Small talk tips?

[Kingmaker]

Some people are great communicators and can talk to absolutely anyone, and some suck at it. I'm the latter. I'm trying to get better.

Here are a few tips that I wrote down so far from asking the 'natural' communicators and searching the forum:

- While the other person is still talking, already start thinking about what you're going to say next.
- If the person has kids, ask about them.
- Ask the other party questions and get them to talk about themselves.
- Use the person's name as much as possible (from how to make friends and influence people).

I've used them all and had moderate success. But not knowing what to say next still happens to me and is not the best feeling in the world. Are there anymore tricks like above?

(I realize that practice is paramount in achieving this but I'm trying to make that practice more productive.)

 

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[FastNAwesome]

- Ask the other party questions and get them to talk about themselves.

I think it pretty much comes to this one.

- Use the person's name as much as possible (from how to make friends and influence people).

Powerful too, but forget the "as much as possible" part, it will be too much, and make you sound like some lousy MLM marketer. Use it as much as you would with your friend, but not more than that.

But not knowing what to say next still happens to me and is not the best feeling in the world.

Something that friends can do together is to be silent. Try to become comfortable with silence, so comfortable that the other person feels it too, and becomes comfortable too. That can just bring you closer together.

It's cool to shut up when you got nothing to say. So instead of trying to prevent "awkward silences" - try to prevent "awkward chatting". You know - neither of you has nothing to say, and then someone goes like: "so...it's a sunny day today" - and the other one replies: "yeah, because there are no clouds"

It's ridiculous

But if your goal is to keep the small talk going as much as possible, I find that when I ask people questions about them, most of the time it's hard to stop them talking, they keep going on and on.

Further, if you try to understand how the other person feels (have empathy for their feelings) - your questions and comments will be aligned with that, and you can chat with them all day long (although I don't see much value in that

 

[Mr.B]

- While the other person is still talking, already start thinking about what you're going to say next.

I disagree with this one. Much better to listen to what the other person is saying and give them 100% of your attention.

 

[Falco]

If one needs a step by step smalltalk guide ( most people do this naturally, but maybe it helps somebody ):

+ casually start the conversation with a statement / your opinion about your environment or a specific situation.
+ follow up with a question about that topic
+ if the other persons responds with something that contains information ...
+ ... follow up on that piece of information with a statement and/or a question and so on.

If the person doesn´t want to talk he/she won´t respond with information you can follow up on.


If you are shy and have troubles initiating a conversation because of fear you might get rejected,
body language can help you:

+ never give somebody your full attention ( pointing your whole body in his/her direction or leaning in too close ) when first initiating a conversation
+ instead, point your head only in the direction of your small talk partner
+ this way, you won´t feel rejected when your "target" doesn´t want to talk. You can just turn your head away.
+ only give somebody your full attention when he/she has EARNED it by sharing information with you


Hope this helps someone,

Best regards,


Falco

 

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[GIlman]

The key to small talk is to bring value to the conversation. People love to talk about themselves, and the best value you can bring in the eyes of the other person is often just listening and asking intelligent well thought out questions to probe deeper into what they are already talking about. But you have to do this because you genuinely are interested and engaged in what they are saying not because you are trying to manipulate them into talking to you.

 

[Durete]

- Be genuinely interested in them.(They will notice if you're not really interested and then you're losing massive points.)
========>- Don't think about yourself or what you want to say <=======
- Never interrupt anyone.(No matter how much you urge to give your oppinion or say something.)
- Get them to talk about themselves.
- Get them to think (about themselves).
- Ask follow up questions, but don't become an interviewer.
- Lead the flow of the conversation

 

[theag]

You have to be genuinely interested in other people. Then you will naturally listen to them, ask them more detailed questions based on what they just told you etc. Everybody likes to talk about themselves, so give them the opportunity.

 

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[Forodstar]

What are did you do last weekend?

Got anything planned for the holidays?

What have you been working on lately?


The golden one:

bla bla bla

How do you feel about that?

 

[Yasai]

What's the benefit of learning something as dull as small-talk?

 

[Durete]

What's the benefit of learning something as dull as small-talk?

You need small talk to be allowed to have any other talk with that person.
Also if you don't master small-talk you are unable to master any type of human to human communication.
And disable yourself from actually building up people skills.

