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1 Small Change to Every Conversation Will Make People Like You and Remember You
Minda Zetlin
4–6 minutes

What’s one simple thing you can do to be more likable and more memorable? Remember the things people tell you about themselves, and ask about them. There’s no quicker way to let someone know you are listening to them, and interested in what they say.

I got to thinking about this after reading Joel Wong Ph.D.’s recent Psychology Today post. He recommends becoming a “follow-upper.” That’s someone who follows up, asking friends, family members, and business contacts about the things going on in their lives. For instance, if someone tells you that their mother is having surgery next week, ask which day. Then send a quick message on the following day to ask how things went and if there’s anything you can do to help.

I think that’s great advice. As Wong says, becoming a follow-upper will deepen any relationship. But you can also use this strategy in everyday interactions. Letting people know you are interested in them will in turn make them more interested in you. All you need to do is make note of the things people tell you about themselves, and remember those things for future interactions. So, for example, if you’re following up with a potential customer that you first met a week ago, in addition to asking if they’d like to learn more about your product or service, you also ask how their daughter is doing in that soccer tournament, or whether they’ve spent any time at their cabin yet this summer.
How to remember details about other people.

How can you remember those kinds of details when you interact with many different people every week? Use technology to help you. Whenever you have a conversation with a current or potential customer or investor, it’s smart to jot down a few notes afterward so you can remember whatever business you talked about. It only takes a few moments more to add any personal items you might want to remember and mention later. If yours was a more casual chat and you have their contact information, you can include it in the notes field, along with what they do and what their role is. For phone or video chat conversations that use an AI note taker, it’s even simpler. Just query the note taker or search the transcript to find those bits of information.

If you find small talk awkward, this approach can help because it gives that small talk a purpose. Instead of just killing a little time until you get to whatever you really want to discuss, now you’re using small talk to gather valuable intel. The things people tell you about themselves become useful data about them as people. You can retain that data and use it later on to make a more human connection.
The gift of your attention.

And making a human connection is the whole point. In today’s world of never-ending distractions, truly paying attention to another person is one of the best gifts you can give them, and one of the most likable things you can do. Experts say that the best way to be interesting is to be interested in others. I think it’s equally true that remembering things about other people makes them likelier to remember you in return.

The only catch is that you can’t fake it. You have to really tune in to that other person and take a genuine interest in what they’re telling you. If you drop in a reference to something by rote, without really caring about them, that will come across as stilted. It’s similar to when someone keeps inserting your first name into a conversation because they’ve learned that as a sales technique.

So take the time to really listen to what people tell you about themselves, and make the effort to take an interest. It will pay big dividends when they do the same for you.

There’s a growing audience of Inc.com readers who receive a daily text from me with a self-care or motivational micro-challenge or tip. Often, they text me back and we wind up in a conversation. (Want to know more? Here’s some information about the texts and a special invitation to a two-month free trial.) Many in my text community are entrepreneurs or business leaders. For them, as for you getting people to like them and remember them is a valuable skill. Remembering personal items about them, and letting them know you do, is an effective way to do that.