Is Repeating Someone’s Name Charming or Creepy?

Dale Carnegie thought it was a good idea, but these days, not everyone agrees.

Good Morning!

Here are today’s highlights:

• Gene Marks says there are advantages to buying a business.

• In San Francisco, you can buy a pet shop just for the cost of the inventory.

• At the SBA it’s not entirely clear who is still employed and who is not.

• Donald Trump appears ready to release a round of retaliatory tariffs.

SALES

Steve Dickerman, who runs a startup in Chicago, won’t work with people who say his name frequently: “He said his company was set on buying a certain artificial-intelligence tool until a salesman repeated his name so often it seemed aggressive. ‘He was doing stuff like, OK Steve, would you be totally opposed to trying this out? and Steve, I’m hearing from you it sounds like you’re worried,’ he said. Dickerman, 34, said it was clear the person was using manipulative sales tactics. His startup instead chose another service with a less pushy salesperson.”

• “TJ Guttormsen, who teaches communication courses, said it’s easy to see when someone is repeating a name to try to influence others. ‘I feel icky when someone says my name every other sentence,’ he said. Salespeople kept saying his name when he tried to buy a car in Las Vegas, he said. He ended up buying his car online.”

• “Still, Guttormsen, 42, said he makes a point to try to learn and repeat people’s names—without overdoing it. He said he attended a networking conference in Norway and called out the name of a speaker he had researched beforehand. ‘It was a reaction of, Hey, how do you know who I am?’ he said. ‘He wasn’t familiar or famous or anything like that and wasn’t expecting any of us to know him.’”

• “Research shows that people’s brains perk up when they hear their own name. Self-improvement author Dale Carnegie, who is considered a godfather of this strategy, famously said in 1936, ‘Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.’”

• “[The Dale Carnegie] company’s president and chief executive, Joe Hart, said he makes an effort to learn the names of people he meets, including restaurant servers. He said his children were a little embarrassed when he did this on a recent vacation in California. ‘They’re like, Oh Dad,’ he said. ‘But I think they understand it.’ Hart doesn’t mind their embarrassment. He said asking for someone’s name can be a small act of kindness in an increasingly lonely society.” READ MORE