5 Pieces To Effective Business Conversations

Have you ever had that feeling? You know what I mean.

It’s that feeling that you get when your mind is racing, your palms start to sweat and your thoughts decide that they do not want to make the faintest connection to your vocal cords. And then, you become…

SPEECHLESS!

Has that ever happened to you met a potential business associate. You exchange greetings, you learn each others’ name, and then the conversation goes deeper with the one question that makes you cringe… “So, what do you do?”

For many Virtual Assistants this is the most dreaded question because they do not know how to clearly convey the problems of their target market (if they have one), or how they solve those problems effectively.

What Are the 5 Pieces?

There are 5 critical pieces to masterfully articulating your value as a business owner and making strong connections. When you are face to face with a conversation partner keep the following conversation pieces in mind.

1 ~ Choose A Target Market

Having a target market gives great subject matter on which to have business conversations. If you tend to be on the shy side, focusing your attention on a separate group of people will give you the confidence needed to add more fuel to your conversation fire. If your target market is business coaches, you can talk about how that stresses that they experience with owning and operating their coaching practice. Then move to piece #2.

2 ~ Focus On Their Problems

The reason you are in business is because there are thousands of individuals who experience a certain level of business pain. The struggles of the target market that you serve are what keep in you in business. Take the business coach for example. This target market does their best work when they are in front of clients and generating revenue.

When you are having a discussion and you focus on the problems of your target market, you can mention how business coaches wear too many hats. They have so many aspects of their business to run. They need help following up with prospective clients. They need help publishing and distributing their weekly email newsletter. They also seek help publishing and promoting their blog posts, training videos and other content that is important to their business. You recognize these problems and provide a solution. Here comes piece #3.

3 ~ Highlight The Solutions You Provide

Now that you have enumerated their problems, discuss how your business offers solutions. You may also want to mention the benefits that your clients receive from working with you. Your clients likely experience fewer headaches due to overwhelm. You also help your clients to generate more revenue because you save them time and effort that frees them up to meet more of their prospective clients. We have covered a lot of details thus far. Should you swamp your conversation partner with all of this information? Of course not! Leave some details out. That will open the door for piece #4.

4 ~ Keep The Conversation Open

You definitely don’t want to be known as a person who ‘never knows when to shut up’! When you meet a person for the first time (and you like them), it is wise to set up a time to keep the discussion going. Therefore, you do not want to give away all of the your business on the first discussion. Share a little bit and offer to keep continue the discussion over the phone or on a coffee date. Setting up a new date an time to share more and learn more puts you both at ease and gives you a good reason to deepen the business relationship. Once you have saved a lot of the goodies and offered to keep in touch, move on to piece #5.

5 ~ Follow Up Within 48 Hours

This should be the easiest part of building business relationships. However, it is the often neglected. Before you leave your initial conversation ask this very simple question: “What is the best way to get in touch with you?” They will definitely tell you. Be sure to use that method whether it is calling on the phone, sending an email or a smoke signal. Use their preferred method and tell them when you will do it. Say, “Thank you, do you mind if I follow up with you tomorrow?” Set the follow up date. Use their preferred contact method. Set up the next date to build on the initial discussion.

If you are one who gets the jitters when talking to people about your Virtual Assistance business that is understandable. Those feelings are real and it is okay to have them. The key to improvement is creating a desire to have better business conversations. Then you can begin to implement the 5 pieces mentioned in this article. If you want to learn more about how to have better business discussions and generate more income in your business, check out this free training!