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How To Make People Like You

January 29, 2012

We all want to be influential. We all want people to remember us. We all want to make an impact on people’s lives. So how can we do this? Simple remember people’s names. Dale Carnegie in his book, How To Win Friends and Influence People, says, “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

Recently someone I had JUST met called me by my name when leaving. It was AWESOME! With that one word it totally endeared me to that person in a way that nothing else would.

Andrew Carnegie was known for his ability to handle people and that is what made him rich. When he was a young boy, he rescued a mama rabbit. Soon the rabbit had babies and he needed help caring for them. He rounded up some neighborhood kids and told them if they would collect clover and dandelions for the baby rabbits he would name the baby bunnies in their honor. It was a success! He realized the importance people place on their own names. They will go to great lengths to have something or someone named after them and he used this throughout his successful career. From museums to park benches, people want their name to be remembered. None of us wants to be forgotten.

I thought it would be helpful to lay out 4 tips (2 real life examples) to remember every person’s name that you ever meet. Trust me, I am preaching to myself here as well!

1. Napoleon The Third, Emperor of France, boasted he could remember the name of every person he met in spite of all his royal duties. During a conversation, he associated their name with their appearance, features, and expressions and made an effort to use the person’s name multiple times.  If it was someone of importance, later he would write down the name, concentrate on it, and repeat it several times. This way he was seeing it as well as hearing it.

2. Commit to learning a person’s name. Many times we just simply don’t place importance upon learning someone’s name and therefore we don’t take the time to do it. I remember often saying, “I am so bad at remembering names.” But, I never took the time to learn how to be better. Commit to learning a person’s name. It will get easier.

3. Jim Farley helped put Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House. How did an uneducated brickmaker get to this spot? He had an uncanny gift for remembering people’s names. He did this by asking their complete name, some facts about their family, interests and occupation. He could then ask about their rose garden or some other detail about their lives if he met that person a year later!

4. Concentrate on the person’s name when they say it! For me, this has been a struggle. When someone says their name, I am already thinking about what I will say next. Their name goes in one ear and out the other.

There is magic in a name. It is what sets each of us apart. And if we take the time to use someones name we could do amazing things. Like change the world perhaps?

Do you have any special methods by which you remember people’s names?

 

 

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  • Chris Peek January 30, 2012 at 9:23 am

    Nice post. Ironically, I’m going through “How to Win Friends…” with one of my groups right now. It’s such a powerful book of ideas that we should know and implement, but that most of us don’t practice them often enough. We’re usually too busy trying to get what we want instead of helping the other person get what they want.

    For me, social media has been an enormous help in remembering names and to keep new acquaintances and friends at the top of my mind (especially those whom I haven’t yet met in person). That’s probably cheating, but we might as well take advantage of the tools available.

    • Claudia Good January 30, 2012 at 9:42 pm

      Hahaha Chris – looks like we have similar books on our shelves 🙂 AWESOME!
      It is such I powerful book, I totally agree… never knew any of that stuff before and how powerful it is.
      “We’re usually too busy trying to get what we want instead of helping the other person get what they want”… totally agree man!

  • Michaelvwright January 30, 2012 at 12:26 pm

    Enjoyed this immensely! Guilty as charged. I know this to be true, yet don’t put effort into this. I will now!

    • Claudia Good January 30, 2012 at 9:44 pm

      haa-ha Michael… guilty huh? Well, me too!
      Rock on man!

  • Char January 30, 2012 at 11:38 pm

    Love that book! I read it a while back and think of it often when I relate to others. BUT….I am very guilty of saying I am so bad at remembering names! This is a good reminder to stop using my own excuse and develop name remembering skills!

    • Claudia Good January 31, 2012 at 9:22 am

      I have always said that too Char! But never made the effort to become better. Silly us 🙂

  • Ryan Ash February 15, 2012 at 4:26 pm

    EXCELLENT advice…Claudia!

    • Claudia Good February 15, 2012 at 9:37 pm

      Ryan,
      Your back! 🙂

      I can see you being really good with names. Just seems like you would be!

      • Ryan Ash February 17, 2012 at 12:50 am

        I am back…with a vengeance! 🙂 Just kidding! I’m good with phone numbers…does that count? I’m kind of good with names sometimes, but I could definitely do better!

        • Claudia Good February 17, 2012 at 8:57 am

          hahahaaa!!!!! Yup, we missed ya 😉

          hmmm. Numbers… well if you could call people by their number instead of their name I guess it would count. But something tells me it wouldn’t go over so well… just a hunch…