Master of Memory: How to Build Rapport, Increase Familiarity, and Get People to Like You

During my junior year of high school I took a college prep course which met everyday during first period. During this class we’d typically spend our time learning ACT and SAT strategies, but sometimes we’d have a special guest speaker come in to tell us about life as a professional in one field or another as a way to get us thinking about what career we might want to pursue, and how the decisions we made in the next couple years with regard to what major we chose and what classes we took would directly influence our potential in those fields.

Now, of the endless list of guests that came to speak with us, one of the most memorable for me was a man who had a long successful career in marketing and advertising before entering a state of semi-retirement during which he took a job as the head of admissions at our school, which was a post that included a number of miscellaneous tasks such as helping out with the yearbooks and with some of the school’s marketing and advertising needs. What made his presentation as memorable as it was, was not that it inspired me to seek a career in marketing or advertising. It didn’t. I studied psychology and history in college. No, what made it memorable was how good our speaker seemed to be at what he did, how much fun he seemed to have doing it, and how what he taught us in that forty minute period could be applicable in so many situations.

For example, one of the things he emphasized was the importance of building rapport with people, increasing familiarity with them, and getting them to like you. He talked about how people are always pleasantly surprised at how well he remembers minor details about their lives such as their children’s birthdays, the college they went to, or what their favorite sports teams were.  And then our guest shared with us his secret as he pulled from the pocket of his blazer a mini tape recorder and told us that we could have a memory like his too, if we carried one with us and knew what tape to listen to before meeting with a person for a second or third time.