Names are important!

I quickly posted a thought today on Twitter about using a persons names properly. Names are such an important thing and are part of a first impression if you haven’t met a person before. Now this first impression could be in person or via another communication medium such as email or social media.

As I mentioned on my Twitter post my personal email address is brad at bradrevell dot com; not bradley at bradleyrevell dot com. Furthermore I always sign off my emails with Brad. Note I was christened with the name Bradley and I don’t mind people using that name. I do prefer Brad and use it 99% of the time; unless you know me really well and you call me B-rad (a story for another time) or I’m in trouble with my Mum. Note for background Australians typically shorten names if they can, it’s how we roll.

This week I had a couple of examples where certain people didn’t live up to my expectations on using names. First, I was at a conference for work and my name tag had ‘Bradley’ on it. Why did I setup a profile when I started and entered a preferred name? Second, I received a response to an inquiry from someone where they thanked me and used the name ‘Bradley’.

Given the above name rationale with my email and signed name they still referred to me as Bradley …. really? Again I’m not miffed yet very surprised that people don’t put 1 and 1 together. Ultimately this impacts on relationship building right from the start. Take the extra time from the begging and make the effort.