Guide to SMALL TALK - Business English communication lesson

0:01Chris Welcome back to the Breakout Business English podcast. My name is Chris. I'm a business English and communication coach, and I've personally worked with over 1,000 international professionals just like you to improve the way that they communicate at work in English. Thank you so much for listening and for your time.

0:29Chris I know how valuable it is. And our topic today is small talk. Now, I should say that this is a topic that I've tried to write a podcast episode about at least three times. I came to write this episode and I was worried that I might already have covered it since it felt so familiar as a topic. I took a look through my folders and through many, many scripts that I've written for this show, and I actually found three different attempts, three times that I've tried to write a podcast about small talk and failed.

1:22Chris I think the reason is that in part it's just such a big topic, and therefore a difficult one to handle in a short podcast episode. Equally, the nature of small talk is that it is unstructured, and yes, what I try to do with these podcast episodes is bring structure to things. That's a really effective way to improve our communication, is to think in structures and frameworks.

1:57Chris However, today I'm back and I'm ready to accept this challenge once again. And similar to every other time I've tried, I've got a plan. Now, I was working with a coaching client yesterday, and we were discussing an industry meetup that he was planning to attend. And he was concerned about his ability to make small talk with the other professionals there, especially in his second language of English.

2:38Chris Now, personally, I think I'm quite good at small talk. My job is essentially building great working relationships with people over video calls, and then using those relationships to help them reach their communication goals. However, just knowing how to do something is not the same as being able to explain how to do it.

3:08Chris And it's very different from being able to teach it. However, at the beginning of that call, I was reminded of a three-part system that I discovered being taught to salespeople, specifically salespeople who were trying to sell very expensive things like boats, luxury watches, and exotic cars. As you can imagine, Smalltalk is also key to success in that industry.

3:45Chris So the system we're going to discuss today is called ARE, the ARE system. We're going to go through each of the three parts of this system, and as we do, I don't want you to necessarily think of these as a rigid and strict structure that you must follow in order with everything you say. Instead, you should think of these as building blocks or maybe Lego bricks.

4:24Chris You can jump into whichever stage feels natural to you and move around the three stages dynamically. So let's start with the A and let's start with a quiz question. So imagine that we're on a ship and we've stopped. We want the ship to stay in the same place and not move around. Maybe we've docked in a harbor for the evening, for the night.

4:58Chris What do we call the large heavy metal thing that we throw over the side? This is usually attached to a long chain and often traditionally looks like a hook. As you might have guessed, this begins with the letter A and this is an anchor. An anchor. That's A-N-C-H-O-R anchor. So in the same way that an anchor stops a ship from drifting away, an anchor in conversation is going to help you to connect your words to the context of what is already going on, to attach your thoughts and sentences to the foundations that have already been laid by, well, the person you're speaking to.

5:56Chris At this stage, I want you to make a comment or observation about either the situation that you and your conversation partner are in, or comment on the thing that they've just said. To be fair, if you want, you can take this anchor further out and comment on something more distant or less related. The important thing is that you connect what you're going to say to something else.

6:28Chris You give yourself a reason to say it. This is the part of our system that makes sure that we're not just jumping constantly between new topics, but that our conversation flows naturally. So let's listen to some anchoring statements. You touched on a really interesting topic earlier. You touched on a really interesting topic earlier.

7:08Chris The speakers at this conference are really great. That last one is a tough act to follow. The speakers at this conference are really great. That last one is a tough act to follow. The coffee at this meeting is surprisingly good. It's really rare to find good coffee at events like this. The coffee at this meeting is surprisingly good.

8:14Chris Since they are dependent on the conversation, and they're going to change depending on what's around you. They're important because they give you a logical reason for what you're going to say next, and that is the R in our ARE system, the reveal. But before we get onto that, let's take a closer look at a phrasal verb.

8:43Chris In the first example I gave you. In the first example, we heard you touched on a really interesting topic earlier. You touched on a really interesting topic earlier, and then you would go into some detail about that topic. This is an example of how we might use something that the other person said as an anchor.

9:10Chris To touch on something means to mention it briefly without going into too much detail. If someone mentioned the fact that they went for a run that morning before work, but then quickly moved on to talking about something else. You might say, you touched on your morning run. Or maybe a moment ago you touched on the run that you went on this morning.

9:38Chris Although it's most commonly used to bring a conversation back to something that someone else mentioned, or maybe something that you yourself mentioned, by using it in the past tense, we can also use it in the present tense to mention things that we want to briefly discuss. For instance, I want to touch on business trips for a moment, which means that you want to briefly discuss the topic of business trips.

10:14Chris Now, if these ideas feel a little incomplete, that's because they are. And that's where the next part of this system, the reveal, comes in. I help a lot of people to work on their small talk skills in English. In fact, I spend five to seven hours every day coaching professionals around the world on how to improve their English and professional communication.

10:44Chris Small talk is a big part of that. And it's really important for building professional relationships. However, I meet a lot of people who forget to give information about themselves in small talk situations. They don't contribute value to the conversation. Their opinions, ideas, suggestions, experiences, especially their experiences.

