This is the Business English Podcast, three tips for socializing at networking events.
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Hey there, Aubrey, how's it going today?
I'm great. How are you, Lindsay? Excellent.
I am so excited to talk about socializing at networking events today.
Such a big, important thing, right? Yes, this is huge for so many of us.
We need that network. This is a high stakes, very important situation.
We want you to be ready when you need to socialize at these events.
It's difficult. to approach a stranger to know how to carry on a conversation with a stranger you need strategies oh my gosh it's so true so do you find it difficult yourself aubry to strike up a conversation with someone you've never met at all a little bit right normally i'm very social i'm very comfortable with people i can strike up a conversation with strangers but this is the scenario where even for me it's difficult when I feel like I need to build a network for my career.
I'm at an industry conference and I feel that pressure a little bit.
I know I can't make a wrong impression. That's when it's difficult.
It's tiring, right? It's even tiring if we're doing the right things.
It's great. I always feel energized. Like I'm going to a conference in Los Angeles next week and I'm excited.
I'm going to talk to a lot of people and but even just having good social skills and saying the right things in English is still exhausting.
So imagine if we're doing the wrong things in English or making mistakes or just guiding the conversation in the wrong way, how tiring that would be, right?
Exactly. So you guys are in for a real treat because we are sharing three tips from a CEO, James Greaves.
He's the CEO of a company called Brand Makers, which puts brands for companies on products.
Yeah. Very successful, very intelligent.
And he, in our business course, he shared three amazing tips for really being successful at these types of networking events.
Yeah. And you interviewed him, Aubrey, right?
And that is the cool thing about our business course.
We have a chance to pull in people that we know who are successful professionals and native speakers of English.
And we interviewed them, right? Asking them good questions and unrehearsed questions.
That's the key. Exactly. So you get that native, natural English from someone in the industry who really knows what they're talking about.
So not only are you learning vocabulary and tips, you're hearing this very natural English that you won't get in a textbook.
Yeah. So speaking of the business English course, Aubrey, what do our listeners need to know before we get into James tips today?
What do we need to know? This is exciting.
We have a special promotion going right now.
If you sign up before March 31st, you can save up to a hundred dollars on our business English course.
Yeah, it's exciting because this is a great time to hunker down and work.
We're just getting through the winter. If you're in our hemisphere, right, we're finishing up with winter, but the weather's getting warmer and soon maybe business events are going to become more common.
People are going to have outdoor networking events, evenings, networking parties.
You want to be ready for those, right? Absolutely.
So guys get in, sign up before midnight on March 31st at all ears, english.com slash business.
Yes. And there's a, there's a timer on that one guys.
So make sure you go and get in again, allersenglish.com slash business.
We'll remind you about this at the end of the episode too, but I am ready for James's tips.
I'm ready to hear them. What are they? Let's dive in.
So number one, he says, don't be a me monster.
He kind of coined this phrase. I hadn't heard it before this interview, but I love it.
And this is all about when you meet someone, how much are you talking about yourself?
How much is the other person talking about?
Yes. And what should be now? So he set an actual percentage.
And I wonder if our listeners are curious what it actually should be.
What did you find out in your conversation with James?
What percentage should we talk about ourselves, Aubrey?
It might surprise you. You might think like, oh, maybe 50-50.
He recommends to aim to talk about yourself 20% of the time at the most.
Because he was talking about if the other person talks about themselves 100% of the time, they will leave that conversation feeling like they liked you because people love talking about themselves.
Whereas if you talk for more than about 20%, they might feel like you talked about yourself the whole time.
Right, for sure. People love talking about themselves.
Yeah, it's just the way we are. Everyone really is this way.
Yeah, so knowing that is kind of a key to success in life.
Just give them the chance, right? And then you'll have plenty of time to let them know you.
I do think it's important to add a little something about yourself because I do know people who say nothing about themselves.
They're only asking questions of the other person.
And it is possible to come away from those conversations feeling like there's nothing on the other side.
Do you know what I mean? You want to care about yourself too.
You want to get information. You want them to know you, but you don't want to go overboard because you want them to leave the interaction feeling like you cared about them.
You wanted to know about them. That's how you build your network.
