How to Talk to Anyone

Highlights

• His wisdom for the ages said success lay in smiling, showing interest in other people, and making them feel good about themselves.
  • Tags: [[social-skills]]
• There are two kinds of people in this life: Those who walk into a room and say, ‘Well, here I am!’ And those who walk in and say, ‘Ahh, there you are.’
• Don’t flash an immediate smile when you greet someone, as though anyone who walked into your line of sight would be the beneficiary. Instead, look at the other person’s face for a second. Pause. Soak in their persona. Then let a big, warm, responsive smile flood over your face and overflow into your eyes.
• Pretend your eyes are glued to your Conversation Partner’s with sticky warm toffee. Don’t break eye contact even after he or she has finished speaking. When you must look away, do it ever so slowly, reluctantly, stretching the gooey toffee until the tiny string finally breaks.
• Visualize a circus iron-jaw bit hanging from the frame of every door you walk through. Take a bite and, with it firmly between your teeth, let it swoop you to the peak of the big top. When you Hang by Your Teeth, every muscle is stretched into perfect posture position.
• Give everyone you meet the Big-Baby Pivot. The instant the two of you are introduced, reward your new acquaintance. Give the warm smile, the total-body turn, and the undivided attention you would give a tiny tyke who crawled up to your feet, turned a precious face up to yours, and beamed a big toothless grin. Pivoting 100 per cent toward New Person shouts ‘I think you are very, very special.’
• When meeting someone, imagine he or she is an old friend (an old customer, an old beloved, or someone else you had great affection for). How sad, the vicissitudes of life tore you two asunder. But, holy mackerel, now the party (the meeting, the convention) has reunited you with your long-lost old friend!
  • Tags: [[social-skills]]
• Make it a habit to get on a dual track while talking. Express yourself, but keep a keen eye on how your listener is reacting to what you’re saying. Then plan your moves accordingly.
• Rehearse being the Super Somebody you want to be ahead of time. See yourself walking around with Hang by Your Teeth posture, shaking hands, smiling the Flooding Smile, and making Sticky Eyes. Hear yourself chatting comfortably with everyone. Feel the pleasure of knowing you are in peak form and everyone is gravitating toward you. Visualize yourself a Super Somebody. Then it all happens automatically.
• When consulting for Fortune 500 companies, I was astounded. Top executives, completely comfortable making big talk with their boards of directors or addressing their stockholders, confessed they felt like little lost children at parties where the pratter was less than prodigious.
  • Tags: [[social-skills]]
• You see, small talk is not about facts or words. It’s about music, about melody. Small talk is about putting people at ease. It’s about making comforting noises together like cats purring, children humming, or groups chanting. You must first match your listener’s mood.
• Before opening your mouth, take a ‘voice sample’ of your listener to detect his or her state of mind. Take a ‘psychic photograph’ of the expression to see if your listener looks buoyant, bored, or blitzed. If you ever want to bring people around to your thoughts, you must match their mood and voice tone, if only for a moment.
• Whoozat is the most effective, least used (by nonpoliticians) meeting-people device ever contrived. Simply ask the party giver to make the introduction, or pump for a few facts that you can immediately turn into icebreakers.
• Salespeople, this technique is especially crucial for you. Keep your Swivelling Spotlight aimed away from you, only lightly on your product, and most brightly on your buyer. You’ll do a much better job of selling yourself and your product.
• When you meet someone, imagine a giant revolving spotlight between you. When you’re talking, the spotlight is on you. When New Person is speaking, it’s shining on him or her. If you shine it brightly enough, the stranger will be blinded to the fact that you have hardly said a word about yourself. The longer you keep it shining away from you, the more interesting he or she finds you.
• Never be left speechless again. Like a parrot, simply repeat the last few words your Conversation Partner says. That puts the ball right back in his or her court, and then all you need to do is listen.
• The sweetest sound a performer can hear welling up out of the applause is ‘Encore! Encore! Let’s hear it again!’ The sweetest sound your Conversation Partner can hear from your lips when you’re talking with a group of people is ‘Tell them about the time you …’
• When first meeting someone, lock your closet door and save your skeletons for later. You and your new good friend can invite the skeletons out, have a good laugh, and dance over their bones later in the relationship. But now’s the time, as the old song says, to ‘ac-cen-tu-ate the pos-i-tive and elim-i-nate the neg-a-tive.’
• A sure sign you’re a Somebody is the conspicuous absence of the question, ‘What do you do?’ (You determine this, of course, but not with those four dirty words that label you as either (1) a ruthless networker, (2) a social climber, (3) a gold-digging husband or wife hunter, or (4) someone who’s never strolled along Easy Street.)
• Just as job-seeking top managers roll a different written resume off their printers for each position they’re applying for, let a different true story about your professional life roll off your tongue for each listener. Before responding to ‘What do you do?’ ask yourself, ‘What possible interest could this person have in my answer? Could he refer business to me? Buy from me? Hire me? Marry my sister? Become my buddy?’
• Here’s the technique I call Kill the Quick ‘Me, Too!’ Whenever people mention an activity or interest you share, let them enjoy discussing their passion. Then, when the time is right, casually mention you share their interest.
• Whenever you have something in common with someone, the longer you wait to reveal it, the more moved (and impressed) he or she will be. You emerge as a confident Big Cat, not a lonely little stray, hungry for quick connection with a stranger.