Likeability: a Contributing Factor for Success

Introduction

Think about the day to day decisions and choices that you have to make.
You need to find a good doctor, what do you do? You'll probably ask your friends or colleagues for advice, and they will recommend you someone. That's networking! How do you choose a school for your kids? Networking! How do you find a job even before there's an official opening? Networking! How do you meet your partner in life? Networking!

I think you got my point. In a world where we are given an almost infinite range of choice and options, we tend to take people's advice instead of analyzing all the possibilities.

On the flip side, if you want to sell yourself, how can you distinguish yourself from all the other contenders? Even if you are really good at what you  do; if  nobody knows you or talks about you, do you stand a chance?

In this article, we will briefly overview a few techniques that can help you grow your network and your influence, by looking at just one aspect of it: likeability.

Be Likeable

Likeability is a often underestimated skill. It may seem that some people are naturally born more likeable than others, but this is actually something you can develop.
Here is what I know about likeable people:

• They are more successful in life, or in business
• They get better deals and better services like in restaurants, hotels, at the doctor
• They are more likely to get promoted or rewarded compared to people with similar skill sets but less likeable
• They tend to naturally attract people around them

According to reseach, likeability is actually the most important skill if you want to get promoted or get a pay raise. This is hard to believe, but it doesn't matter if you are more qualified than your peers, if you are not a likeable person, you won't go very far in the workplace!

So how can we become more likeable? There are a few tricks that actually really help.

Make a strong first impression

The first impression is what will stay in people's mind forever. This is a hard truth, but people will usually frame a picture of you for the first few seconds when they meet you - research says that you have only a tenth of a second!

So how to make a strong impression? It can be as simple as having a genuine smile, a strong and confident hand shake, and maybe a small dose of humor.

The smile is probably your most powerful tool, and it is just so easy to use it! This is the best investment someone can make. It costs nothing, and can bring you tons of good things that you can't even imagine.

We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do. (Mother Theresa)

If there is only one thing you should get from this article, this is it, the importance of the smile.

Keep a positive attitude: you will appear more secure about yourself and you will suddenly become more attractive. Positivity is contagious. Do you know anybody who is negative and likeable?

Make the other person feel important

Most of the time, we tend to treat people the way we would like to be treated, but this is not the best approach. We must treat people the way they would like to be treated.

If you really want to make a strong connection with someone, you will have to make them feel important, by treating them the way they'd like to be.

Try to get more interested in people, talk less about yourself, but show a genuine interest in them.

Call people by their name!

Remember their name, and call them by their name.
There is a massive difference between saying "Hey, how are you?" and "Hey Elsa, how are you?".

Most of us come with the same excuse: "I'm really bad at names, that's just how I am".
If you can't remember someone's name, it just shows that you are not interested at all in the person (even if this isn't true). Make the extra effort to remember names.

Remembering names is hard, don't tell me wrong! On occasions you may genuinely forget a name, or maybe you didn't understand it the first time. Just ask! "I'm sorry but I didn't really get your name"

Look around you. Do you know some people who call you by your name? Do they seem likeable to you?

Ask for favors

Now this may seem a bit weird - asking someone a favor will make this person like you more. What in the ... ?

When you ask someone a favor, you show an interest in them. "I need your help" makes them feel important. We love what we are doing, and we enjoy when people show interest in what we do.

Of course, don't abuse of this or don't try to take advantage of people as this will turn back against you.

Get to know people's family

Have you ever wished to reach to someone who seems inaccessible? A good way to achieve that is to get to know this person's family.

Don't go stalk their spouse or try to force things. Try to see if any someone you know can somehow connect you with that person's family.
Try to be really genuine when building this relationship.

If my wife or my mom is friend with someone, there's a great chance that this person will be my friend too!

Make allies, not enemies

Always try to keep a good relationship with everyone. This sounds obvious, but this is not always easy to do so.
You will come to times where you will strongly disagree with someone. Someone might be aggressive towards you, or occasionally tries to take advantage of you.

Regardless, you should always do your best to stop the fire and see what you can do to work towards a sane relationship.

When someone likes you, they will tell a few people about it. When someone does not like you, they will tell everyone they know.

Understand the importance of non-verbal communication

Apparently, the body language accounts for 55% of the liking, the tone of the voice accounts for 38%, and the actual words account for only 7%.

While there are some controversies on the exactitude of these numbers, we can't deny that the non-verbal communication is extremely important.

Think about your posture: are you showing someone confident, shy or arrogant? Do you look people in their eyes when you are talking to them? Is your voice monotonous, or does it show conviction or empathy? Are your arms crossed, or are your hands wide open?

Think about the flow of your sentences. Are you articulating well? If you are talking to non-native speakers, are you speaking slowly and clearly enough? Do you use commas, do you mark stops?

Look at people who you are talking to. Do they seem genuinely interested? Or are they showing signs of disengagement? Are they looking somewhere else in the room? Do they start touching their phones? Are they engaged in the conversation, or are you the only one talking?

