If you want people to be impressed by your portraits you need to experiment, have fun, and look at your subjects from a different perspective. Shoot out of the box! Learn to have the confidence to be unique, and dare to be different. All successful portraits usually reflect the personality of the photo subject and since everyone is different, shouldn't all portraits be different too? Your subjects will also have fun trying different approaches and they'll appreciate your creativity.
If shooting creative portraits is important to you - find out how to not only learn the basics, but also learn some great techniques used by the professionals.