3.2 Introductions and getting a conversation going

Let’s think about introductions and getting a conversation going. How do you go about starting to talk to someone you don’t already know or have only just been introduced to, say at a conference or business meeting, or even at a party or other social event?

As mentioned in Section 2, networking is not just about finding out information from other people but about offering something in exchange, so the best way to begin is probably by providing some information about yourself:

This short opening is not very original, certainly, but it combines information about you with interest in the other person. It also invites them to offer up information about themselves in a non-threatening context and gets the conversation going, possibly as follows:

Once the conversation has started, you need to think about how you will keep it going, at least until areas of mutual interest emerge and the process becomes more natural and less self-conscious. This is where the concept of small talk comes in. Oxford Dictionaries defines this as ‘polite conversation about unimportant or uncontroversial matters, especially as engaged in on social occasions’ (Oxford Dictionaries, 2016).

Small talk gets a bad press because it is associated with mindless and inane chatter but it need not be so. Importantly, it allows you to get to know the other person and for you both to establish a relationship based on some mutual trust. It doesn’t have to be tedious by any means and can focus on the news, interests, travel or anything that makes sense in that context.

Moreover, there are skills to small talk that you can learn. Here are a few suggestions:

• Use open questions that invite a longer answer rather than merely ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, for example:

  • ‘What are you working on at the moment?’

    ‘Why did you decide to come to the conference today?’

• Practise active listening to show that you are engaged; for example, by nodding, smiling appreciatively, standing openly rather than shrinking or backing away, and giving small verbal cues such as ‘Aha’, ‘Uhuh’, etc. that demonstrate you are listening and that will prompt people to say more.
• Reflect back what the person says using their own words. This acknowledges that you have heard them but also implicitly encourages them to continue talking. For example:

  • Them: ‘I have been with the company for about five years following a few years at Smith and Co.’

    You: ‘Smith and Co.?’

    Them: ‘Yes, I was a junior manager there working in sales.’

• Listen for the meaning and emotion in what people say, rather than just the words, so that you can pick up on topics that are more important to them. People will often reflect how important a subject is to them by the emotion in their voice or animation in their face. In this way, you can steer the conversation into areas that interest them and about which they will say more.

These are just a few tactics to practise in order to get the conversation going. Clearly these need to be used with some care so that it is not obvious what you are doing, but it is surprising exactly how much of this you are probably already doing without really thinking about it!

Once you have begun talking with someone and feel that you have made some progress in establishing a relationship, then you can move the conversation into particular areas of interest or, perhaps, agree to exchange contact details and talk further later.