Be genuinely interested

When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new. (Dalai Lama)

Talk less, listen more.
People love talking about themselves, so ask questions and listen empathetically.
Don't interrupt, don't think about the next thing you want to say.
Look at the person eyes, make a visual contact, and show them that you are fully engaged.

Think about the last time you have spoken to someone or to a group, and they were listening carefully and were engaged in what you were saying. How did it feel? How do you like this / these person(s)?

On the other hand, think about a situation where you wanted to express an idea, but someone either interrupted you, or simply discarded your idea and just expressed their? How did you feel at this moment?

Give (sincere) compliments

When was the last time someone gave you a sincere compliment? Or the last time someone sent you a simple "thank you" message or email?
How did it feel? How often do you receive these?

We tend to think that people are very busy, swamped with a ton of emails, calls, be it professional or personal. Especially if you are thinking about a senior executive, or someone that you see as important. And that's true most of the time.

However, a thank you email will always be well received. It doesn't have to be extremely elaborate, a simple "Thank you for your time Andre, it was great speaking to you, this conversation helped me a lot!" will do.

People generally don't receive many "thank you" messages or compliments, and they will never by annoyed by those, as long as they are sincere!

Giving a compliment can make you very likeable, and it can also be a great way to engage a conversation: "I really liked your speech about [...], it was so inspiring! When did you start pitching about [...]?"

The rule of thumb here is to be sincere. If you are not sincere, people will immediately feel it, you will lose your credibility, and you will be seen as someone who might be interested in something.

Ditch the phone

Most of us are probably guilty of this one, myself included!
When you are in a social encounter, you must resist the temptation to touch your phone. Be in the moment, be all in!
Your level of likeability will decrease a huge amount if you look at your phone when people are talking (not necessarily directly to you).

Have you ever encountered the horrible feeling when you are talking about something you find exciting, but the other person seems texting on their phone, vaguely nodding, and when they're done, they would just start on another topic?

Don't be that person.
There are times where you can't escape replying a text or taking a call. This is fine, but you must have the courtesy to explain your audience what you are doing and why.

Find common interests

There's a proverb that says: "birds of a feather flock together".
People who share common interests tends to build deeper connections.

Some people even say, that you can get to know someone just by looking at their friends.

A good way to find common interests, is to keep asking questions until you can reply: "Me too!".

Show empathy

There are entire books on this subject - so I'll just go at a few essential points.

We can resume empathy to the fact of being able to put yourself into other people's shoes.

When someone comes aggressively to you, telling you that they are not happy with what you did, resist the temptation to turn on the defensive mode and reply on instinct.
Try to understand where they are coming from. If you were in their shoes, would you also be unhappy? If you sincerely show that you understand this person concerns, and that you are sincerely sorry, you have a good chance to get out of situation without too much confrontation.

On the other hand, you might have to deliver difficult messages sometimes. One of your directs is doing a sloppy job, and you have to give a warning - even worse, you may have to get rid of them.

You could simply be brutally honest and blunt, but most likely the person will go on the defensive mode and your relationship is likely to become stalled.
Try to empathize, to understand more about the person. Ask them: "I would like to talk to you about your recent performance at work. How do you think you did? [...] From my point of view and what higher management perceives, your performance is quite under the expectations. Why do you think that's the case?".

Be genuine & keep your word

Be authentic and honest, do not tell what people want to hear if you can't keep your promise.
I would rather under-promise and under-deliver, rather than over-promise and not able to deliver.

Imagine that you take a doctor appointment at a given time, and once you reach there, you have to wait for thirty minutes. Then the doctor comes and tells you: "I'm sorry, I didn't think my previous consultations would take that long." (some of them don't even bother to be sorry). How would you feel? Especially if this behavior is recurrent? If the doctor told you instead: "Sorry I can't make it that day, but the next day at the same time, I have a free slot, is that ok for you?", and made it on time on that day, would you have preferred this scenario?

If you keep your integrity, people will like you and trust you.
If you don't, people may still like you, but they will certainly not follow you.

Conclusion: Network as much as you can

Participate to events and gatherings, even if you don't know most of the people!
Not only you will be able to try the likeability techniques you just learned, but you will be able to expand your network.

It takes only one person to change your life (!!!), whether it is personal (your partner in life) or professional (someone hiring you because they like you).

If you have read this article fully, I invite you to take a step back and think about what you are doing well, and what you could improve on.
Take only one thing, and try to apply it when you have the opportunity to do so. It could simply be with a friend, colleague, or family member.

Did it have any effect? How did you feel about it? Did you feel that the person likes you more than if you didn't do it?

Now, there are sayings like "You can't make everyone happy", or "Everyone is different, some people will like you, some won't.".
And I fully agree with these. But that does not mean you have to make enemies wherever you go, and that does not mean you should not try to be likeable as much as possible.

I would like to conclude with two questions for you, and only you have the answer for those:

• Would you like to be perceived as a likeable person?
• Do you think that being more likeable could improve something in your life?

Thank you very much for reading me.
I would greatly appreciate any form of comment or feedback in the comments section, even if this is just one word!