What to Say When You Don’t Know What to Say

Imagine this scenario: you’re at a business event, and your goal is to meet prospective customers. But your strength is accounting, not sales! How do you build rapport quickly enough to find out which people might need your help?

Does this happen to you? Most people need to work on being comfortable enough with a group of strangers to wade right in and start communicating.

Here are a few tips that may help.

• Approach someone and offer your hand to shake as you introduce yourself.
• Ask about him/her and his/her business and LISTEN to the answers.

Ask things like:

• What do you do?
• What does your ideal customer look like?
• What can I do to help you?

You’ll find that asking these types of questions and LISTENING to the answers (instead of thinking about what you are going to say next while he is talking) will start the process of building a connection. Everyone likes to talk about himself and anything about them – their kids, their business, their dog, their political opinion, etc.

Most people will respond in kind and ask you questions, giving you a chance to talk about your business (and your kids, and your dog, and your political opinion...).

Best of all? It’s a quick and painless way to decide whether or not this person meets your ideal customer criteria.

The Greek philosopher Epictetus said, “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” And that is my recipe for building rapport quickly when I don’t know what to say.