THREE QUESTIONS YOU CAN USE WHEN NETWORKING
At lost at how to start a conversation?
Here are three questions that work:
“What great thing happened to you recently?”
“Fascinating pin, does it have a story behind it?”
You can use this even if it is ugly.
“Do you like your Blackberry?”
Especially men love it when you ask them about their gadgets.
Notice questions that are missing?
“How are you?”
Face it you really do not want to hear about a person’s health—if you ask you may get to hear all about it.
“What do you do?”
If the person does not have a job, you will remind them and conversation will normally go into a negative direction.
IMPROVING COMMUNICATION SKILLS:
Make sure you include your contact card (business card) in every note you write by handy. Makes it easy for people to give you information to others or keep it hand for themselves.
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This is great advice, Kathy. I have an advertising sales background in addition to my work as a book publisher, and we were always taught to ask our clients "open-ended questions" such as the ones you wrote above. This helps to engage the client in conversation rather than attracting a short "yes" or "no" answer that goes nowhere. The longer the conversation, the more information one can collect for a needs assessment ... which can lead to a sale down the road. (At the end of the day, we're all sales people, aren't we? When it comes to business, we're all communicating for a purpose.)
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