11:14Chris This is what makes a conversation interesting and what drives it forward into new places. Okay, let's listen to one great example of how we can contribute to a conversation in the reveal part of the framework. How about this? That reminds me of a conversation I had with a colleague recently. That reminds me of a conversation I had with a colleague recently.

11:50Chris Now, Joe Rogan is a very well-known podcast host, and I'm sure that a lot of you will know who that is. Some people really like Joe Rogan, some people really don't. But what I think we can all agree on is that he's great at having conversations. He's great at small talk and great at getting his guests to contribute interesting things.

12:20Chris It can be difficult to separate our feelings about someone's politics or their beliefs from other aspects of the person, but here I just want to focus on Rogan's communication skills for a moment. One tool that Rogan uses a lot is this phrase that reminds me of. He uses this to quickly pivot the conversation into new topics and areas, especially when he thinks that his guest might not be interested in the direction that the conversation had been taking.

13:03Chris We can use that reminds me of, even if the topic that we want to move toward is only tenuously connected to the previous topic. For instance, you mentioned that you work in Paris. That reminds me of a bookshop in Paris that I really like. It's called Shakespeare and Company. Do you do much reading? As you can see, reading books is a very different topic from the city of Paris more generally.

13:40Chris But this phrase allowed me to make this pivot in a relatively natural way. Now, a moment ago I used this word tenuously. That's T-E-N-U-U-S-L-Y. What do I mean by tenuously? If a connection, a situation, or a reason is tenuous, then this means that it is weak. We use this to talk about connections between ideas and often to describe reasons.

14:23Chris For instance, if you tell your boss that you need to travel to Paris for work, then this might sound pretty tenuous. What work? Why can't you do this remotely? How important is this trip and this work? On the other hand, if you tell your boss that you need to travel to Paris to sign a contract with a client who insists on meeting in person before they agree on a deal, and that you also want to spend time building this professional relationship because you think that it will be very profitable for the company, then you have a much stronger and much less tenuous reason for that trip.

15:13Chris And maybe you can visit your favorite bookshop while you're there. And if your ability to communicate in English is pretty tenuous, then maybe we can work together. My full-time job is helping international professionals who use English at work to improve their communication skills. So, if you need English to do your job, but you don't speak it natively, then I'd love to meet you.

15:48Chris If you'd like to book some time to meet with me through one-to-one video calls, just you and me, then you can go to breakoutbusinglish.com. That's the title of the podcast, breakoutbusinesenglish.com, and find out more. Starting on our very first call, we can focus on the specific opportunities that you personally have to improve your English and communication skills.

16:19Chris And the mistakes that you make most often are the ones that cause the biggest problems with your communication. And right now, you can use the code podcast30, that's podcast30 at checkout to get a 30% discount off your first booking of 30, 45, or 60 minutes, whichever is best for you. I've worked with well over 1,000 non-native English speaking professionals, from new graduates up to CEOs and government leaders from some companies and indeed some governments that you've probably heard of.

17:02Chris And I've helped them to achieve their English and communication goals, and I look forward to meeting you. Okay, let's jump into the third element of our ARE system, and that is encourage to encourage. So, can you guess what we mean by encourage in this situation? We've given ourselves a reason to speak with our anchor, we've added value to the conversation with our reveal.

17:38Chris Now, what comes next? What are we going to encourage? Quite simply, we're going to encourage the other person to speak. And we're going to do this, no surprise, with a question. Sounds pretty easy, right? But I'm going to add a caveat here. I want you to make your questions as open as possible. One mistake that people make, one trap that people fall into with asking questions during small talk is that they get too specific.

18:21Chris So, although a question like, what's your favorite book of all time sounds pretty good? It's also really demanding of the person you're talking to. First, they need to think of a specific book. What if they don't read much? Or alternatively, what if they read a lot and it's really difficult to choose just one book?

18:46Chris Should they pick something they think sounds impressive? Or maybe something that they think you will like? Should it be about work or professional development? Or maybe a book they read as a kid and really enjoyed. Instead, instead of making this actually a really difficult question for them, let's make this as broad, general, and open as possible.

19:15Chris Give your conversation partner the biggest, widest space to walk into to fill with their answer. Incidentally, you may know the job interview question, do you have any questions for us? And that's also a really good way to approach that question, to approach that part of a job interview. So instead of what's your favorite book of all time, how about so tell me about you and reading?

19:49Chris Is reading important to you? With that, they can tell you about their favorite book if they want to, but they can also tell you about their habit of reading on the train on the way to work, or a bookshop that they really like in Paris or anywhere else in the world, or the books that they read to their child at night.

20:12Chris It's far easier and more welcoming for them to answer. Now, as I mentioned earlier, one thing that's important to notice is that you don't need to follow this as a strict structure. You can, you can work through these three key ideas anchor, reveal, and encourage, or you can bounce between these, jump in and out of them as feels natural.

20:43Chris You might find that when a conversation starts flowing, you don't need to add an anchor. You can just go for the reveal and encourage. Often conversations between friends only involve the reveal part. Sometimes you're just naturally exchanging information about each other, and you don't actually need to ask questions.

