Networking and Socialising

Introduction:-

When all things are equal people prefer to do business with friends. And they even prefer to do business with friends when things are not equal.

                                   - Mark McCormack

                   

            Networking and Socialising are significant facets to build long- lasting business relationship based on trust and mutual respect, especially while working internationally. It is vital to maintain good personal relationship to make difficult business discussion and decision easier to handle. In some cultures the strong business relationship is even more important to maintain strong business relationship or to improve the business English related Networking and Socialising. For that there is five steps, which are.,

1. Say "Hello" properly
2. Make active small talk
3. Look for "Hot buttons"
4. SOFTEN your approach
5. Grab opportunities

                      

1. Say "Hello" property:-

                      It is said that "you never have a second chance to make a first impression". So in business, to take a pleasant initiative is vital. Crystal clear, mirror like reply is always amiable by the business partner. The word "hello" will tell our business partner how we are feeling about meeting them. It can be highly formal or informal. There is many ways to reply their greetings like;

• It's an honour to meet you.
• How do you do?
• How are you doing?
• How are things?
• Hi there.

               Instead of simple reaction, it's an opportunity to take an initiative; for that the first requirement is to "be proactive" and "be flexible".  It depends on the situation of a person to be too friendly or too choose an informal greeting. When we greet people first time, the phrase "Nice to meet you" is friendly but business like and easy to get reply "Nice to meet you, too". After saying "Hello", it is difficult to introduce yourself, which can cause cultural problems. It differs from country to country or culture to culture. For instance,

In Germany, you might offer only their  family name. Like Schmidt.But in Sweden, you might only offer the first name, Like Manfred. But while working internationally, we need to use both name, which is one of the ways to "Be Proactive". But that time don't say "I am Manfred Schmidt".  This indicates that your business partner  has to choose either Manfred or Mr Schmidt. Instead we have to indicate what we want to be called Schmidt or Manfred.

             So to make it clear, we have to say that "Hi there! I am Manfred, Manfred Schmidt". It means that a person telling you to call him by his first name. In international business situation this approach is the best one. It means that your first two sentences would be like this,

"Nice to meet you, I am Manfred, Manfred Schmidt."

2. Make active small talk:-

            The criteria of small talk differs from culture to culture. Some demands it, whilst other ignore it. But in international business communication, small active talk become extremely helpful. You can start to break the ice or take an initiative by talking about neutral or non controversial topics. Neutral topics like, the weather, the trip, the hostel and the town - all are easy to talk about without disagreement or controversy. In Britain, there is three taboos subjects for small talk - politics, sex and religion, because it may become an argument to talk about them. All the impact of the small talk in business may ruin your business relationship. Even if you come from a country where small talk is not part of your culture, try to use it as an icebreaker with your international guests before the meeting like, in the taxi, at the airport or over a coffee.

         Small talk is like a friendly game of tennis. The idea is to keep the ball going backwards and forwards over the net. The main linguistic tool in successful small talk is to ask the open questions whose answer should not simple "yes or no", instead asking open questions can help to inviting longer answers to make easier to develop a conversation. For open questions use the "W" question words instead, like.,

What? Why? When? Where? Who? Which? How?

        Such questions will open up the conversation and start the ball rolling, but do remember that to keep your end of the tennis game going. Even when your partner ask you a question that you could answer them with a single word, don't use only a single word, instead answer them with sentence and ask an open question of your own.

3. Look for "hot buttons":-

              Everyone have hot buttons means personal interest. These are very important to us. Like, family, travelling, sports, pets, hobbies, etc. Friendship often based on two people having same 'hot buttons' means same interest.

           In international business you need to become a "hot button" in detective, which means to look for whether you and your business partner have any in common. Peepal leaves clues about their personal interest in their conversation with you. When in coffee break your business partners says "Did you see the game on television last night?" It's another way of saying "Is football one of your hot buttons?" When your business partner stays, "I hope we finish on time. I have got some tickets for the theatre this evening.' they are saying 'Do you like the theatre?' So don't just reply "Yes or I see". Follow it up like a good detective. Tell them you support real Madrid or Chelsea.  Ask what play they are going to see. And the most important is to offer some information back. Tell that you prefer rugby to football. Tell them you went to see a good film last week.

