![\"People](\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2014\/08\/social.jpg\")
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Almost every time you meet someone new, there are three questions you will probably have to answer during your conversation:<\/p>\n
These three questions are so common, and you answer them so frequently, that it is very easy to get in the habit of answering them the same way, again and again, without thinking. You probably get bored with your own answers, so you don\u2019t put energy and effort into offering them in an interesting way. \u201cHi, I\u2019m Joe. I work in public relations for an energy company downtown, and I\u2019m from the Midwest but moved here a couple years ago.\u201d <\/em>Zzzzz\u2026<\/p>\n You might even feel like Bill Murray\u2019s character in Groundhog Day<\/em> \u2013 going through the exact same routine time in and time out. It may even contribute to why so many of us dread meeting new people.<\/p>\n Yet it\u2019s worth upping your game in this area; how you respond to these three common introductory questions can greatly impact your first impression, how memorable you are to a new acquaintance, and whether your relationship ever gets past first base, so to speak.<\/p>\n In this post I will outline 6 specific strategies for answering these almost inescapable questions in ways that are distinct and memorable. I will also share advice from experts in communications, linguistics, and networking about how you can stand out from the pack.<\/p>\n Additionally, I will give specific examples of how you can use these tips in practice. First, let’s take a look at what those strategies are:<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a quick snapshot of the ways you can make your answers to these three common questions more memorable:<\/p>\n Now, let\u2019s see how these strategies apply to each of the three common questions:<\/p>\n Repeat Your Name \u2013 Without Being Obvious About It<\/strong><\/p>\n When telling someone your name for the first time, one of the best ways to help them remember it is by repeating your name in a subtle way. One of the reasons people often have trouble remembering names is because saying it just once makes it unlikely the name will move from that person\u2019s short-term memory, or their \u201cworking memory,\u201d to their long-term memory.<\/p>\n If you want to make your name memorable by repeating it, but you don\u2019t want to be obvious about it, then try these approaches:<\/p>\n Tell a Story<\/strong><\/p>\n Another way to make your name memorable is to tell a story, such as how you got your name.<\/p>\n For example, my first name is John, which isn\u2019t very memorable. However, I was named after my grandfather, a B-17 pilot during WWII who I have previously written about for AoM<\/a>. If I meet you and I explain this background and tell a quick story about my grandfather, you are more likely to remember my name.<\/p>\n The author\u2019s grandfather, John H. Corcoran Sr., a B-17 pilot during WWII.<\/p><\/div>\n Or, let\u2019s say your name is Steve, and it turns out your parents named you after Steve McQueen, the actor. Because they had a sense of humor.<\/p>\n You might tell a short story about it: \u201cMy dad was a huge fan of Steve McQueen\u2019s movies back when I was born. My mom was dead set against it, but they made a deal where he got to name me Steve, and she got to name my sister Anne, after the character in her favorite book, Anne of Green Gables<\/em>.”<\/p>\n Create a Personal Association <\/strong><\/p>\n Another way to make your name memorable is to create an association between your name and something that is more memorable to the person you are talking to.<\/p>\n For example, if you say your name is \u201cMitch\u201d and the person you are talking to says, \u201cI have an uncle named Mitch,\u201d you could ask a number of questions about Uncle Mitch so that the person you have just met makes a firm connection between you and their uncle.<\/p>\n You can also connect your name with something the person you have just met already knows. Here are a few examples:<\/p>\n Ask a Question <\/strong><\/p>\n If you want someone you just met to remember what you do, a great approach is to ask a question that forces them to think.<\/p>\n Art of Manliness style expert Antonio Centeno<\/a> uses this approach to explain what he does for a living, which has evolved from custom clothier to creating online courses and videos which help men to dress better.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen people ask what I do, I usually flip the question and say, \u2018You know how most guys don\u2019t dress very well?\u2019\u201d says Centeno. This usually gets the person he is talking to nodding along. \u201cThen I talk about how I solve that problem. I might mention that I have a 9-year-old, and let\u2019s say I go to take him to the doctor. Now imagine a guy comes in who is wearing a Grateful Dead t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops. Am I going to give my kid to this person? Probably not. Now imagine a guy wearing a white lab coat walks in. Everyone can relate to how clothing can make a huge difference.\u201d<\/p>\n When you force the person you are talking with to think by asking a question, and to relate what you do to their own life, they are far more likely to remember you.