21:12Chris The danger, of course, is that we only ask questions, and our conversation turns into a police interrogation. Where were you on the night of the 17th of August, for instance? So I encourage you to treat these more like building blocks, like Lego bricks. Yes, you can flow through all three and do that in order if you want to, but this isn't always the most natural or native way to build a conversation.

21:46Chris A good example. So earlier today, I had a call with someone and they mentioned, they touched on the idea that they were going. To be traveling to Budapest for work. And I said, you know, I found out through someone else that I work with that Budapest is actually two cities or was historically two cities.

22:16Chris And I found that really interesting. I said, I actually work with a lot of people in Budapest at the moment. And it's always interesting to hear about that city because I really want to visit myself. It's one of those cities that is right at the top of my list, the places I want to visit. Do you spend a lot of time exploring cities when you travel for business?

22:43Chris Or do you really only get to go have your meetings and then leave? So that's an example of how we might go from the anchor into the reveal. And there you can hear that the anchor and the reveal are sometimes quite similar, and then move into our encourage, and we ask a relatively open question. Now, if you listened to last week's podcast, then you know that I finished the show with a quiz.

23:15Chris Specifically, I gave you a grammar question that centered on this sentence. We were going to meet on Tuesday, but we had to reschedule. We were going to meet on Tuesday, but we had to reschedule. And the question I asked you was which word from this sentence can you remove without breaking the grammar and while maintaining the same meaning?

23:45Chris So one more time, that sentence is we were going to meet on Tuesday, but we had to reschedule. And the word that we can remove is the second we. Therefore, the sentence could be we were going to meet on Tuesday, but had to reschedule. One more time, the new shorter sentence is we were going to meet on Tuesday, but had to reschedule.

24:15Chris So why does this work? In informal conversation, native speakers commonly leave out words. This is called ellipsis. Ellipsis, that's E-L I P S I S, if you want to look up that grammar rule. We can use ellipsis when the meaning is obvious without the missing items. Now, there are a couple of places where this can work, but one of these is after the words and and or also but.

24:55Chris So that's your three words. For instance, we finished the meeting and we went home. That's another example of where the word we would not be necessary. For instance, we finished the meeting and went home. We see a similar rule after then. For instance, I emailed my boss, then I emailed the whole team.

25:20Chris This could be as simple as I emailed my boss, then the whole team. So, one more time. If you want to look this up, this is the grammar rule ellipsis, and that's E-L I P S I S. Okay, so for this week's quiz, think about this sentence. I can't tell you how much this is going to cost. I can't tell you how much this is going to cost.

25:55Chris Now, this sentence specifically means I'm unable to give you that information either because I don't know, or because I'm not allowed to give that information to the person asking. However, how could I change this sentence to say that I'm simply unable to understand how much this is going to cost from the information that I have available?

26:26Chris Maybe there are just too many numbers to calculate. Or there are a lot of things that might change and affect the cost of this project. Either way, it's difficult for you to be sure of the cost of the project. So, one more time. The sentence is I can't tell you how much this is going to cost. I can't tell you how much this is going to cost.

26:56Chris And I want you to make a very small change to the sentence, which changes the meaning of the sentence from I'm not allowed to give you this information, to it's difficult to calculate and know this number. And the answer will be at the end of next week's podcast. So don't forget that if you would like to discuss any of the ideas, vocabulary or grammar, etc., in today's episode, or work on your ability to maintain.

27:36Chris So don't forget that if you would like to discuss any of the ideas, vocabulary or grammar, etc., in today's episode, or work on your small talk skills specifically, then you can book a session to work with me by going to www.breakoutbusinglish.com. That's breakoutbusinglish.com, the title of the podcast, or clicking the link in the show notes.

28:05Chris And use the code podcast30, that's podcast30 at checkout to get a 30% discount off your first booking. I've worked with over 1,000 international professionals, non-native English speaking professionals, from new graduates up to CEOs and government leaders to help them achieve their English and communication goals.

28:31Chris And I look forward to meeting you. Between episodes of the podcast, you can get videos every couple of days, usually depending on how busy I am, on Instagram, TikTok, and especially YouTube. Just search for Breakout Business English. Also, if there's a topic that you'd like to hear me talk about on the podcast, then I'd be excited to hear your ideas.

29:00Chris Leave a message or a comment on one of my YouTube videos, and I look forward to hearing from you. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, then I invite you to leave a review. Every review really helps me out and helps to push the podcast to new listeners and to grow the show. If you've found this podcast useful and you think that there are some valuable things in here, then feel free to leave a review of three or four or five stars, whichever you think is appropriate.

29:32Chris I did get a one-star review a couple of days ago. I feel bad about that one. I've obviously really upset someone. But if you've listened this far, I'm guessing you don't think that this is a one-star podcast. And at least I hope it doesn't make you angry enough to leave a one-star review. So that is it for today.

29:52Chris Thank you so much for listening and for your valuable time. I really do appreciate and respect your choice to spend some of it with this podcast. I hope you have a great week, and I'll talk to you again next time on the Breakout Business English podcast.