decisions

How easy do you find it to get people interested when you’re networking and
building relationships?

Whether you’re selling an idea, a vision, an argument or a product/service, you want people engaged with your pitch. You want to elicit these magic words:

• That’s interesting – tell me more.
• That sounds/looks good – keep talking.

If they’re coming back at you with follow up questions such as these, you’ve got a chance:

• Really – how do you do that?
• So how does it/will it work?

These are buying signals. They’re buying into you as a person. They’re open to liking and trusting you. A classic example is your elevator pitch when networking. If they ask you what you do and your best response yields anything that sounds like:

• So what?
• Big deal.
• Not another one.
• Heard it all before.

… then you’ve missed your chance. You’ve got to get people interested from the ‘get-go’, or you’ll be on the back foot from that moment on. There’s nothing more embarrassing than somebody back-peddling in a networking situation, realising that they’ve done too much selling and are quickly losing credibility.

Remember that people are busier now than ever before. More subjected to advertising messages and marketing collateral from your competition than ever before. More overloaded with demands, decisions and dilemmas than ever before.

You’ve got to cut through, create swift engagement and provide some kind of hook or bait that will make people bite. That means being and sounding just a little better and different than your competition.

This is a constant theme with my networking coaching clients – standing out and getting people to ‘bite’. Here are my top two tips for eliciting a ‘tell me more’ response instead of a ‘so what?’ response. In other words, two things you can do to get people more interested:

1.  BE RELEVANT. The more you can talk about their problems, their world, their life and their challenges, the more interested people will be. You know you should make it all about them, but you still get caught up in talking all about you. Have a handful of great questions planned which will launch you into their world. One of my favourites is ‘So what’s the biggest thing you’re working on at the moment?’

2.  TELL A STORY. Or give an example. Don’t just say what you do or how it works. Illustrate. It makes it come to life. It could be a great anecdote about how you came to be in your business, how you got started, a big or interesting project you worked on, a big win or massive problem you solved or some funny, engaging tale of everyday life in your wonderful world. Stories are ‘passonable’ a great word taught to me by referral expert Sarah Owen.

You’ve got a limited window of opportunity to get into their psyche and land yourself in their mind. Make it count!