In my mind, small talk basically consists of 3 phases:
<ol><li>The ice breaker</li>
<li>Get to know you better</li>
<li>Graceful exit</li>
</ol>So letís go ahead and briefly touch on each phase and in turn give you some concrete takeaway strategies that you can apply immediately for each.

<b>Phase 1: The Ice Breaker</b>
So you attend a networking eventÖ you make eye contact with someone you want to meet, you approach them and introduce yourselfÖ now what?

Well having a few powerful, open-ended ice breaker questions should certainly do the trick. For example:
<ul><li>A tried and true ice breaker is the proverbial, ìSo Jeff, what do you do?î In other words ìJeff, what business are you in? Now people love talking about themselves and their business so the idea here is to get them started talking. Most people also love to hear the sound of their own voice so the ice breaker question is critical and essentially sets the tone and potential for the conversation.</li>
<li>Another good ice breaker could be, ìSo Jeff, what brings you here today?î</li></ul>
Now notice on these sample ice breaker questions Iíve repeated the personís name. First off by doing this it will help burn that personís name into my head so I donít forget it. Secondly, people love the sound of their own name ñ so donít be afraid to use it throughout your conversation.

<b>Phase 2: Get To Know You Better</b>
Depending on the results of the ice breaker questions you should by now be able to determine whether or not it makes sense to get to know this person better. If not, simply skip this phase and go into your graceful exit. But if you do see a synergy here, by all means try some of these again open-ended, getting to know you better questions:
<ul><li>So Jeff, how did you get into that business?</li>
<li>What types of challenges keep you up at night?</li>
<li>Jeff, help me out here, draw me a mental picture, what does success look like for you and your business?</li>
<li>Whatís new in your industry these days? Any events or trends that are shaping it?</li></ul>
Now you can use one, two, all of these questions, or more if the situation permits. However, be careful here not to dominate and monopolize someoneís time. If youíre at a networking event, thereís a good chance that theyíre there to network and meet other people as well, so it may make sense to go to the graceful exit phase and encourage that you two get together in the near future.

<b>Phase 3: Graceful Exit</b>
Itís vastly important how you leave a conversation ñ as this is the last impression you make on that person. Weíre not looking to create any animosity here by rudely blowing someone off. The key here is as this phaseís title states, is to exit gracefully.

A key difference between the types of questions or statements you make in this phase as opposed to the previous two phases is that now you shift to using close-ended ones. For example:
<ul><li>Introduce the person to someone else that may be of interest to them and then politely excuse yourself. The dialogue can go something like this: ìHey Cindy Iíd like you to meet Jeff. Jeffís in the xyz industry as well and I just felt that you two should meet.î Now they exchange pleasantries and you immediately exit the conversation by saying something like, ìWell you two probably have a bunch to talk about. Cindy Iíll catch up with you later and Jeff, it was great meeting you.î</li>
<li>Another example of a graceful exit may be: I can certainly see some synergy between what you and I do. Can I give you a call next week to set up some time to talk further?</li>
<li>Or, itís been great meeting you, will I see you at future meetings?</li>
<li>And lastly, wow, this is quite an event donít you think? Well we should probably keep movingÖ it was great meeting you Jeff!</li>
</ul>

So now you’re aware of and armed with some actual strategies for the 3 phases of small talk. The key now is to get in the game and practice, practice, practice and you too can see the results you would like for your business.
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If you are a new business just starting out into the world of contract cleaning then your immediate aim is to gather as many new customers as you can and constantly grow the business. The initial stages are hard and it is difficult to gain those first few customers. How gain you gain a foothold in this highly competitive market? Many of the marketing strategies you might employ have been explained in previous articles. One area that was not explored in these articles was networking.

As a new business you will probably receive a number of invitations to go along to various local networking organisations meetings. At these they will no doubt try and impress upon you the huge benefits to be gained by networking. You will also be told how much business was generated for its members over a period of time. All will seem very impressive and like myself you may very well be impressed enough to join the weekly breakfast or luncheon meetings. This could cost you anything up to £500 a year to be a member plus the cost of the meal or maybe as little as the cost of the meal. Some of the internet networking organisations charge a small monthly fee and then organise monthly local meetings.

When I started out into the field of commercial cleaning I was willing to try anything that might generate business so I joined a number of these organisations. So how successful was this as a means of expanding my business?

I did in fact persevere with some of these breakfast meetings for a whole year, having paid the yearly subscription it was in fact something of a necessity. However it does not take long to realise that the people who attend these meetings are not in fact your likely customers. Many of the individuals who attend networking meetings are just starting out in their business and are operating as sole traders working from home and not in any way, shape or form likely to be your potential customers. Others are well established but still operate as single entities such as business coaches and have no office as such. Others may be proprietors of shops just starting out and these are potential customers.

However you as a contract cleaning company are looking to clean offices and office complexes and these are inhabited by well established companies who do not by and large participate in local networking groups. So you are not going to come in contact with the group who are going to provide the more lucrative cleaning contracts.

I can look back on my time with these networking groups as a learning experience and we probably just about recouped our membership fees. Other than that very little long term benefit was derived from the experience. Networking it would seem from my own experience is not a path I would necessarily recommend to the start up cleaning business. Use that time period to utilise other marketing techniques which are more useful to the cleaning business entrepreneur. If you do fancy the idea of networking then you must target a different audience. That is the established businesses, and to do that you will need to join such organisations as the Chamber of Commerce where your networking will not be so overt and often done in a more sociable and relaxed atmosphere.