I once went to a networking event where the first three people I came across all asked me the same opening question “what do you do?” By the time the last of those had asked me, I couldn’t help myself and responded with “Why was that the first question you wanted to ask?”
“I just wanted to know a bit about you” she replied. “Okay then, I have 2 sons, I play cricket and I hate spiders, does that help?”
I’m sure my response didn’t endear me to her very much, but my point here is that asking “What do you do?” at the beginning of the conversation is irrelevant. Even if I sold the exact product or service my three questioners were looking for, they were no more likely to buy from me if I told them what I did, then they were before we met. Also, do we really care about the answers? “I’m the Business Development Manager of who gives a toss.” It may be easier to ask and state our name, rank and number, but far less interesting than what lies beneath our chosen careers.
In a recent blog, Ann Hawkins wrote about the importance of trust in a buying/selling relationship, and even if you’ve established a need, a want, a financial fit and a timescale, there’s still nothing to glue those factors together without trust. Ann states that “You win people over by consistently sharing your values, your beliefs, and your stories.” Therefore, asking what someone does for a business tells you little about who they really are, which is what we should be trying to understand.
What should I ask?
Build a conversation with a simple foundation question, such as “What brings you to this event?” By all means, ask them at some point what they do, but only when you care and you can see some potential in the relationship.
And the next time someone asks you “What do you do?” tell them what you’re passionate about, what really drives you, and then ask them to do the same. The conversations that spawn from this tactic will be far less predictable and so much more fascinating.
As Dale Carnegie wrote in How to Win Friends and Influence People…
“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
We should all stop finding out what people do, and be more interested by finding out why they do it.