“What’s your name, again?”

Throughout your life and regardless of your occupation, you’ve undoubtedly met lots of people, whether through the work day or in social settings.  Politely, you introduce yourself while shaking hands and greeting strangers.  As you age, remembering names and specific details about a person you’ve just met becomes increasingly challenging.  In my youth, remembering facts, phone numbers and names was one of my strongest “talents”, but today, my brain simply doesn’t work the way it used to.

Isn’t it a great feeling when a casual acquaintance from the past remembers your name, as well as random facts that you shared months or years ago?  You can’t help but feel special and humbled.  Someone took an interest in what you shared, and cared enough to remember it.

My wife and I have gone to 11 weddings in the past two years, including our son’s wedding this past May.  Inevitably, you’ll run into an acquaintance from the distant past, but simply cannot put the name to the face.  How often have you said to your spouse, “I know that guy…how do I know him?  What the hell is his name again?  Shit, he’s walking over here.  Hurry up, help me!”  You desperately want to make a good impression, or simply avoid the embarrassment of not remembering their name.

It’s become increasingly difficult to remember names and I don’t have the recall I once did.  However, if I do happen to meet someone a second time, I’ll reintroduce myself, shake their hand firmly and say their name 3 times in my head.  For some reason I cannot explain, I won’t forget them after that second meeting.

To help mitigate the risks of embarrassment, I also keep a record of personal facts about people I meet in their contact file.  Any small anecdote, story or occurrence in their lives provides me with a common point of reference stemming from an earlier meeting.

• Spouse’s name
• Children and their names and interests (college, sports, scholarship hopes…)
• Team affiliation (professional and college)
• Hobbies and interests (cooking, art, cycling…)

Any number of unique, personal tidbits can help you re-break the ice, or demonstrate your interest in their life.  This “name-fact” association will also help you remember them in the future.

There are plenty of tricks for remembering names, but the point I want to emphasize is this skill affords you the opportunity to make a personal connection and speaks volumes to the person in that you took the time to remember them.  While the individual may never be able to help you with your career advancement, closing a deal or do anything for you, making the effort to know their name and something about them is endearing and makes YOU memorable.

Finally, I believe you can tell a lot about someone’s character by the way they treat people who can’t do anything for them.  For example, waiters, bell hops, sky caps, garbage men, a grocery clerk, etc.  True, all of these people are paid to do a job and they should take pride in it, but I always make it a point to address them with their name, say thank you and please, be appreciative for their effort, tip when appropriate and smile. For God’s sake, make eye contact.  Nothing is more welcoming than sincere eye contact and a smile.  I am always disappointed and saddened about how abusive and rude some people can be to people in the service profession, but my water glass is always full, my luggage arrives to my hotel room quickly and the eggs in my grocery bag are never broken.

Celebrating Wins and Success

 

Sales is hard. When you close an important deal, or have a terrific year, make sure you commemorate the success with a memento. I’ve been preaching this to sales people for decades and, unilaterally, with each person, they’ve thanked me for this advice and are quick to show me what they purchased for themselves.

I also recommend buying something material and tangible, instead of a vacation or a gift for someone else. The reason is, this is YOUR success, and therefore, YOUR reward as a constant reminder of this winning feeling, and the desire to replicate this experience. A Rolex, a Louis Vuitton handbag or even a house (yes, I had an employee actually buy a vacation home with his commissions) all serve as “trophies”. Memorializing great achievement will sustain the good feelings of success, and act as a constant reminder of what achievement feels like.

While good sales people are also competitive, take the time to congratulate peers when they have wins. Not everyone needs affirmation from others of a job well done, but taking the time to acknowledge the success of a co-worker is gracious and just good manners. Don’t be petty, jealous or make excuses. His or her success is not a reflection on your performance.

Celebrating wins as a team builds morale and can inspire others to work harder or smarter in the future. Through celebration, the opportunity for sharing best practices and understanding different strategies may arise. If you’re miserable, drowning in your own despair and lamenting your peer’s win, people will remember and I doubt they will want to celebrate with you when you have success. The camaraderie built around reveling in individual or team success can feed upon itself and be wildly positive. There’s simply nothing better or more satisfying than sharing victories as a team.

