If you are the name-forgetting type, you probably spend a fair amount of time feeling unmoored in a sea of vaguely familiar faces. Indira Pun does not have this problem. “Sometimes I see a guest I have not seen for years, and right away I know their name,” says Pun, chief concierge at the Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong. “I exercise that like a muscle.” After 11 years in the business and thousands of names committed to memory, Pun has a few name-recollection-workout suggestions.

First, concentrate during an introduction. “Your brain needs to be like a camera,” she says. Listen carefully to the person say his or her name, then “take a picture in your mind of a unique thing about that person and register that uniqueness with their name.” Maybe that person has an odd mole or walks like a ballerina. As soon as the mental photo is shot, start saying the name. “Use the name two or three times during the first interaction,” Pun says.

When meeting important people, do a little homework ahead of time. Pun and the other concierges circulate photographs and notes on pronunciation. For the rest of us, a few minutes of study can make an encounter with a job interviewer or a new boss less nerve-racking; their names and likenesses are already familiar.

Don’t fear foreign-sounding names. “A difficult name is easier to remember because you put a lot of stress on yourself to remember it,” says Pun, 35, who was born in Hong Kong to Nepalese parents, educated in Singapore and speaks English, Nepalese, Mandarin, Cantonese and “a little bit of everything.”