Episode 94: Opening Doors with Icebreakers
Here are the results you're going to see when you do try this. First, your conversations are going to be more enjoyable and more engaging. Everyone's tired of talking about the weather. Let's mix it up.
You're listening to Prospecting on Purpose, where we discuss all things, prospecting sales, business, and mindset.
I'm your host, Sara Murray, a sales champion, who's here to show you that you can be a shark in business and still lead with intentionality and authenticity. Tune in each week as we dive into methods to connect with clients, communicate with confidence, and close the deal.
When most people hear the term icebreakers, they immediately default to cringy and mandatory team-building games. It's just a typical Tuesday and you're going to a meeting and now all of a sudden you're scrambling to think of two truths and a lie or see which team can build the highest tower out of just printer paper and scotch tape.
To be very upfront, I love any and all games, so I'm usually ready to go when it comes to icebreaker games. But I do think it's ruined the term. Look, I love icebreakers and they add a lot of color to my life, but they've actually brought me a lot of successful sales and long-lasting business relationships.
Put simply, icebreakers start a conversation. That's all they are. They open a door to a conversation. An icebreaker is literally the very, very first step in building any type of relationship. You can't have a relationship with someone if you don't know them. Someone has to take action first. And it can be super easy action.
We're just cracking the door open with these icebreakers, and then it's a choose-your-own-adventure from there. If you walk into a Starbucks, and it looks like there's a line, and you ask someone, Excuse me, are you in line? What? Boom! That's an icebreaker. I know this sounds elementary, but I really want to simplify the concept of an icebreaker to something that is simple because it really is.
Now taking from the Starbucks line into a business application, for purposes of simplicity, I'm going to use a salesperson and client relationship. I'm an outgoing person by nature and when I train teams on relationship building and we get into the ice baker category, I usually spend some time addressing the concept of introverted and extroverted people.
I'm not crazy about the hard line between those two because we are all a blend of both. So that's a topic for another episode, but I'd like to bring it up now so that you can take your own personal lens and approach as you listen and think through these. I've classified my icebreakers as mild, medium, or spicy.
Just like salsa temperatures. The mild questions may be geared towards someone who's a little bit more introverted Or this is a little bit newer to them. Whereas the spicy questions are really just a little bit more quirky. So quick disclaimer here. This is a business podcast. So when I say the word spicy, I just mean quirky.
Off the wall, weird, just a little bit different than the traffic pattern you took to get to the meeting. So, just letting you know upfront. So you're not disappointed later. So let's get into some, I define mild questions as questions that are simple and safe. They also result in shorter answers and quicker exchanges.
Examples of mild questions would be “So what part of town do you live in?” “Are you going on any vacations this summer?” “How'd you get into this crazy industry?” “How long have you worked at ABC company?” “Oh, cute shoes. Where are they from?” “Ooh, fun earrings.” “What a beautiful name. Is it a family name?” You get the gist.
Mild questions are non-threatening and easy. Traffic and weather discussions fit in here too. And they're mild, but hey, they do the job and they work. So mild's your comfort zone. That's your spice level. That's great. Now getting into our medium questions. I categorize medium as slightly more personal and or they spark longer conversations.
Some examples would be, “Do you have kids?” “Where'd you meet your spouse?” “Oh, your comment reminded me of a book I just read. Have you ever read XYZ book by so and so author?” “Where would you say you hail from?” This is kind of a fun question. It always turns into a conversation because that question could mean where were you born? Where do you live now? Where'd you grow up? It's just ripe for opening the door for conversation.
One thing that I really like to do too is share a quote or a fact I heard recently that's somewhat relevant to the time that we're in. An example, uh, when our quarantine first started during the beginning of the pandemic, I was starting to reflect on the fact that I took my health for granted.
I just always do. and didn't really think too much of it. And I heard a quote that said, if you have your health, you can have a thousand dreams. And if you don't have your health, you only have one dream. And it impacted me so deeply that I share it with people because it usually resonates with people. So you can see how these start to get a little bit more personal and they're still pretty easy and they're easy to weave into conversations, but it builds an opportunity to connect, to learn more about others, and to share what kind of person you are.
So now, dialing up the heat, our spicy questions. Not pervy, just kooky, and I love them. So seven years ago, I was in an outside sales role, and I would go to all of these different offices around L.A., and I would meet so many cool people.
But I realized, that because I was in an outside sales role, and they worked in an office, they didn't have an opportunity to meet cool people around town. So I started a monthly networking group. It was called the case of Mondays and we'd meet for happy hour around the city after work once a month on a Monday, it wasn't salesy.
It was just providing an outlet for people to make friends as adults. And I'd make people fill out their name badge with their name and their answer to a spicy icebreaker question.
So the first event we did, the question was, who was your childhood celebrity crush? It was hysterical to see people's answers. It gave everyone an opportunity to instantly strike up a conversation. You would see people cracking up about their crushes, forgetting certain actors that you forgot about but loved, high-fiving each other if they had the same one. That's an example of a spicy icebreaker. It's probably not something you would ask someone in line waiting for Starbucks.
