Nearly every day you will be interacting with people when you’re earning a living as a South Carolina real estate agent. You will hopefully generate lots of leads and wind up with a large client base. Between fielding phone calls, answering emails and attending in-person appointments, you might see numerous different people in a day. Learning to remember names is a helpful skill when you’re selling homes.

Learning to remember names demonstrates to clients that you are listening to them and care about them on a personal level. A name is a very personal thing to people, and when someone remembers your name, don’t you feel glad about it? Your clients will feel the same way.

Arbitrary information is difficult to remember

While the average person doesn’t consider his or her own name “arbitrary,” names in general are, in fact, arbitrary information, which is why they’re so challenging to remember. Humans are geared for survival, so the brain filters information and determines what is most important and necessary. That’s the information it remembers.

Repetition if a helpful way to remember names

One of the easiest ways for you to improve your name-remembering skills is to use a person’s name in conversation when you want to remember it. Let’s say you have just been introduced to a new client. Start re-using his or her name right away by saying, “It’s nice to meet you, (insert name). As the conversation progresses, you might ask the person a question.

Initiate the question by addressing the person’s name first. “So-and-so, would you like to...?” While you don’t want to repeat a name ad nauseam, you do want to use it enough times to make it easy to remember.

Use word associations to improve name-remembering skills

If you want to remember someone’s name, think of a word association for it the first time you hear it. For instance, a person named “Tom” might be easier to remember if you associate his name with a word that rhymes, such as “bomb.” Think, “Tom the bomb” a few times over and you’ll likely remember that the next time your paths cross.

Nobody’s perfect, so you might forget a name here and there

As a South Carolina real estate agent, you’ll want your clients to feel as though their home selling or home buying needs are a priority to you. If you never remember a client’s name, he or she might doubt your credibility. Then again, you’re only human, and the average client would agree that forgetting a name isn’t the worst mistake you could make.

If you practice ways to remember names in your free time, you’re more likely going to have success as you interact with real estate clients. If you forget a person’s name, politely ask them to remind you and apologize that you have forgotten. That’s far better than repeatedly calling someone by the wrong name.