U.S., HAWAII: The Riddler

By Danielle Lum

Hawaii Bureau Chief

Ask questions. That’s the advice good networkers will give newbies to the networking world. Ask lots of questions and people will think you’re a great networker.

Unless you’re “The Riddler.”

I ran into The Riddler at an event I recently attended. He asked a million questions. What’s your name? What do you do? How long have you been doing that? Who are some of your clients? Do you have children? Where did you go to school? Is this your first ABC event? Do you enjoy what you do? How long have you been in business for yourself? Do you enjoy being in business? How long have you lived in Hawaii?

They were good questions, actually. He would have been doing really well… if he bothered to listen to the answers! He was looking at me, he appeared interested, but it was painfully obvious that he was so busy thinking about his next question that he wasn’t listening to a word I was saying.

But it didn’t stop him from asking additional questions. And more questions. Then even more questions. He asked questions about information I provided in the first five minutes of conversation. After a while it felt like he was going down a previously selected list. All too soon I felt like I was being interrogated. Too many questions!

And as I drove home from the event, I think what bothered me the most about The Riddler wasn’t the constant barrage of questions, but that he was asking for the sake of asking. He wasn’t really interested in the answers.

Missing the point

Networking is about making connections. The easiest way to make a connection is to ask questions. The key is listening to the answer. Because it is only when you listen that you will find a commonality to make the connection.

I’ve seen networking tips that advise you to have a list of questions you can use to start a conversation. But if your whole game plan is to ask questions, though, you’re missing the point.
Instead, you should prepare three or four standard questions you use to break the ice, and then hold your end of a conversation. It may entail asking additional questions, but it might not. The key is to listen and take your cues from what the other person is saying.

I have a friend that I consider a master networker. It seems like he knows everyone in Hawaii. We can’t go to too many places where he doesn’t meet up with someone he knows. I watch him in utter amazement.

Whenever he sees someone he knows, he recalls a special tidbit about the person and asks about it. For example, he knows a woman who loved her red VW Beetle. Whenever he sees her, he asks how “The Love Bug” is treating her. If the person has children, he asks how they are doing. If they participated in an event together, he brings it up in conversation.

The key is that he knows the details of the person’s life because he 1) asks questions and 2) listens carefully to the answers. He’s not just waiting for the person to stop talking so he can talk or ask another question. He is genuinely interested in what the person is sharing. He asks just enough questions to keep the conversation going.

It also doesn’t hurt that he has a great memory that he exercise daily to keep supple and functioning.

Riddle Me This

I’m sure The Riddler went home feeling pretty good about his networking experience. After all, he asked me 20 questions, and the networking guide said that people who ask questions are memorable.

Yeah, I’ll remember him all right. Not the way he intended, I’m sure.

If you can identify with The Riddler, ask yourself what you can do differently next time. How can you use questions to guide a conversation without being the entire conversation?

When you can do that, you will be positively, absolutely memorable.

Danielle Lum is the president of NK Design, Inc., a public relations, advertising, and marketing company in Honolulu. A boutique agency, NK Design specializes in assisting small and new businesses to create memorable message strategies and reach potential customers.

Learn more about Danielle and NK Design:

http://nkdesignhawaii.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/nkdesign
http://prponderings.blogspot.com/


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U.S., HAWAII: The Riddler