Breaking the ice
When you meet someone for the first time, especially at a business mixer or networking event, it’s sometimes difficult to engage in a meaningful conversation right away.
What *do* you talk about, after you’ve exchanged names and company information?
Many people seem to get stuck at this point, and wonder how to “break the ice” and get the converation going.
Well, the answer depends on what would be useful for you.
For instance, perhaps what you want is to simply find out whether this person is a prospective client or customer, or a potential source of business leads for you. If not, you’d prefer to move on.
So maybe the real question is, “How can I have a useful and relevant conversation with someone I’ve just met?”
Here’s what you do:
- Be clear about what you’re looking for. In other words, what would make a conversation useful for you?
- Ask questions. The questions you ask will direct the flow of the conversation. So direct it towards what you want.
For example, the two questions I personally like to start with in situations like these are (and please remember that you may come up with a different list of questions):
- What would make this meeting/event a success for you?
- What’s your biggest challenge these days?
In either case, it opens up a relevant and useful conversation for both of us.
I am able to find out meaningful information about the other person: what they do, the type of business they’re in, the concerns and challenges they’re facing, what they’d like to get out of this meeting or event, and so on.
This kind of information allows me to determine whether I can help the person myself, or whether to introduce them to someone else who can help them better and move on. Such conversations also help me find people with whom I want to build a long-term professional relationship.
The other person also benefits from such conversations because they get something they want and need. And whether I’ve helped them directly or indirectly, they usually remember me for it — and this is useful in any future interactions we may have.
So, what kinds of questions would be useful for you to ask, to open up converstions that are interesting for you?
This article is an excerpt from the Effortless Networking book. If “networking conversations” is a topic of interest to you, click here to check out the book — it has 2 whole sections on it.
Till next week,
– Sri
