A good relationship with colleagues, supervisors or customers not only makes your working day more enjoyable, but also ensures that you get more done. Mirjam Wiersma, author of two books about business flirting, tells how to put yourself on the map and build beautiful relationships with others. This time: a sparkling conversation.
There are plenty of them again: live network meetings. Many people find it scary, that networking. A large proportion of professionals indicate in a survey of yacht indicate that they find the professional network very important. That is not surprising: eight out of ten found a job through his or her network. But 49 percent of the respondents also say that they find it difficult to put themselves on the map.
Having a nice conversation with someone you don’t (yet) know can indeed be difficult. Now suppose you listen to a boring lecture for an hour at a networking meeting. The lack of reactions among the other participants suggests that you are not the only one who feels this way. Together with your neighbor – still unknown to you – you get up after the lecture. It seems like an ideal time to talk to him. ,,What did you think of the lecture?” burns on your lips. Chances are the answer would be ‘boring’. ,,Yes, it didn’t grab me either”, is the logical answer. This conversation keeps you in a dozed state and does not quickly lead you to a sparkling conversation. It can be different!
Enthusiasm is contagious
You could also start with: “For me, what the speaker was talking about is not really everyday fare.” Then you tell about something from your work that you are really enthusiastic about: an example of no more than sixty words, for example: “Recently I spoke to a customer about hybrid working: a lot of people still work from home. My idea was to regularly pair employees virtually with a random colleague for a virtual coffee session. This accessible way of paying attention to social relationships with colleagues – which is often the case with many working from home – was a bull’s eye.”
When you talk about something you’re excited about, your body language radiates that enthusiasm. Your eyes will shine and you automatically make enthusiastic gestures that reinforce your story. We find that attractive! Moreover, enthusiastic body language is contagious: because of our mirror neurons we tend to imitate the body language of the other person and our feelings follow that body language. Your conversation partner will also be enthusiastic!
Also read at Intermediary: ‘How to find your new job through networking’
Talk about yourself first
To be the first to talk about yourself to a stranger? It can be exciting, but it’s worth it. By first telling something yourself, the other person can join your format and also share the same experience. That is often easier than the freedom of an open question. And so you very quickly have a very different conversation than bidding against each other about how boring the lecture was.
However, also keep in mind that sometimes you are in the opposite role. So if your interlocutor continues to ask questions, before you know it you’ll be elaborating on yourself for a long time, and the attention for the other person will be lost. It is up to you to prevent that, for example by saying: ,,I don’t just want to talk about me, now I really want to know something about you. How was your last working week, did you have such a good moment somewhere last week?”
It is scary to start ‘just like that’ about yourself, and then you also have to keep a sharp eye on whether the conversation is not about you for too long. That is not easy and is about steering. It is the core of business flirting: don’t wait, but create. And you don’t just do it for the other person: that sparkling atmosphere in a conversation also feels better for yourself.
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