         In some cases, to ask someone a direct question about their family might be embarrassing for your business partner. For instance,

If you ask him, "Are you married?"  the answer might be like "Actually my wife has just run off with my best friend and taken the kids with her".

Instead, it will be easy for you to say that "your wife and kids are away this weekend holiday and that you are going to join them at the weekend". After that your partner may give you information about their family if they feel comfortable about it.

4. SOFTEN your approach:-

             There are three key areas to think about when meeting our business partner,

• What to say
• How to say it
• How we act

             But we often concentrate on Hard words its pronunciation and intonation and forget the nonverbal side of communication. For that we need to SOFTEN our approach. It is about how non-verbal signals are important.

• S - Smile
• O - Open gesture
• F - Forward lean
• T - Touch
• E - Eye contact
• N - Nod

★ S - Smile:-  A friendly face helps people feel welcome and more relaxed. While concentrating on getting the language right, we often forget to smile, our official expressions become serious, our forehead creases up and we come across as critical, cold and unfriendly.

★ O - Open gesture:- During conversation it becomes important to gesture naturally and sit with your feet together on the floor. Sitting with arms and legs crossed can affect our speaking partner. It seems like we are closed to other person's Ideas or the relationship. Though we do it because we are working in English, not because of the relationship.

★ F - Forward lean:- When we want to show interest in other person we lean forward. It creates a positive "I am with you" feeling.

★ T - Touch:- We only touch each other in business when shake hands at the start of the meeting. We judge people negatively if the handshake is too aggressive or of the "wet-fish" variety. A good international handshake is firm but not too firm and lasts for two or three shakes.

★ E - Eye contact:- It varies according to cultural background. According to some studies, during the average European conversation, 

• The listener looks at the speaker 75% of the time
• The speaker looks at the listener 40% of the time
• The average length of mutual eye contact is 1.5 seconds

          It will perceived as being aggressive if we stare at each other without breaking eye contact. In some cultures the eye are lowered during a conversation to show respect, but in most cultures we need to reassure ourselves that your partner is still listening. For that we need eye contact, it is a way of getting feedback on how our ideas are being received.

★ N - Nod :- Moving your head up and down to indicate agreement encourages your speaking partner to open up. Your nodding tell them that you are listening and that you want them to continue speaking. The non-verbal signals working very significantly, especially when working with second language. It helps to correct misunderstandings. In most of the cases signals are more believable than the words.

5. Grab opportunities:-

           We are surrounded by opportunity to practice our Socialising skills, but the only need is to grab them with both hands. Look for opportunities to use English during your normal work activities, like in brakes and dead periods.

★ Whenever you get English speaker visit your organisation, grab the chance to practice your English with them. See it as an opportunity rather than an imposition.

★ There are probably several of your colleagues who would also like to practice their English. Arrange weekly English only lunch or coffee break or even an English pub night every month.

★ If you have a regular English speaking contact on the phone or a native speaker colleague, to build a friendly trainee-mentor relationship. Because many native speakers like to become the expert and coach.

★ To practice your networking skills in English, you need to go on business training programmes, where you have to use English to communicate with other trainees.

★ There are many friendship societies where you can meet people from other cultures and where English is the medium of communication. So go there and join English speaking organisation.

★ Chat with English speakers while on holiday because it's a safe environment for making and correcting mistakes.

★ To havw small talk in English with your family helps you to improve your English as well as your children's and your partner's English, too.

           In short, look for every opportunity to extend your personal and professional network in English, which help you to building up your confidence and giving yourself the chance of doing it even more successful the next time.

Conclusion:- 

            To sum up, we can say that networking and socializing skills are very important to build long-standing relationship with our business partner.