Focused Business Action

Do you forget people’s names the second you meet them? Are you destined to be embarrassed for the rest of your life? I say NO. With just one or two easy strategies, you can make those names stick.

This is especially important as you get into the holiday season and attend parties with prospective clients you’ve never met before. You could possibly lose business because you forgot someone’s name.

The first idea I want to share with you is to let it be OK. Stop thinking that there’s some special rule about having to remember their name perfectly the first time. I’ve got news for you. Almost everybody is bad with names.

Here are some simple strategies for remembering the names of people you meet:

• Repeat the person’s name right after you meet him/her. (It’s so nice to meet you, Jim) I have found that people are quite flattered and warm up to you quickly when you use their name. Don’t overdo it, but sprinkle in their name during the conversation which will both embed the name in your mind and forge a new relationship.
• As you hear the name, immediately match the person’s name to something about their appearance. (Stan stands tall)
• If it’s a business contact, ask for his/her business card (and before you leave the event write on the back what your connection is and whatever followup needs to happen).

If you do forget…

• Don’t be afraid to ask for someone’s name a second time. 99.9% of the time, the other person will be flattered that you care enough to ask them again. Think about how you would feel if someone did that to you. You wouldn’t care all that much. You’d understand perfectly.
• Here’s a trick I use when I’m out socializing with my partner. If I can’t remember the name of someone I’m introducing to her, I will just introduce my partner without introducing the other person (Hi. This is Susan, my partner.[stop there]) and the other person will usually share their name with Susan when they shake hands without ever realizing that I’m listening in for their name and didn’t remember it .

Try these out as you meet new people over the next month and keep using the ones which seem to work for you.

What do you do to help remember names? Let us know by sharing in the comments.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 by Scott Lewis and is filed under Resources. You can follow the comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment or trackback from your own site.