The old saying goes: “Talk Is Cheap”, but that’s because whoever said that was only focused on what they were hearing not what they could be learning. Having a good conversation can save lives, it can move mountains, and it can show you behind the curtain of “small talk”. Knowing how to talk can be the most valuable skill you have.

In this industry, everyone is always a little bit on their toes when they are having a conversation. You never know when the person you are talking to will know someone and a bad impression could mean a loss of some business or opportunities down the road. Knowing how to read a room or recover from an awkward situation is gold.

A good conversation can also get you the attention you need to be remembered for something. It’s a way to get a foot in the door.

It our best way to gain intelligence. Conversations are the major weapons of spies and diplomats. Asking the right questions can reveal so much about how people really feel about your ideas and your stories.

Every conversation is an opportunity to get what you want and what you need. If you think that there is such a thing as “small talk”, keep on reading.

Ask The Right Questions

Many of us have an idea in our head of where we want the conversation to go and with our questions, we lead our companions there. Most people want to give you what you are looking for – so when you are looking for real data you need to be shrewd about how you ask your questions.

When you are working on an idea, remember that the people around you are going to act a little bit like your mom. They are going to want to give you what you want. You need to get past that barrier to access insight.

Pitching your idea and then asking what they think of it is not going to get you anywhere because pretty much anyone is going to want to tell you it’s a good idea. Are they willing to pay for it? Is the idea good enough to be shown to a client? To get to those answers you need to start with different questions.

Instead of asking if a creative thought is good, ask about the branding of a similar product, and see how that moves someone.

A useless conversation sounds like this:

You: I came up with the jingle for the Soap account, what do you think of it?

Person 1: (trying to make you feel good) I think it’s great

A more useful conversation would go something like this:

You: What do you think of the soap account creatives?

Person 1: I think the line is long, but I can’t get the jingle out of my head

That second iteration of the conversation didn’t lead the person to the favorable conclusion. There were no stakes involved where Person 1 could cause upset or an awkward situation. Person 1 felt free to express their opinion and gave a more honest answer, one that can be useful to the speaker.

Useless questions result in “fluffy” answers, these are answers that are just conversation fodder. To get around them, be specific! Ask why questions and get into details.

Caution: not all feedback is positive. Asking probing questions can stir the pot in unpredictable ways. Becoming really good at asking questions to get honest reactions might uncover hard truths.

Were you just told something utterly devastating? Don’t let it show. You just got some important feedback and could be on to something. How you handle those truths becomes a part of your stage intelligence.

Maximize Your “Stage Intelligence”

WTF is “Stage Intelligence”? It’s the nuanced reading of the people around you to incorporate into your presentation. Or, it is your ability to read the room and use what you do best to communicate. It’s also keeping your cool even when you are caught off guard and letting your emotions show when they are appropriate. Part of stage intelligence is your special sauce, the quirk that makes you you. Are you most charismatic when you are singing? Find a way to sing around people you need to impress. Are you a physical comedian? Make sure you have the elbow room to shine.

If you want to go far in life, stage intelligence is important to cultivate. This is the secret weapon of IXM founder and CEO Third Domingo. It’s a concept he swears by. It’s gotten him out of many scrapes and helps slough off drama when it needs to.

In small interactions, “stage intelligence” translates roughly into charm. Charm will get you out of any sticky situation, say the wrong thing? Make a joke! Recover! The main thing not to do is panic.

Saying the wrong thing won’t kill you, but it can kill an idea. If you panic, you will lose an opportunity. If, however, you are able to rescue the situation with a well-timed joke or something self-deprecating you might be able to salvage your conversation.

Allowing the moment to make you more human may be a good tactic. You might be able to get away with it, if you are speaking to a fellow human being and not a small talk wall.

Get To The Human Being

Here is where sei-katsu-sha becomes important. Every person you speak to is putting up a “small talk wall”. It’s the wall of conversation about the weather and the traffic and the other things of no consequence. Don’t speak to that wall. Get to the parent, the beleaguered commuter, the expert makeup tutorial creator, the movie goer, or K-pop fan behind it.

You want to get past making “small tall” and start making kwento.

Find the pressure point that gets your “audience” to light up. That’s where questions become your weapons. The conversation isn’t about you. When your audience talks more they will consider you to be a “good listener” and an interested, sympathetic party. It’s easy to win points that way. If you are lucky you can find the holy grail: common ground.

Once you find common ground you are on your way to more productive conversations. You start to talk to someone rather than just the accounts person or the brand manager. Everything is much easier and you start to deal with people as people and not as client and agency or boss and employee.

What’s A Useful Conversation?

A useful conversation is one where you haven’t spoken very much at all. Instead, you’ve found the human behind the small talk wall and gotten some good opinions and maybe even found some common ground. What now?

Now you determine what type of conversation is necessary. Are you data gathering? Are you pitching an idea? Are you introducing yourself? Or are you filling dead air? There is a space for all these kinds of conversations.

If you have become good at asking questions, then data gathering should be a walk in the park. Getting people to express their real opinions is a skill that takes practice, but knowing that there is a barrier between you and your audience is important to how you attack it.

Pitching needs the most stage intelligence as you will need to find the right moment to talk about your idea, or your creatives, or even yourself. You need to strike the right chord, and while some people are born with an inherent ear for it, it can be learned with enough experience.

Filling dead air is an important conversational skill. Clients are a lot more likely to forgive latecomers or technical difficulties if they aren’t waiting in silence. Get them to talk about their fandoms or their hobbies and you will have a client who is in a good mood. A happy client is always better than a surly one upset about being made to wait.

Remember that there are stakes to conversations, and every one can help you or hinder you. Be sure you know what kind of conversation you’re having.

The Last Word

Abracadabra!

Yes, the quintessential magician’s magic word. It means speaking something in existence or, “I create as I speak”. That’s what all of us in the advertising industry are doing, creating with our words that translate into visuals, branding, events, et cetera. We make magic with what we say.

Everything that is now was once a conversation between two people. Words can help create concrete buildings and successful businesses. Conversations are stepping stones. They get you from one place to the other.

Learning to ask the right questions is an important skill. Step one is noticing when you are leading your audience to the “right answer”. Many people want to give you what you want and you’ll lose any intelligence you could have gleaned from that interaction.

You don’t want to get lost behind the wall of niceties called “Small Talk”. Remember the principles of sei-katsu-sha, those people who you are having surface-level conversations with are all nerdy about something, you just have to find out what. Once you do, a whole universe of opportunities will open up for you.

Talk is still cheap, but it can be very valuable if you know how to hack it.

Photo credit: Mimi Thian on Unsplash