People skills in business is the #1 reason why big CEO's get hired for 6 numbers and up salaries.
(Or why business that involves people thrive really...) People skills is why presidents get chosen etc.

Small talk is what makes the world go around in business, hospitality, or well...any area where humans are involved.
The only type of people that usually do not appreciate small talk are the ones that have autistic personalities. (And even 2 out of 5 of the autistic personality types do appreciate some sorts of small-talk, they are just unable to lead or initiate them.) But it is up to you and your people knowledge, build through small talk, to detect those kind of people quickly.

 

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[Andy Black]

You have to be genuinely interested in other people. Then you will naturally listen to them, ask them more detailed questions based on what they just told you etc. Everybody likes to talk about themselves, so give them the opportunity.

theag's spot on.

Get good at communicating by getting good at listening.

There's one question that always gets business owners talking:

"How's business?"​

 

[smarty]

Some people are great communicators and can talk to absolutely anyone, and some suck at it. I'm the latter. I'm trying to get better.

- While the other person is still talking, already start thinking about what you're going to say next.

Same here.
A critical thing is to realize that you feel stuck because you feel like you have less value than the other person. Then you judge yourself for feeling that way and you feel smaller and smaller and before you know it, you're stuck in your head trying to come up with something smart to say in order to compensate for that and to look "normal".
You judge yourself for judging yourself for judging yourself. Snowball effect.

This most probably comes down to shame or guild you have experienced in your childhood which is not healed yet.

You don't feel any shame or guilt or self-judgement when you are in a dream, do you?

So try to minimize judging the things you say or trying to come up with things to say.
Stop judging yourself as "less than".

As much as you try to force it, you can not hide from your true self forever.

You may try to show to other people that you are a nice person or that you are smart.
But your true nature is that you are just a free person.

The very fact that you do not feel comfortable with the person you have became, is telling you that you are not as smart as you think, so drop that belief and be just a free person.

Small talk is what makes the world go around in business, hospitality, or well...any area where humans are involved.

Small-talk or big-talk just for the sake of expression. A basic human need is the need to express themselves in different ways, to feel more connected and not separated from the world.

That's not necessarily connected with the "holy" success.


p.s.: I learned a few things about myself while writing this!

 

[Yasai]

Small talk is what makes the world go around in business, hospitality, or well...any area where humans are involved.

I'm sure Elon Musk and Bill Gates got their success from talking about the weather all the time... That must be their secret.
Damnit those smart bastards and their small-talk skills.

he only type of people that usually do not appreciate small talk are the ones that have autistic personalities.

If being unable to tolerate dull and un-inspiring BS from people, who only seem to care about "what Miley Cyrus does next", I'd happily consider myself to be blessed with crippling autism ;-)

 

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[jon.a]

- While the other person is still talking, already start thinking about what you're going to say next.

Do this to me and piss me off, pay attention.
If you get stuck say, "I didn't understand that last part."

 

[Durete]

I'm sure Elon Musk and Bill Gates got their success from talking about the weather all the time... That must be their secret.
Damnit those smart bastards and their small-talk skills.

They are masters at small talk, in fact almost all presidents of the US have been masters at small talk.

Think of it this way:
The goal is to sell a product.

Team a) Contact people, and they say "This is what we offer, want to buy?"
Team b) Goes to people, small talks with them, create a bond, get some emotions going, then they steer their conversation towards their product and offer to sell.

Which team will be more succesfull?
I can asure it's team B.

Small talk is a tool to get an opening with people.

If the revenue department at the cruise line where I work for would stop small talking, we would lose an estimate of $800.000 of revenue per week.(That is per ship, we have a small armada...)
In fact, nobody gets hired that is unable to do small talk. and if they did slip through and get on they will be discharged if they don't catch up. As people that are not skilled in small talk are useless if you deal directly with guests/customers.

If being unable to tolerate dull and un-inspiring BS from people, who only seem to care about "what Miley Cyrus does next", I'd happily consider myself to be blessed with crippling autism ;-)

Again small talk is the first step to get to know the audience, to get to know the people, What makes them tick.
If you find out what make people tick and you've build up that little connection of small talk, out you have influence over them. and can guide them to buying your product, signing that contract, becomming your supplier, choosing you instead of x amount of other businesses etc.