That's how you build these relationships. connection.
So aiming for that 20% of the time talking about yourself.
Now, I love our next tip, Aubrey. What is this sub tip here under the me monster?
Don't be a me monster. Right. This I've actually experienced personally a few times recently.
If you're talking and you've been talking about yourself a little bit and you feel like that topic's kind of been covered and you want to change the subject, maybe you've been talking about what you did over the weekend and you want to pivot to talk about something else.
You want to pivot to the other person instead of continuing to talk about yourself.
And this has happened a couple of times where I will see someone pivot and continue to share about themselves on a whole separate topic.
Feels a little awkward. Feels like they're really dominating the conversation. and very redundant not redundant but repetitive for sure and i think the reason that's so disturbing when someone does that is because we expect socially we have an expectation the topic is at least going to change away from the person talking about themselves maybe it won't be maybe it could be about the the world in general too right exactly That's something interesting that we both share, right?
We have an expectation and when our expectation is broken and the person doesn't follow that social rule, it's really jarring.
It is jarring and it sends the message that they aren't as interested in what you have to say.
They're more interested in what they have to say, which is never the message you want to send.
For sure. For sure. I love this. And by the way, in the course, of course, we show you how to do all of this in English, guys.
But these are some broad principles or tips.
What would be the second tip from Jane? So number two, that really leads into like, how do you do this?
How do you not be a me monster? How do you not dominate the conversation?
And the answer is to ask questions. Definitely share about yourself as well, but then immediately you can ask them the same thing they asked you or whatever you've just talked about.
What about you? What do you think about that?
What do you like to do in your free time?
What struck me about the interview with James was that he didn't give us the impression that we have to be some kind of social genius to be able to come up with topics.
It's not about that. It's not about overthinking and being so smart and so on the ball.
It's as simple as, so tell me what you do, where you work, where you live, easy topics, just get it over to them.
And you don't even have to be an outgoing person.
He admitted that he's pretty shy. He has a difficult time striking up these conversations, but because he has strategies, he's able to really be successful and has built an amazing network.
I love that. And a network is so important for our career, right?
Because even if you're happy in your current job, you're doing great.
You never know when you'll need to rely on your network to find something else or to add to your work or just to plan, be strategic about your career.
Right, Aubrey? Exactly. All right, let's dive into our third tip here.
This is so good. James talked about it's so important to remember at these events that everyone gets a little nervous in this type of situation.
If you go in there feeling like you're the only one that's nervous and everyone's got this under control, that's a stressful situation to be in.
So give yourself that solidarity, recognizing everyone here is trying to build their network, is meeting people for the first time, that automatically comes with a little bit of stress.
Yeah, I love the idea that, you know, being nervous is just pure energy.
So that could be converted to nervousness, anxiety, or it could be converted to energy and excitement.
And we actually decide which direction to take it in.
Right, Aubrey? Exactly. We did an episode not that long ago.
I hope you guys heard it. It was amazing about how if you're nervous, it's really difficult to convert that to calming down, to tell yourself, I need to calm down.
But it's the same type of emotion as excitement.
So instead, convert it to excitement. Tell yourself, I'm excited.
And then that nervousness will just feel like excitement.
Oh, it's a great idea. I love it. All right.
We have a really fun thing we're doing today with role plays, Aubrey.
What is it? What are we doing today? Two different role plays.
We're going to do the bad example. A little role play here with, you know, you and I have just met in an industry conference.
What not to do. Ready? All right. Here we go.
I'm ready. Okay. Okay. So yeah, I went there last night.
Someone told me about it and said their green curry was phenomenal and they were not exaggerating.
It was fantastic. You should definitely try it.
There was actually a great Thai restaurant where I grew up in California.
We went nearly every week. I have not found anywhere that compares.
Their mango and sticky rice is to die for.
Oh, well, that sounds really good. I'm going to go grab a drink.
Do you want anything? I love this role play so much.
That's it, guys. I probably honestly wouldn't ask you if you wanted a drink because that means I'm coming back to talk with you.
I use this intentionally. This is like one of our tricks for getting out of a conversation.
Because if they say yes, okay, that's all right.
But I can still take my time coming back.
