Skip to main content

The Art of Schmoozing

Guy Kawasaki's blog has a great post about "The Art of Schmoozing"
"Understand the goal. Darcy Rezac in his book, The Frog and the Prince, wrote the world's best definition of schmoozing: “Discovering what you can do for someone else.” Herein lies eighty percent of the battle: great schmoozers want to know what they can do for you, not what the you can do for them. If you understand this, the rest is just mechanics."
I consider myself a fairly good schmoozer. As I read his 9 characteristics, I also thought how they can help us shareing our faith, fundraising, poliital action, community organizaing...

Are you a good schmoozer?

The other eight are:

Get out. Schmoozing is an analog, contact sport. You can't do it alone from your office on the phone or via a computer. You may hate them but force yourself to go to tradeshows, conventions, and seminars. It's unlikely that you'll be closing a big order with someone you met online at MySpace or via Skype. Get out there and press flesh.

Ask good questions, then shut up. The mark of a good conversationalist is not that you can talk a lot. The mark is that you can get others to talk a lot. Thus, good schmoozers are good listeners, not good talkers. Ask softball questions like, “What do you do?” “Where are you from?” “What brings you to this event?” Then listen. Ironically, you'll be remembered as an interesting person.

Unveil your passions. Only talking about business is boring. Good schmoozers unveil their passions after they get to know you. Great schmoozers lead off with their passions. Your passions make you an interesting person--you'll stick out because you're the only person not talking about 802.11 chipsets at the wireless conference. Personally, my passions are children, Macintosh, Breitling watches, digital photography, and hockey if you ever meet me.

Read voraciously. In order to be a good schmoozer, you need to read voraciously--and not just the EE Times, PC Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal. You need a broad base of knowledge so that you can access a vast array of information during conversations. Even if you are a pathetic passionless person, you can at least be a well-read one who can talk about a variety of topics.

Follow up. Over the course of my career, I've given away thousands of business cards. At one point, I thought I was nuts because if all those people called or emailed me, I'd never get anything done. Funny thing: hardly anyone ever follows up. Frankly, I don't know why people bother asking for a business card if they're not going to follow up. Great schmoozers follow up within twenty-four hours--just a short email will do: “Nice to meet you. I hope we can do something together. Hope your blog is doing well. I loved your Breitling watch. I have two tickets to the Stanley Cup Finals if you want to attend.” Include at least one thing to show the recipient that she isn't getting a canned email.

Make it easy to get in touch. Many people who want to be great schmoozers, ironically, don't make it easy to get in touch with them. They don't carry business cards, or their business cards don't have phone numbers and email addresses. Even if they provide this information, it's in grey six-point type. This is great if you're schmoozing teenagers, but if you want old, rich, famous, and powerful people to call or email, you'd better use a twelve-point font. (These are the same folks that need the thirty-point font vis-a-vis the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint.)

Give favors. One of my great pleasures in life is helping other people; I believe there's a big Karmic scoreboard in the sky. God is keeping track of the good that you do, and She is particularly pleased when you give favors without the expectation of return from the recipient. The scoreboard always pays back. You can also guess that I strongly believe in returning favors for people who have helped you.

Ask for the return of favors. Good schmoozers give favors. Good schmoozers also return favors. However, great schmoozers ask for the return of favors. You may find this puzzling: Isn't it better to keep someone indebted to you? The answer is no, and this is because keeping someone indebted to you puts undue pressure on your relationship. Any decent person feels guilty and indebted. By asking for, and receiving, a return favor, you clear the decks, relieve the pressure, and set up for a whole new round of give and take. After a few rounds of give and take, you're best friends, and you have mastered the art of schmoozing.

Comments

  1. Guy is an inspiration! Please convey my thanks to him for all his writing and commentary.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

YWAMers Praised for Faith and Leadership

The Denver Post reports on the memorial service at the Denver YWAM base: "We're going to celebrate a life, we're not accentuating a death," said Faith Bible Chapel pastor George Morrison, in opening a memorial service today for two people killed at a missionary training school in Arvada . The service is called "A Celebration of Life for Tiffany and Philip." Philip Crouse and Tiffany Johnson died Sunday when a gunman opened fire at the school's dormitory. Youth With a Mission director Peter Warren said today both Crouse and Johnson embodied the spirit of the group. First the service focused on Crouse . "Phil gave his life to Jesus Christ and was never the same again," said Zach, a friend of Johnson's who met him years ago at a youth ministry in Alaska. At the time, Crouse was tough and wouldn't let people get close to him. "Over the years, Phil became a humble, teachable, sweet guy" who was able to reach kids with rough e

PageMill, Wells Fargo and Sam Zell

Dear Friends,  Normal.dotm 0 0 1 888 5066 Northern California Urban Development 42 10 6221 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false As many of you know we've been in discussion recently with Wells Fargo and Equity Residential, the proposed buyers of the former Pagemill Properties on the west side of East Palo Alto.  As an East Palo Alto resident and leader I view this issue, and how Wells Fargo handles this important portfolio as a milestone event for our community and it’s residents. First, a little background (from my perspective):  A few years ago over 80% of East Palo Alto's multi family housing stock was purchased piece by piece by a predator equity group, Pagemill Properties. After the purchase Pagemill began systematically dismantling our rent control ordinances and aggressively evicting working class families. The community was in shock. However, the Pagemill group went bankrupt in 2009 and lost the property to Wachovia, soon to be

Untitled

Posted via email from JOHN's posterous