I recently had a meeting with a client that I hadn’t seen in a little over a year. These meetings usually involve several people, some of whom I have met before, some of whom are new. When you do a lot of these it’s hard to remember all the names and faces and more than once I have put my foot it in by brightly saying “It’s nice to meet you” as I greet someone who then points out that we’ve met before – maybe more than once!I hate to appear rude and make people feel uncomfortable so while I work on a) having a better memory and b) keeping better records of my meetings so I can review them before I make return visits, I’ve learned to use more noncommittal phrases such as “So nice to see you” or “So glad you could join us today” instead of referring in any way to whether or not I’ve met them before. Not only is it good business to make people feel that they are important enough for you to remember them – it’s just good manners. And the purpose of manners is to make everyone feel more comfortable.
Which brings me to the subject of this post! In this meeting a woman walked in a little later than four of her male colleagues who were already seated around the conference table. And as I stood to shake her hand and introduce myself she made it perfectly clear that we had met before by saying “Hi. We met when you visited last year. But you’ve lost a lot of weight since then.”
Every eye in the room now turned to look at me.....