Aligning

Ever have a meeting with a new prospect and find yourself with nothing to say? Completely at a loss for words, so you dive straight into a business conversation, and come across pushy. Whether it’s a blind date or a first call with a new customer, you should never find yourself in this situation.  Doing your homework is the key, and spending a few vital minutes preparing for your meeting or date.

Researching someone was a hell of a lot harder when I started my career, but with social media and mankind’s propensity to want to share every little thing or event on the internet, uncovering personal and professional information about the person you’ll be meeting is literally at your fingertips.  Today, it’s no excuse for not knowing a few tidbits about the person you’re meeting with:

1. Marital status, children, education, former employers
2. People you may know in common through work, church, kid’s sports, community associations
3. Passions like professional sports teams, athletic pursuits (golf, running, skiing…)
4. What does he/she do in their spare time?

I’m a simple guy that likes simple analogies.  Thousands of people are set up on blind dates every day.  A mutual friend thinks the two of you have a lot in common and your personalities will hit it off.  But, is the date truly “blind”?  Of course not.  Your mutual friend shared some pertinent details and justified the logic behind putting you together. And if you’re intrigued, you’ll ask more questions, dig deeper, check out photos on the internet, and start thinking about ways to make yourself sound more attractive and shed light on your best attributes.

Preparing for the meeting, doing research about the individual and company, and anticipating where the conversation might lead, affords you the best opportunity to make the best impression.  After all, as in dating, you want to get to the second date, right?

Once you’ve established some common ground, the next step is to create a connection, build rapport and making the person feel at ease.  What better way than getting someone to talk about himself?  People generally love to talk about themselves; after all, they’re very familiar with the topic, they have a lot of material to cover, they are not at a loss for words, and if you demonstrate genuine interest and ask open-ended questions, people will share a lot of information.

Recently, my wife and I were in the market to purchase a new SUV for me, and while I had a good idea what I wanted, we still wanted to “kick the tires” on a couple alternatives.  I don’t know if I gave off a “do not disturb” signal, but at the BMW dealership, no one approached us for 15 minutes, literally.  Not the impression I would ever want to leave.  Here I am trying to SPEND MONEY and I’m being ignored?  What could I expect if, and when, there was an issue with the service department?

At the Jeep dealership, we met a nice young man, Jeff, who introduced himself with a smile.  He asked questions about the car we drove, wanted to know why we were contemplating a change, taking the time to understand the features that were important to us, our timing for a decision, mentioned a 0% lease option and wanted to know what we would be doing with the old car.  He was genuinely interested in us.  On our test drive, we chatted about the local sports teams, our families and golf (he saw my clubs in my old car!).  While I made it clear to Jeff that I didn’t think the Grand Cherokee was going to work for us, he didn’t take offense.  With his sunny disposition, he continued to be welcoming, helpful, educational and insightful. As we left, he hugged my wife, shook my hand firmly and wished us well, without any hint of bitterness.

I have since referred three friends to him.  My decision was a reflection of the vehicle, not of him.  Jeff didn’t get my business, but I made sure his efforts were rewarded.  No one appreciates good salesmanship like a good salesman.  Jeff also sent me a personal, hand written note after my first referral.  Conversely, no one is more critical of a bad experience.  I don’t know how much business I cost the BMW dealership, but bad word of mouth is a powerful weapon.

Whenever possible, it is imperative to maintain a level intimacy and a high degree of trust with your customers.  When I was a teenager, my dad would always say, “Trust is earned, not given”, and it always stuck with me.  Customers have choices of whom they buy from, but if all things are equal, they like to buy from people they like and trust.  It takes time, commitment, responsiveness and repetition to earn trust, and once earned, it should be treated as a precious gift, not to be taken for granted.

Finally, I think it is important to be able to separate yourself from your “product”, to give you the proper perspective and let you see things through the customer’s lens.  Even when you win, the client’s experience will dictate whether you have a short or long-term customer. In varying degrees, your company has brand recognition, but you have a reputation. Your reputation defines you since it stems from how you interact with people.