Hate Small Talk? These 5 Questions Will Help You Work Any Room | Fast Company

Hate Small Talk? These 5 Questions Will Help You Work Any Room | Fast Company: "Do you love going to events, but find yourself stranded during happy hour, tongue-tied and tucked in a corner? Initiating and maintaining conversations while networking is a necessary skill, and one you can easily improve with these simple tips."

Mastering small talk will help you find common ground to create a mini-bond with new contacts. Small talk may feel trite and unimportant, but it's the small talk that leads to the big talk.

Ideally small talk will uncover common interests, business alignments, the six degrees that separate you, potential need for your product or service, and basically whether or not you enjoy each other's company. The goal is not to become best friends or a new client on the spot. Although it's nice when those instant connections happen, usually that's not the case.

The goal of conversation at functions is to establish enough common ground to determine a reason to connect again.

Getting To Hello...And Beyond

Tongue-tied and standing in a corner? Use these easy tips for working a room.

When looking for a conversation partner in a crowded room, there are three likely scnarioes that make it easy to initiate dialogue:

--Fun, inviting groups

--White-knuckled loners who look uncomfortable and will welcome your attempt to initiate dialogue

--Familiar faces

Questions to get the conversations flowing:

"What’s your connection to the event?"This question can uncover mutual contacts and usually leads to a more robust answer than if you asked the typical “Have you been to this event before?”

"What’s keeping you busy when you’re not at events like this or at work?" This question gives the encouragement necessary for the person to share his/her passions and outside interests. It is an excellent way to add some enthusiasm into a conversation that has hit a lull, especially if he/she would prefer to be doing that activity at that moment.

"Are you getting away this summer?" This question can lead to conversations about family, reveal special interests and, if you like talking about travel, it’s a sure-fire way to keep a conversation interesting.

"Are you working on any charity initiatives?" This question makes it easy to launch into a deeper connection. If they’re not involved with any projects, they often share reasons which is usually revealing, and if they are doing something of value they will be more than happy to share.

"How did you come to be in your line of work?" For some, the path to where they are today can be quite an interesting ordeal. Having a chance to revisit their story to success can leave helpful clues along the way as to who they are and what makes them tick.

Keeping a conversation rolling is simple when you learn to listen and ask appropriate probing questions that naturally grow from the dialogue. You only need to prepare a couple of questions in advance. If there is a genuine connection then you can proactively engage in conversation.

When a person doesn't participate actively in a conversation with you, that's a red flag to say to yourself, "Okay, this is not one of my quality contacts, it's time to move on and meet someone else."

Ultimately, the decision each person has to make during this initial contact is whether or not there is enough connection to warrant future interaction. It's during these small conversations that people form their opinions about whether they like you, trust you, and believe you're competent.

Actual business talk is quite limited at functions. Learning what people do and perhaps about some of their big developments or projects is about the extent of the business talk expected. Deeper connections are formed through finding common ground that is not work related.

There is a balance between too much and too little business talk. If you don't talk business at all you may miss an opportunity to communicate who you are, what you do, and what you have to offer and that you are competent in your field. There are some people who you can know for years and never hear them talk about work. You just assume they are retired or not interested in more clients.

However, if you talk about your work too much you run the risk of boring others. Too much "shoptalk" can easily put a damper on an evening. Watch for cues from your conversation partners. How are they responding to the conversation with you? Are they engaged? Are they obviously looking for a new conversation partner? Are they listening to and understanding what you are saying? Are you giving them more information than they expect, want, or need? Are you monopolizing the conversation and not giving others a chance to share ideas or ask questions?

Match the depth of dialogue to the environment.

'via Blog this'