Okay, I think I've got everyone's name. Hairy Mar, who's in Susan, Barton Martin,
rude Jude and vain Jane. Alright, all set. So Harry, what brings you on the tour today. Yeah
sorry I meant to say Harry Mary. I mean Mary. I mean you've got just the right
amount here. Can we start again?
Hi there Kelsey Tonner here from Be a Better Guide and today, we're looking at
techniques for remembering names. Remembering. As Dale Carnegie famously
said, a person's name to him or her is one of the most sweetest and most
important sound in any language and, what do you basically meant was when you can
remember someone's name, it signals to them that they're important and that
you're listening closely. It allows great guides to quickly build rapport with
their guests. So let's take a look at six name remembering techniques .One, commit
to remembering names. You have to make a conscious decision to remember people's
names. Don't let yourself off easy by saying, "Oh, I've got a bad memory" or "I'm
just not good with names". This is a skill that you can and should work on, So
before every tour, say to yourself "I'm going to work on remembering people's
names". This intention is half the battle. Two, focus your attention. The biggest
reason that we don't recall the names of our guests is actually just that we
weren't paying that close of attention. If someone tells you their name and then
two seconds later you can't remember it, nine times out of ten that's not a
memory problem. That's a focus problem. Right? We as tour leaders especially can
be distracted by all that's going on in our head. The logistics of the trip
seeing that somebody else is arriving, thinking about our first stop or what we
might say. This is a habit that we want to break because we want to be a hundred
percent with the guests when we're speaking with them.
So when we are hearing someone's name for the very first time, we want to try
and absorb the name but two, also absorb some of that physical characteristics of
the person because the more vividly we can associate that name with a physical
person and a face, the more likely we're gonna recall. Honestly the biggest trick
to focus is being ready for your tour. Come early, have everything 100% done so
you don't need to be running around and in those first 10 or 15 minutes, you can
be a hundred percent focus on learning people's names. Three,
repeat their name. Repetition is such a simple but effective technique when it
comes to memory. There's a couple ways we can use this with guests. One of my
favorites is to repeat their name out loud within the first five to ten
seconds of meeting them. If someone introduces themself as John, you might
say, "well hi John, it's nice to meet you" or "What brings you on tour today John?"
Make this a conscious effort to use their names secondly do repetition in
your head silently. So, especially if you're doing those circle introductions,
there's Peter, Paul and Mary, we might, after each new person's name,
repeat and go back around the circle so that you're solidifying those names
through repetitions. So we got to Mary, we might say okay Mary, Peter and Paul. This
repetition will go a long way for associate linking someone's name to
another object or a rhyming word or a celebrity or even your impression of
them is really effective way to help your memory recall. In fact in memory
championships, this is the main tactic used by the people who compete. So some
examples of association could be alliteration. So we might see that we've
got Joan from new jersey so we could say Joan from jersey. That's sort of a way of
associating to help recall maybe Sara is in sales so we say, Sara sells. We could
also use rhyming words like there's Dave. Dave needs a shave or Harry Mary or
other non hair related associations as well you can use celebrity so Ryan,
imagine a scene with Ryan Gosling or someone Nicole dancing with Nicole
Kidman that can help or even sometimes the impression that they give them you.
So we might say, Oh Paula, Paula is a little pushy you could say pushy Paula or sweet
Susan or something like that. All of these little associations actually make
a huge difference and this tactic I found super effective when I was
remembering people's names. Five, use aids depending on the nature of your tour. You
might have a guest list or an equipment list that has names on it. This is
fantastic to use as a resource and you could even have it on your clipboard or
in front of you and be making notes as people are introducing themselves. It
could be physical characteristics or some of the associations that you want
to make like green shirt giant afro man with the monocle.
Depending on your tour of course. You can also use just a clipboard and note paper
if you don't have a guest list to take some notes on people's names. Some people
use their phone. You just want to be careful that doesn't look like you're
distracted but, using a notes app on your phone can work as well. Six, test yourself.
Throughout the tour, do a quick scan to see who's names and associations you may
have forgotten and then try and find a way to figure out those names. You can
ask somebody that they're traveling with discreetly but honestly, the best way is
just to directly ask and don't be embarrassed about it.
Say something like, "I'm sorry could you remind me of your name?" And people are
very understanding and they'll appreciate your authenticity. So those are six tips for
helping you work on your skill of remembering people's names but to help
you further, we've also created a PDF cheat sheet called "Creative Named Games
for Tour Activity Leaders". these are some of our favorite icebreakers and
activities that are really designed to help people learn each other's names and
this is great not only for you as a tour leader, but also helping your guests to
learn each other's names. Right, because that helps with group cohesion and helps
avoid some of that awkwardness and the downtime when guests need to interact
with one another and it helps create that
sense of journey. So you can download that PDF by clicking the link below. Have
a look through and then just choose the icebreaker or name game that might best
fit with your style of tour. Thank you so much. As always, please feel free to like
or share this video. It means a lot to us. You can subscribe to the Youtube channel
but before you go, let us know in the comments what are your best techniques
for remembering people's names. Thanks so much for being here
and we'll see you next time.
When I was researching name games online but actually came up a lot where these
sites that use like your initials and your birthdate and then give you your
name if you happen to be an elf or a pirate. My elf name is cookie festive
fingers. My pirate name is stinky two toes and my stripper name is, apparently,
the color of my underwear and the last thing that I ate so that's pink tub of
Ben & Jerry's.