People often talk about the importance of a first impression and rightly so, as a first impression is sometimes all one gets to give. What I don't often hear people talk about is what they personally do to manage perceptions after that other than such vagaries as, "be yourself" or something along the lines of, "be professional."
When it comes to being a professional though, that can mean many different things. In many lines of work, "selling" yourself as an asset and/or person the company or client enjoys working with time and again is part of keeping the job and that can be accomplished in many, many ways.
In the personal sphere, people tend to be very "take it or leave it" which works well for friendships, but perhaps not for other non-professional relationships. For example, I found out through interactions over time that the local greengrocer near my last apartment was fond of animals, so I'd make small talk about the animals I owned, which at the time, were a dog and a pig. Through these interactions we were able to establish a connection which in turn led to a discount, especially if I was buying stuff for the pig.
Please understand that I'm not asking how or if you manipulate people, but if you'd like to talk about that, that would be interesting too. The question though really, is what do you personally do to proactively build inter-personal relationships?