<\/p>\n Be Clear and Avoid Trying to Be Overly Clever<\/strong><\/p>\n Derek Coburn wears multiple hats. He\u2019s a financial advisor for high net-worth individuals, he\u2019s an entrepreneur, and he\u2019s an author of the great book Networking Is Not Working<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n Explaining all of these roles can be confusing. \u201cOften times we get caught up in trying to be clever and it ends up not communicating what we do,\u201d says Coburn. Instead, Coburn recommends keeping things simple and relevant to the person you are talking to by starting with questions. \u201cBy learning more about the person I am talking to first and what they do, I\u2019m in a better spot to lead with what\u2019s more relevant to the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n Naveen Dittakavi made the same mistake of trying to be too creative in describing what he does when he founded his own software consulting firm<\/a>. \u201cWhen I first started consulting, I didn\u2019t know where I fit in the mix – I arbitrarily took a title for myself of \u2018software architect.\u2019 But no one knew what that meant.\u201d<\/p>\n Worse yet, Dittakavi found many people thought he was an employee rather than a business owner. Eventually, Dittakavi settled on a way of describing what he does. He started saying, \u201cI\u2019m Naveen and I run a web development company,\u201d and he found that people he met were far more likely to understand him \u2013 and to remember him as well.<\/p>\n When answering where you are from, your answer will always be relative. If you\u2019re standing in Miami, it is memorable to say you\u2019re from New York City. If you\u2019re in Manhattan, you need to be more specific.<\/p>\n But the best approach is to find a way of explaining where you are from that is distinct. In other words, to describe where<\/em> you live that makes you seem like a black sheep in a sea of white sheep.<\/p>\n Antonio Centeno does this beautifully. On the surface, Centeno appears pretty clean cut. He\u2019s a former Marine with short-cropped hair and no unusual facial hair or visible tattoos. You might even say he could blend into a crowd.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s all in how you spin it.<\/p>\n Antonio is actually a heterosexual male style expert who runs his fashion empire<\/a> out of his hometown, in tiny Wittenberg, Wisconsin. Population? 1,113 people. Now that<\/em> is a little more memorable.<\/p>\n When Antonio tells people where he\u2019s from, he makes a point of mentioning his hometown\u2019s population because \u201cmy town is incredibly small for most people. I\u2019m an oddity because people think with a fashion company, I would live in New York or Los Angeles or Chicago.\u201d<\/p>\n He could say he\u2019s from Wisconsin and leave it at that. But highlighting how small his hometown is makes him far more memorable.<\/p>\n Antonio finds his uniqueness means people are more likely to remember him, and they\u2019re more likely to later tell their brother or husband or father to check out his website, Real Men Real Style<\/a>. \u201cMany times I\u2019ll get an email from someone a few weeks after we\u2019ve met saying you were brought up in a conversation,\u201d says Centeno.<\/p>\n Hopefully these strategies gave you some ideas for making yourself more memorable the next time you meet someone new and need to answer the world\u2019s most common introductory questions.<\/p>\n And remember: if you try these strategies and people still can\u2019t remember you, you can always move to a small town in rural Wisconsin, because that is really<\/em> memorable. I\u2019m sure Antonio would enjoy the company.<\/p>\n How do you describe yourself in a memorable way when you meet someone new? Share it in the comments below. John Corcoran<\/a> <\/em>is an attorney, former Clinton White House Writer, and is not really an heir to the Corcoran Art Gallery fortune (but don\u2019t tell his wife that). He writes about business networking and social skills for Art of Manliness and for his own site, Smart Business Revolution. He has a free, 52+ page guide which you can download, called <\/em>How to Increase Your Income Today by Building Relationships with Influencers, Even if you Hate Networking<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Almost every time you meet someone new, there are three questions you will probably have to answer during your conversation: What\u2019s your name? What do you do? Where are you from? These three questions are so common, and you answer them so frequently, that it is very easy to get in the habit of answering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":106503,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,42285,42293],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-42583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-relationships","category-social-skills"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2014\/08\/social-538x280.jpg","aom":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2014\/08\/social-372x230.jpg","reactor-320":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2014\/08\/social-320x214.jpg","reactor-640":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2014\/08\/social-640x428.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42583"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134211,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42583\/revisions\/134211"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42583"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=42583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}6 Ways to Make Your Answers More Memorable<\/h3>\n
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How to Answer \u201cWhat\u2019s Your Name?\u201d in a Memorable Way<\/h3>\n
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![\"Pilot](\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/\/2014\/08\/corcgrandfather.png\")
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How to Answer \u201cWhat Do You Do?\u201d in a Memorable Way<\/h3>\n
How to Answer \u201cWhere Are You From?\u201d in a Memorable Way<\/h3>\n
Go Out and Be Memorable<\/h3>\n
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