Ever met somebody and then promptly forgotten their name? Sure you have, we all have. But you don’t have to admit it after all this is my blog not yours. The worst is when somebody calls you up out of the blue and mumbles their name into the phone as if it was not important.
The problem with this is that it happens to everybody, but if you can find a way to minimize it will help you in your relationships, closing sales and sponsoring new people into your business.
Some common strategies are to try and associate the person’s name with some characteristic unique to that person. If the person is Betty from the accounting and has green eyes you might try to associate her with green money and make a mental note that she is “green back Betty”. If the person is your top recruiter in your business you could say to yourself here comes “Terry the top producer”. My favourite is the “flat earth {name}” for people who call me in the middle of the night not thinking that because they are awake and it is sunny I should not be in the dark and sleeping.
But what do you do if you really cannot figure out where you know somebody who just came up to you in a meeting. After all we are network marketers and we talk to a lot of people every day. Well being honest and simply telling them how they are familiar but you cannot just place where you last met them. If you are with an associate, ask them to introduce themselves first and ask the person’s name. Make sure you if you do have to eat humble pie that write it down or get a business card because it is unlikely you will ever get a second chance.
Sorting out this problem goes a long way to establishing lasting relationships. Knowing people’s names is the first step in securing their trust.