If you’re a business person, chances are you’re having conversations every single day. You’re talking to people in your network, making connections in your niche, and hopefully even branching out. At the moment, we’re heading into a peak period for connecting and reconnecting. The festive season is packed full of social opportunities, which means there’s no better time than right now for taking advantage of them.
See, those little conversations you’re having with people in your network and beyond, have incredible value. It might not seem like it, but their value cannot be underestimated. The biggest issue is that most people aren’t ready or able to see the opportunities that these little conversations provide. Taking control and starting to make the most of these kinds of 5-minute conversations is what this article is all about.
Mapping Your Collective Influence
You should think of every conversation as a chance for a new beginning. Opportunities are everywhere, but often missed by people who aren’t ready to seize them. The best way to figure out if you’re ready to conquer the 5-minute conversation is to look at your own self and your collective influence. Understanding your collective influence, which is a representation of all the attributes you possess that can have an effect on others, is important in this process. You can start by looking at the four attributes that make up that collective influence, which are:
- Your Actions and Congruency: who you are and the messages you’re communicating.
- Your Reputation: what others know about you before they meet you
- Your Emotional Clarity and Strength: how attractive and authentic you are in the sense of your worth to others.
- Timing and Power Questions: the key ingredients of the 5-minute conversation.
When you’re able to take these things into account, you’re poised to see the opportunities that are right in front of you, and ready to become a master of the 5-minute conversation.
Become The Master Of the 5-Minute Conversation
You’re probably thinking by now: I want to be successful with my 5-minute conversations. Great news, that desire has put you on the right track. See, I’m going to share with you the mindset that all great networkers have in their 5-minute conversations:
Service
That’s right. The best networkers make the most of their 5-minute conversations by focusing all of their actions on looking out for the needs of the other person in those conversations. Sounds counterintuitive? Well it’s not because it taps into a desire at the centre of human nature: building connections.
So, instead of focusing on themselves and aspiring to be self-serving, they instead flip the game and work to be of enormous service. In this way, they become enormously influential, and build incredibly strong and deep networks based on mutual respect instead of casual acquaintance. These aren’t people who want to buy from you, but people who want you to succeed and become extensions of you in terms of championing your services, cause and abilities to others.
Becoming a master of the 5-minute conversation is something anybody can do. It requires your awareness, close attention, commitment and a dedication towards taking action. I can help you to conquer this core part of networking, with professional development aimed to make it easier for you not just to notice, but to seize the many opportunities that 5-minute conversations can present.
Connect with me now for further information and dates on networking workshops, and become a 5-minute conversation expert today.