I just spent the past week at an industry conference, and after returning home, have come to appreciate the intricacies of personal branding and how you should conduct yourself when meeting a slew of new people, especially in a business setting.
The truth is, I am fond of people watching; I am fascinated by human behavior and the ins and outs of what motivates people and what drives perception. When you get the chance to meet so many new people in such a short period of time, it is crucially important to be someone that people will not only remember, but also remember in a positive light.
Meeting new people and leaving a good impression is difficult. Get too friendly too quickly and you risk coming off as disingenuous or even worse, incompetent. Be too formal and too business-like and you risk being perceived as boring and average.
What’s the right balance?
From my experience, in a business setting, it almost always makes sense to start off more formal. This doesn’t mean you can’t be nice or you can’t smile, it just means you should keep your discussions about business. You shouldn’t jump into discussions about the city that person is from, or the weather outside. You should frame the conversation from a business relationship first, and then gradually make the transition into more casual topics.
After meeting dozens of people, it was interesting to see some people become so casual so quickly, that it was hard to take those people seriously. Others were just way too formal. By being too formal, they are going to miss out on the vast opportunities that are created when you create rapport and emotional connections with people.
How to have a proper business discussion
I highly recommend using SPIN techniques to learn how to better uncover business commonality and opportunity. The techniques were originally created for selling, but in reality are the core tenets of any business relationship. It requires you to ask the right questions, uncover the important facts, listen intensely, and then make your diagnosis only after you have the right context for the relationship.
It’s only there, after a basic conversation about business that you should feel free to transition into a personal discussion. You not only should transition into a personal discussion on your first conversation, but you should also do it in a way that will make the other person feel comfortable.
One of the ways I transition into a personal discussion is by asking where that person’s company is located, and if they recommend the city as a whole. The question seems like a question about business, but in reality leads the person to discuss what they like or dislike about the city they live in.
By asking questions like this, the person you are speaking with has the freedom to be as casual or formal as they feel comfortable with. You’re not asking, “what are your hobbies”, you’re letting that person disclose why they enjoy living in the city they do. Maybe they’ll tell you how they went to college there, or how they love the city because of their sports teams. Maybe they love the fact that their city allows them to hike in the summers and ski in the winters. Either way, it’s a way to give a person an outlet to share their passions, and you’ve done it with a smooth transition. When you make a transition like this, you make the other person interesting, which we know leads to reciprocated feelings. The other person has gotten casual before you have, so you keep your competence intact while creating the emotional connection you’ll need to create a real relationship.
