By far the best technique to impress when you are networking and building relationships with prospective clients or business partners is to remember their names. Can you remember the last time someone remembered your name how flattered you felt? When someone addresses you with your name, you feel that you are important.

    Our name is something hard wired into our brain. This is quite natural. Our parents were the first to call us using our name and therefore it is something we react to subconsciously. When we hear our name we pay more attention to what is being said and there is a higher probability that we will act upon something when we are addressed by our name. Therefore, it is invaluable for you to remember peoples’ names if you want to draw and keep the attention of someone, be it a friend at a party or a potential client in a business meeting.

    Also, since many people have trouble remembering names, if you manage to remember names using the below techniques you will manage to stand out from the rest of the crowd. You will also come across as a bright person and this definitely gives bonus points to your charm score.

    The above was just a summary of the benefits of remembering names. I hope it was enough to convince you how important it is to remember names when networking and socialising. If you are like how I used to be and you keep on forgetting names, then I suggest you start following these tips. The following tips can help you remember more names and in doing so help you build stronger relationships both in your business and in your personal life.

    Make Sure You Get It Correct From The Beginning

    It happened once to me and I will make sure it will not happen again. I once was introduced to a person and I didn’t get the name right. I didn’t ask him to repeat his name since I was embarrassed. I hoped that his name will be mentioned in a conversation. But it didn’t happen. I still have the cell phone number saved with “Unknown name” as his name. I can still remember that this person was an English teacher.

    So pay attention when you get introduced. Make sure you get the name right as from the beginning so as to avoid embarrassing situations like the one I have described above.

    Call The Person By Their Name

    Once you get introduced address the person using his/her name. Do this for two reasons. First of all to make sure that you got the name right. If you got the name wrong you want the other person to politely correct you before you go ahead and memorise the name.

    The second reason is because such a technique will help you to associate the name with the person and his/her characteristics like face, voice and general character. Such association will help you remember the name more and will come handy if you meet that person another time.

    For instance, I find myself better at remembering voices rather than faces, especially where women are concerned. Women have a tendency to change hair style, making them look completely different. Even though years pass their voices remain the same. Hence I find myself remembering more names by associating a name with a voice.

    Finally, calling a person by his name makes the conversation more personal and enjoyable.

    Ask How To Spell It

    If someone has a rare name and you do not know how to pronounce it or spell it you could say something like “That’s an interesting name. How do you spell it?” This way you will get the information you need without sounding boring. I also understand that this technique highly depends on the situation in which you are socialising. If you are in a formal meeting you don’t want to ask how a name is spelt. But if you are socialising in an informal way, then it will be a good idea to ask how a name is spelt. No, such question is not intrusive but it shows interest. Once you know how to spell the name, try to spell the name in your mind by visualizing the spelling of the name. This process further helps you memorize names.

    Associate The Name With A Characteristic Of The Person

    When you get introduced to a person try to ask for some details about the person like what s/he does, hobbies etc. The more information you know about a person the more you have to associate with the name. It is very hard to remember a name which is not put into context. By getting information about the person, you will associate the newly learned name with a context.

    到目前為止，如果你想廣建人脈，和潛在的客戶或合作伙伴建立穩定的關系，最為行之有效的方法無疑是記住他們的名字。你還記不記得最近一次當你聽到別人叫你的名字時，是多么受寵若驚呀？聽見別人喊自己的名字，你就會發覺自己的重要性。

    我們自己的名字已經在我們的腦海里根深蒂固了。這個很自然。我們的父母是最早叫我們名字的人，從此以后，聽到自己的名字，我們就會有一種潛意識的反應。當發現別人提及我們的名字時，我們就會豎起耳朵想聽聽到底講了些什么。當別人一喊我們的名字，我們更有可能形成一種條件反射，立即答應。因此，如果你想引起并且保持某個人的注意——可能是想和派隊上的某個人成為朋友，也可能是想讓商務會議上的某個潛在客戶對你有印象——記住他們的名字最有效。

    同時，因為很多人不能記住別人的名字，那么如果你通過以下的這些方法能記住，就必然會從人群中脫穎而出。而且人家會覺得你很聰明，這也就大大提高了你的個人魅力指數。

    以上所講的不過籠統概括了一下記住人名的好處。但我希望能就此讓你認識到，在交友和社交時，能記住別人的名字是多么的重要。要是你現在就像我過去那樣，老忘記別人的名字，我就建議你看看下面的方法。下面所提到的方法能幫助你記住更多的名字，從而能在事業上和生活中幫你與人建立更加堅固的人際關系。

    1、確定你一開始就叫對別人的名字

    這種事我身上就發生過一回，希望以后再也不會重演。我一次被介紹給個人，但是當時我就沒把他的名字弄對。因為覺得不好意思，我也沒讓他重復一遍。我就盼著聊天的時候能再聽到他的名字，事實上卻沒有如我所愿。所以，一直到現在，我手機里仍以“未知”做他的名字來儲號碼。我倒是還記得那人是個英語老師。

    2、要叫別人的名字

    一旦你們彼此介紹了，就要叫他/她的名字。這樣做有兩個原因。首先，你可以核對一下，名字是不是記對了。如果弄錯了，對方就可以禮貌地指出你的錯誤，在你還沒有鞏固錯誤之前就改過來。

    其次，因為直接喊人名，能幫你把他的名字和這個人的一些特征聯系起來，比如說長相，聲音以及大致的性格。這種聯系能幫你強化記憶，并且你一見到他人就能脫口叫出他的名字。

    舉例來說，我發現自己比起長相更容易記住聲音，尤其是對女性。女人常常換發型，讓自己煥然一新。但是無論過多久，她們的聲音是不會變的。因此我覺得自己通過把他們的名字和聲音聯系起來，就能記住更多的名字。
最后，叫別人名字，能使整個交談更明確，也更愉快。

    3、問一下名字怎么拼

    如果某些人的名字比較生僻，你不知道怎么念或怎么拼，你不妨這樣講，“這個名字很有意思哪。怎么拼寫呢？”這樣，你既可能解開你的疑問，也不會落了俗套。當然，我很清楚，這個方法是否得以實施，很大程度上取決于你所處的社交環境。如果是在一個很正式的會議場合，你最好還是別問怎么拼寫。但如果是比較隨意的場合，問一下倒是個不錯的方法。而且，這樣的問題也不會顯得無禮，相反讓人覺得你幽默有趣。一旦知道怎么拼寫以后，就在你的腦里通過把名字視覺化加以記住。這個過程就讓你進一步地加深了印象。

    4、把名字和人的某一特征聯系起來

    當別人介紹給你認識時，試著問些關于這人的一些細節問題，像是職業了，愛好了，等等。沒有個上下環境，記名字當然不容易。通過對他的了解，你就可以運用上下環境把這個剛認識的人的名字給記住了.