By way of background, I’d received an email from this student asking me some questions and responded to his questions within 24 hours. After that, I didn’t hear anything (not even as much as a “thank you”) for over a week and, when I did hear from him, he had even more questions for me. This is pretty much a no-no for me because it is a case of someone not reciprocating the kind of respect that I’ve shown by providing a swift response. Even worse, I’ve seen instances of young professionals being roasted by older, more senior people for this sort of thing, so I saw this as a much-needed teaching moment.
Instead of side-stepping this teaching moment, I gave him immediate feedback about it and it seemed to have an impact. He almost immediately replied with the email below and started the message with an apology, which I didn’t copy into the text below. The first part of my email to him involved me schooling him on proper email communication etiquette, especially when dealing with a more senior from whom he has made a request. It wasn’t a big deal for me, but, for a college student, this kind of lesson can have HUGE longer-term implications. It’s all about relationships and making the right impression in the early stages.
After learning the lesson mentioned above, the student asked for my advice on how to conduct a professional conversation because, while he was comfortable in social situations, he struggled in professional discussions. This was a topic that I know all too well due to my own struggles with social anxiety over the years. In order to answer his question, I pulled from my own experiences in strengthening my professional communication skills and hope that my tips are ones that he will be able to implement without much trouble.
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AP wrote:
Mr. Parker,
Thank you, I was really worried I made a mistake. What would you like as a good response time from me? I was also wondering if you had any tips on carrying a professional conversation? I am really good in carrying a conversation on a social scale, but when I am in a professional environment, I draw a blank and can never think up of any good questions.
With regards,
AP
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My response:
AP,
Well, in general, you should base the response time on a couple of things. First, if the other person hit you with a response within a day, then you would owe that person at least the same courtesy. Second, if you’re interacting with a senior person and it takes him/her a few days to respond, you should still respond within a day because their schedule is infinitely more flexible than theirs. Also, if you wait too long, you may not get another reply from the person at all because you will have fallen off of his or her radar in the meantime.
In general, use the rule of thumb that, while you may feel OK with letting your family or friends wait a few days for an email response, you should never take that stance with a business contact, particularly if it is someone more senior than you or someone from whom you would like to get advice or ask for a favor. Relationships are too important to the growth of one’s career to let something as simple as not responding promptly to an email unravel an interaction.
Now, let’s get to your question about professional conversations. It’s definitely a good one and hits an issue that is key for college students interested in business to understand. I used to be awful at having professional conversations, but I eventually figured out a few techniques to help me to push through those earlier struggles:
- A key to having a good conversation is to go in knowing that 99% of people that you’ll meet will welcome the opportunity to talk about himself/herself. I’ve found that this is especially true in a business setting when talking to more senior folks because they tend to like talking about their accomplishments and/or sharing wisdom based on their experiences. This may seem pretty basic, but it didn’t really hit me until my late 20s. Before that, I would shy away from more senior people ebcause I’d assume that they wouldn’t want to talk to me. Once it hit me that I could be a perfect target to allow them to talk about themselves, it became incredibly easy to make the initial approach.
- One of the best things that you can do to keep a conversation going is to have some standard go-to questions to start things off and then, as the discussion progresses, find opportunities to ask other questions. I cycle between 3 go-to questions when I’m kicking off a conversation with a new person: “So, what’s your story?”, “Where are you from?”, and “What do you do?”. I’m not a huge fan of the last one because I try to connect more on a personal level than a professional one, but I’ve learned that a lot of businesspeople are more open to telling you about their jobs than about their backgrounds. After that initial question, I’ve found that asking probing/follow-on questions about the person’s response is a great way to make a discussion flow from seemingly nothing. It’ll feel weird and maybe even contrived at first, but, as you get more familiar with it, you’ll find that it can take the nervousness out of talking to someone new. Remember, almost every person on this planet LOVES having to have a chance to talk about himself/herself.
- Another tool that you’ll want to have in your conversational toolkit is a good elevator pitch to describe your background. The term “elevator pitch” refers to a description of yourself that is comprehensive enough to describe your background to a good level of detail but short enough to finish during the course of an elevator ride. When you’re talking to someone on an elevator, you never know when he/she will get off, so you’ll need to make sure that you get your statement out in time. As such, I always advise people to keep their elevator pitches down to 60-90 seconds at most. Don’t include any extra stuff that will make it run on and on and on because you’d risk missing out on the chance to share some more important things about yourself. My rule of thumb is to stay high-level with it and then to share details if I’m asked for them later. Having a good elevator pitch will allow the person with whom you’re engaged in a conversation to use the same technique that I described in my previous point on you. It is sort of a “must-have” if you want to move forward and make connections in the business game.
- The most important advice that I can provide on this is to carry yourself with confidence and act as if you’re supposed to be in the game. I’m referring to the tendency to come across as nervous or shaky in instance when one feels uneasy about being in a conversation. This uneasiness can be the result of feeling too young/junior, worrying about not having anything interesting to contribute, or stressing about how you might be coming across. Often, getting lost inside of your own head can be the kiss of death. To avoid this, you have to approach these encounters with the mindset that you do have something to offer and that you are just as worthy of getting to know as the other person is. This is goes hand-in-hand with the concept of answering the “Why are you great?” question that I covered during my talk. Once you convince yourself that you have something to offer, it will become much easier to engage in professional conversations.
Take care and have a good day.
Marquis
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