Tips for Great Conversation Starters

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Networking In Everyday Situations
I like to travel economy sometimes, because going on a short flight, I find that a lot of people these days don’t want to spend the extra money on first-class for a short flight. So I’ll sit down and I’ll have a conversation where the first thing I’ll say is, “Are you going home, or are you heading out for a meeting?”

And a lot of times they’ll say, “Oh, I’m heading out to a meeting,” especially if it’s the morning. And we’ll then have a dialogue. I’ll joke about the fact that I won’t pay for first-class for short rides to create this dialogue. Now we’re having a dialogue about all the people that are in first class.

There’s a story in the book actually about one of the turkey telegram data best relationships I created was literally at an airport. The flight had been delayed and I’m sitting in a restaurant waiting for my flight to get sorted. I heard everybody else talking about the conference that they’re going to next to me. And I was the speaker at the conference. So I turned around and said, “I’m hoping that we can get out today as well.” And that is all I needed. That is just building on something that you’re overhearing.

The night before an event, I’ll go out for a meal and generally I’ll sit at the bar and there’ll be another executive sitting at the bar because they don’t want to sit at a restaurant by themselves. They’re like, “You’re in business, too?” And then we’ll have a conversation. I’ll say, “What did you order? Is it any good?” That dialogue is all you need to strike up a conversation. And then I’ll say, “What are you here for?” It literally brings the same conversation back.

I’ll then invest in them about what they do, what brought them there, if they got some time to enjoy the city, some of the things that I saw earlier today, if I’d been to the city before, and eventually they’ll say, “So rude of me, I cannot believe I haven’t asked you what you do. What is it that you do?”

The thing is that you can create these serendipity moments everywhere. It’s unbelievable. I talk about this for a whole chapter. So many people tell me how lucky I am for running into all the right people. I have practiced and practiced so much that I always have conversations thought out.