. Give
them a chance to feel famous and watch the love pour out in
return.

Way 7. Give Flare

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This one goes back to the first of those four questions your
prospects are thinking when you talk to them: Should I pay
attention to you?

You can answer “yes” by giving flare.

Joe Garvey is the CEO of Clash. Clash puts on scavenger hunts for
companies to help them with team building.

Every day, Joe wears a pair of loud pants.

One day at his local bagel shop, a

woman complimented his pants.

That compliment led to a

conversation.

When the woman asked Joe what he

did, he told her that he puts on
scavenger hunts for tech companies.
She told Joe that she was an
employee at Google and that they’re
always looking for fun corporate
events. Google is now one of Clash’s
customers.

Joe says he gets around five

compliments a day about his pants. Some of those compliments
turn into conversations and those conversations turn into revenue.
Joe says he attributes 20% of his 2017 revenue to his pants.

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I don’t wear loud pants, but I do something similar. I wear loud
socks.

And that’s how I sit when I meet clients. I

often get compliments on my socks.

My socks make people feel good.

People look forward to seeing which pair

of socks I’m going to wear next. And that
good feeling is associated with me (and
my socks).

Some prospects who become my clients

even send me socks in the mail!

Give flare. Wear a conversation starter when you meet with

your prospects. Remember, the more people want to speak
with you, the more sales you’ll make.

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 Conclusion

Let’s review the 7 ways to make a memorable first impression:

Way 1. Give Relevance

Way 2. Give Clarity
Way 3. Give Surprises
Way 4. Give Knowledge
Way 5. Give Solutions
Way 6. Give Fame
Way 7. Give Flare

Notice anything that all these first impression ideas have in

common?

Way 1. Give Relevance

Way 2. Give Clarity
Way 3. Give Surprises
Way 4. Give Knowledge
Way 5. Give Solutions
Way 6. Give Fame
Way 7. Give Flare

Giving is at the heart of making a good first impression. When you

give, you make people feel good. When people feel good, doors
open.

When you don’t make people feel good, doors close.

Or do they?
Remember Michael?

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The rest of his email explained what I could have done to get his
attention and make a good first impression on him. Michael gave
me a crash course on how to sell from the buyer’s point of view. It
was like a cheat sheet.

I read his email over and over again and, after several days, I
picked up the phone and told Michael what I’d learned from him
and how much I appreciated his advice.

We spoke for forty-five minutes that day. Why did Michael give me
so much time on the phone? Because it feels good to be
appreciated.

We eventually got the business and I met with Michael a few

times in person.

A few years ago, I noticed on LinkedIn that it was Michael’s work

anniversary. So I sent him a message to congratulate him.

Here’s what Michael wrote back:

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I doubt he remembered what I sold him. I
don’t either. But Michael never forgot how I
made him feel.

Sometimes you do get a second chance to

make a good impression.

Now, what are you going to do to make

your prospects feel good?

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