Name Squeeze Your Way To Big Profits

In a world with finite amounts of space, media attention, and even sleep, your name is your most valuable asset. It's what you'll be remembered by in the long run.

This post will walk you through how to squeeze every bit of value out of your name by understanding it better. I'll specifically talk about name parts and how important they are to remembering people by their names (think: John F Kennedy). And I'll tell you about the importance of keeping your name fresh for those prospective employers who are always searching for candidates on LinkedIn, but might forget your resume if they see it too many times.

So let's start with the basics: what is your name?

Your name is actually a string of nouns, verbs, and adjectives. It's not just your first name or just your last name. It can even include middle names, nicknames, maiden names, and any other unofficial names you've been given (for example: Joe "The Hammer" Smith).

What to do after you have your full name? Find an image for each part of it. That's right: every single part of your name becomes a picture in order to make it easier to recall later on.

Why is this important? Because that picture will be your "remembered name" if you only save one thing with your name. That means that you need to memorize two full names instead of just one (or three whole names).

Why? Because when you have to call more than one person for a project, almost always they'll know exactly who you are when you mention their first name. If they don't, then they'll forget something about their second or third name! It doesn't matter how much hard work you put into choosing the rest of your profile and title if no one remembers it at all because having a memorable first name takes priority over everything else.

Let's say you're a Joe Smith and work for John Smith at Company X. That's two memorized names! How will this help your project? Simple: because now you can say, "Hi my name is Joe Smith, and I have a new task for you." The person on the other end of the phone will go through their entire internal Rolodex of names trying to find a match, but won't get very far. They'll have trouble remembering if they've met you before or not! Finally, they'll let you say your name again. This will help them remember that it's a Joe, and they'll start looking through their minds again for a Joe, but this time they'll find several Joes.

After the person on the other end of the phone sounds uncertain about how to respond, you can then say your last name again and they'll know exactly who you are!

But if you only memorize one part of their name, then all of your work will be for nothing. Don't do this! If you meet someone named Tom Smith at Company X, go ahead and memorize both parts of his name too. Then you'll be able to say, "Hi Tom Smith, Vice President of Business Development here at Company X. I'm the guy who's been working on your project the past couple of months."

If people aren't sure about who you are when you're hanging around outside of the office, thank your lucky stars that they'll never forget about you when they're in the office again!

Here's an example of how this can help: let's say there are only one hundred people at a company, and there are fifty male employees and fifty female employees. This means that there are twenty fewer female employees than male employees.

Conclusion: if you're a woman at this company, then you can devote less time to finding out how to memorize all of the men's names (you should still do this!) and more time finding out how to distinguish the women's names. You'll be saving yourself time in two ways: first, by knowing a lot less names overall, and second by not having to remember the men as well as the women.

If you're a man at this company, then you can devote less time to finding out how to memorize all of the women's names (you should still do this!) and more time finding out if there are any other men around who have similar short versions of their first or last name.