The Simplest Way to Make a Very Good Professional Impression

This one is so very easy and yet so few people use it.

When you are talking to someone--whether it's your boss or you're being interviewed in person for a job or whatever--always take a pen and paper and scribble on it when the other person is speaking. If you don't feel like taking notes, make your grocery list or write down your to-dos or whatever else. (But make sure you write and don't doodle--the pen strokes we make when we doodle are clearly different from those we make when we are writing, and appearing to doodle when someone is speaking is not a good way to impress them.)

Taking notes (or appearing to take notes) makes you look like a detail-oriented person who is very careful and precise. More importantly, however, it makes the person you are speaking with feel very important because they then feel that they are saying things that are literally noteworthy. It suggests that you respect them and their words enough that you want to maintain a record of your conversation. And at the heart of it all, that's what it is about--because we like people who make us feel good about ourselves and boost our egos. We are impressed by them but truthfully, we are impressed by how impressive they make us feel.