Proving that you’re an expert in your field can be difficult if you show up to meetings or presentations fumbling through your notes.

We tend to perceive people who have a razor-sharp memory as more intelligent than someone who is always saying, “Let me look that up,” according to Chester Santos, a memory expert and international speaker based in San Francisco.

By committing important facts and figures to memory, you can increase your chances of being perceived as a specialist. Or, at the very least, you can impress your colleagues, clients and prospects, Santos says.

Santos offers the following three tips on memorizing important concepts:

1. Create a visual association
Turn whatever idea you’re trying to commit to memory into a visual image or series of images. We usually remember images because we often think in pictures, Santos says.

For example, if you’re trying to remember the definition of “lock limit” (a term used in the futures market when the trading price of a futures contract reaches the exchange’s predetermined limit price), you can imagine chain locks wrapped around a stop sign to indicate that at the lock limit, trades above or below the set price cannot be executed.

To remember that the lock limit applies specifically to futures trading, Santos says, envision that the stop sign is in the midst of a futuristic environment, with spaceships flying around.

2. Include additional senses
To create a sharper memory, add other senses, such as taste, smell or touch, to your mental image. This exercise activates more areas in your brain by building connections, Santos says, making it easier to retrieve information later on.

For example, you can enhance your visualization of the lock limit by imagining the cold, hard touch of the metal locks, or the sound of spaceships whizzing around you.

3. Add a psychological component
You can further commit concepts to memory by imagining an occurrence that is unusual, extraordinary or emotional, Santos says.

For instance, you might imagine that you need to quickly jump aboard one of the spaceships, but you can’t do so until you open one of the locks. Later, when you’re confronted with the term “lock limit,” Santos says, that scenario will come to mind and remind you that all trading halts at the lock limit. The spaceships reinforce the point that the lock limit applies specifically to futures trading.

This is the first part in a two-part series on improving your memory. Next: Tips on remembering names.