And autism itself isn't a bad thing A lot of inventors and so called geniusses had/have an autistic personality. Einstein, mozart, Newton, Darwin, michelangelo, Thomas jefferson to be a few of them.
People with an autistic personality tend to be also the ones better at logical thinking, but worse at people skills.
And in the end people that can think end up working for someone else, while people with people skills go to the top.

 

[Formless]

Smarty has the most valuable post in this thread. Re-read it and take it to heart.

All technique is useless if being sociable and high-value is not part of your character.

You cannot act out of line with your identity for prolonged periods of time. You need to root out limiting beliefs and change your self-image. When you change your self-image to that of a high-value, high confidence person, you will realize the insignificance of technique, because 'it will appear' out of nowhere.

I have 3 post-it notes hung up in my room:

Identity makes decisions

Rationality makes analyses

The subconscious finds the way



Find out who you are, find out what you want to be, and become it. Whether it's through action strong enough to shatter your current beliefs, visualization, NLP, whatever... But technique is not the problem.

I recommend you read the 'Be. Do. Have.' Thread on this forum, then read 'Psycho Cybernetics' by Maxwell Maltz.

 

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[Solrac]

I've always been told that if I was put in a room with someone, after one hour I would be that persons best friend.

I like to talk about things that everyone has an opinion on, it's the easiest way to make small talk imo. Always listen intently, without offending. And after you bring up one of those subjects, you just go back and forth.

 

[Neil Mayfield]

I honestly just ask people a lot of questions. You would be amazed how much people want to talk and appreciate someone to listen to. I ask questions and then once I find some common ground, I take the conversation down that road.

 

[GratefulScorpio]

let people do the talking, you do the listening!

When I mean listening, don't just nod your head, you need to be 100% engaged!

When you let people talk you:

- make more friends! (they realize you are interested in what they have to say)
- you learn more about the person your listening too, genuine stuff!

please don't try to fake it, you can sense it! (beep beep)

 

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[Bila]

I find that this is one of my strenghts as a business person, and people tell me that all the time so here my 2 cents :
1- The ability to "read " people and to change your style according to their personalities and needs. ....otherwise ...there is no " one type " of small talk ... Look at how they behave, how they talk... Shy person ? You need then to take the lead a bit ( especially for decision making )...... Assertive, aggresive person ? Tone down a bit so the other person lowers the guards and be more receptive..... Etc.
2- Be genuine in your interest, otherwise, .... People feel the fake interest anyway.

 

[Mr.B]

If being unable to tolerate dull and un-inspiring BS from people, who only seem to care about "what Miley Cyrus does next", I'd happily consider myself to be blessed with crippling autism ;-)

Small talk isn't about 'what Miley Cyrus does next', it's about engaging with people. Once you are engaged in a conversation with someone and they know that you are listening to what they have to say, it is surprisingly easy to lead the conversation in a different direction and engage in 'big talk'.

 

[birdy05]

It helps to find a topic of interest. Sports and travel are pretty good ones, or recent events in your local area. If you can find a way to bring in a topic like that usually they will contribute by expressing their own opinion or telling you a story. Once that gets going you need to listen so you can ask questions so that you can keep the conversation going and also make them feel like you care what they have to say. It makes you more likeable. If you start thinking about what to say next then you're going to cut the topic short when it could go on for much longer. Eventually it'll just keep happening until you won't be able to think of anymore things to say next. You'll also limit yourself from being able to improve as a good communicater. It is way more important to listen than to talk. Another reason is because if you listen to them you learn a lot of things which will eventually help in the future when you talk to other people. Say they enjoy hiking and they let you know of a really good place. Then maybe in the future you run into another person who likes hiking but previously you knew nothing about it. Well now you can tell them "hey I heard from a friend this was a good place. Have you been there? I haven't tried it myself but I heard it beautiful". It sounds like you are contributing to the conversation and you are asking them a question so that they will continue to talk more and express their opinions. People love to talk about themselves it makes them feel valued if they feel that you are actively listening to what they have to say.

 

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[Kreedos Phoenix]

The most powerful gift you can give someone is the gift of your attention. Look the other party straight in the eye during interactions and smile/smirk with anticipation. Be genuine in your approach. Treat that person like gold. Be thankful to be speaking with them. Personally, the reason I can fit in with any party is because I am thankful to be in that persons presence.

I try to draw off of their experience and I am appreciative of their journey. Be genuine about the interaction. If you are a man or woman of integrity, you will have no issue with small talk, as your genuine interest in someone will shine. Just my experience.