How To Make People Appreciate Your Introduction

You probably have found yourself in a situation where you needed to introduce one of your acquaintances to a new contact. This is usually a simple thing to do. But a friend shared with me a little trick to ensure people appreciate your introduction.

In his own words:

Before starting my own consultancy, I worked for years as an assistant for a partner of a local boutique firm. Whenever he introduced me to others, he would say "This is my assistant, Tom." Sometimes, during in-person events, he left a huge gap in the middle of the sentence: "This is my assistant. [couple of seconds] Tom."

That's true, I was his assistant. The problem was the way he framed it. It felt like the first words were the essential ones, and the last (my name) was optional.

Would it be so bad for his ego to present me as a person, rather than what I do for him? I wish he could understand how this made me feel undervalued and disconnected from him.

According to him, it would have been much better if the partner said "This is Tom, my assistant."

Now you may be thinking Tom is easily upset, or thin-skinned. But imagine the same thing happening to you hundreds of times. Everybody is oversensitive when it comes to themselves.

So the trick here is simple: When introducing someone, say their name before their job title, position, or relation to you.

After giving the person his or her name, pause the sentence. Then explain how you two are connected, and add a complement to finish in style. In our story, that would look like this:

"I'd like to introduce you to Tom. He's my assistant, and has been working with me for almost six months now. If it wasn't for him, I'd probably have missed this event!"

People would certainly have a better impression of both Tim and his boss.