They're likely going to say, no, thanks, I'm fine.
But yeah, a few things that are wrong here, right?
So I'm only talking about myself. And then I pivoted from talking about the place I ate last night to a restaurant that I knew growing up and now I'm talking about my hometown and I'm still talking about myself and I didn't ask a single question about you.
Yeah, and for another episode, by the way, for our listeners, I'm interested in seeing where the pivot was.
Was it where you said there was actually a great Thai restaurant?
Is that what it was? Yeah, and that's a signal, a signpost in a conversation.
There was actually, the word actually, right, means I'm changing the topic.
Sure, I'm still talking about restaurants, but I'm going from talking about where we were eating last night And now I'm like, oh, actually, where I grew up, there was this great Thai place.
This is a great opportunity for me to say, you know, what's the best Thai place?
You know, it'd be so easy to ask you a question instead of continuing to talk about myself.
Right. And that's what breaks our kind of unwritten social rules.
And that's why it's so jarring. But let's come back to that, that pivot moment, Aubrey, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation in another episode of Business English.
Guys, hit the follow button on this show so we can get back to that one.
Absolutely. Love it. All right. Let's do the better example, Lindsay.
This one looks much better. This is what it should sound like.
You want to start us out? All right. So you just moved to Florida.
What took you there? Our daughter lives in Miami.
She just had a baby, so we wanted to be closer.
Wow. Congratulations. Is that your first grandchild?
Yes. We're very excited. That's awesome that you can be so close.
What about you? You said you live in Houston.
Do you have family there? Nice. It feels very balanced, right?
Very pleasant. I like it. Back and forth.
We're asking each other questions. And as you can see the topic, you're not limited.
You can talk about family. This is still small talk, right?
Do you live close to family? The restaurant you ate at last night, sure.
What you do in your free time. This small talk end, it's rarely going to immediately be about business.
We're trying to build these connections, build this network, get to know someone, help them see that you care about them before you dive in to try to create those actual business connections.
I love it. And that's another thing that we talk about in the business course.
We're not robots. We don't automatically leave our humanness behind when we go to work.
Right. So we show you the formal, the informal, but also the semi-formal vocabulary that most courses and textbooks don't show you when it comes to business English.
Right, Aubrey? Exactly. Yes. I am so excited for you guys to check out the business English course.
These tips are so helpful so that you can realize, you know, everyone's nervous in these situations.
You can use these tips to grow your network by building connections, socializing with confidence.
But we have tips for everything you could need at work in this course.
Yes, so excited. So guys, to remind you because the deadline, you know, the clock is ticking.
The deadline is midnight on March 31st. You have a chance to save up to $100 on the business English course, get a clear study plan.
Aubrey, we've added a lot of opportunities to speak.
Lately. Yes. Exactly. When you join any of our courses, we have a weekly open conversation club where you chat with us and other members of our community, meet speaking partners and get that speaking practice.
That also helps you overcome this nervousness, gives you the confidence. so that you're ready for those in-person conversations and also monthly fluency parties.
Lindsay and I are both there. So fun. Yeah.
And of course also weekly Q and a, if you are in the personal coach plan.
So technically you could have, I think about around eight chances to speak per month if you're in certain plans.
And even if you're in our basic plan, at least five chances to speak live and practice per month, which is pretty awesome.
Aubrey, it is amazing. Yes. And then you meet these speaking partners and you can meet up with them on Zoom.
You can create limitless opportunities to speak, which is not the easiest thing to do, to find speaking partners on your own, especially if you're not surrounded by English every day.
So get into our course. We make it easy.
All right, guys. Here's where to go. So go to allearsenglish.com slash business.
Right. Go right there right now. Grab the deal.
The deal will be going away after March 31st at midnight at midnight.
And we will see you there. Aubrey, great episode today.
Thanks for being on the microphone together.
Yeah. Thanks, Lindsay. Have a great day.
Talk to you soon. Bye. Bye. thank you for listening to business english a podcast just for you the high achieving global professional want more from all ears english don't miss our biggest and best podcast with 8 million monthly downloads just search for the all ears english podcast and hit follow to get four new episodes per week on fluency american culture grammar and so much more or Tap the link in the show notes.
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