But it's fun, and it sparks a longer conversation. My childhood crush was Leonardo DiCaprio and Titanic. So another icebreaker could be which celebrities kind of are getting weird. Am I right? Okay, so other examples of spicy icebreakers. I love asking.
“What is your go-to karaoke song if you could be any animal?” “What type of animal would you be if you had to listen to one song only for the rest of your life? What would it be?” “What is an unpopular opinion that you have?” For example, We asked this at a bridal shower the other day and someone said that they hated the movie Forrest Gump. Okay, a national treasure. I can't believe you hated it, but that's okay.
We all have our right to our opinion and it was a pretty fun conversation. I also like, “Would you rather meet your descendants or your ancestors?” “Do you consider a hot dog a sandwich?” “If you were in a talent show, what would your talent be?” This next one is a little bit more of a thinker, but it's one of my favorites.
The question is, who are three fictional characters who make up your personality? It is so much fun. It takes a lot of, takes a lot of time to think about it, so it's more of a conversation for dinner, but really, really fun. Sparks some great conversations. And then I also love this one. It's so weird but interesting.
What is the best bird? I know you're listening to this and you're thinking, Okay, how am I ever going to bring these up in a conversation? Well, I'll tell you the secret. You use a buffer to introduce the spicy icebreaker. You're killing time, waiting for a meeting to start. You can say, Oh my gosh, I listened to this podcast on the drive in today, and the host brought up this question, and I was surprised how much it got me thinking.
What are three fictional characters that make up your personality? Then it's like the gift that keeps on giving because it can take a while to come up with three. So later in the conversation, or even in future meetings, you can add on to it. Hey, Jerry, oh my gosh, I got my, I got my three, you want to hear it?
And what's also really fun is it tells you a lot about the person. If you are curious, the three fictional characters who make up my personality are Leslie Knope, Bridget Jones, and Ted Lasso. So to wrap up our examples, I want to challenge this audience with a couple of easy tasks. The first challenge is I want you to try a mild icebreaker when you're in a situation that's normally monotonous.
In line at the DMV, grabbing a drink at the bar, sitting on the plane. Just try it and see what happens. My friend who travels often recently told me that she's been challenging herself to do a little exchange with the person next to her on the plane. And now if she doesn't do it, she regrets it. So it's becoming part of her travel habit.
She's enjoying the connection with another person and it's more of a pleasant flight than zero engagement. And remember, this is a choose-your-own-adventure. So if you start a conversation on a plane, it doesn't mean you have to continue the conversation on the whole flight. When there's a lull, just smile. End the conversation. Put on your headphones. Open a book. Take a nap. You're not marrying this person. You're just asking them if they live in Chicago or just visiting.
Once you start practicing this, you'll be just as good at ending conversations as you are at starting them. The second challenge next time you're at the dinner table with your family or at a happy hour with friends Or you're out with your walking group Ask them who their childhood celebrity crush is or what they think the best bird is and see where the conversation goes and then if you try this and you have a great story or you make a new friend or a client or just sort of really fun dinner conversation I want to hear about it.
Please, please let me know. I want to hear what icebreakers people have asked you because that's something that happens too. People will ask you something back that you haven't thought of or that I haven't thought of. Write me a hello@saramurray.com or, send a note on LinkedIn or Instagram at Saramurraysales or leave a review on this episode.
Could be kind of fun later. Maybe we can create a results episode or something and see what happens, see what worked and what didn't. And then the best part about all of this, here are the results you're going to see when you do try this. First, your conversations are going to be more enjoyable and more engaging.
Everyone's tired of talking about the weather. Let's mix it up. You're going to learn things. I didn't know that a woodpecker's tongue wrapped around its brain to prevent injury during high-speed pecking, but now I do. And now you all do too. We're just way more interesting people all around. You will also find that this gets way easier.
And it's really not awkward. It may feel awkward when you first start. Once you start to see that the other person isn't treating it as something weird because they're engaged in your conversation, starting right at the gate with a spicy icebreaker just becomes easier. And most importantly, you become more memorable.
Hopefully, the correlation between prospecting and being memorable is really clear. But it expands beyond work. We all know the Maya Angelou quote, “People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.” This is a really easy way to connect with people.
And to be memorable. So to recap our challenges, you're throwing out a mild icebreaker when you're waiting in line, or you're waiting for a meeting to start, and then you're using a spicy icebreaker at the dinner table tonight. And you're going to let me know how it goes via LinkedIn or Instagram or in the podcast reviews.
I promise it will be super fun and I can't wait to hear about it. Thank you so much for listening to the Prospecting on Purpose podcast. If you loved what you heard today, subscribe to the podcast and please rate and leave a review. For more info on me or if you'd like to work together, feel free to go to my website, saramurray.com. On social media, I usually hang out at saramurraysales. Thanks again for joining me and I'll see you next time.
Connect with Sara
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@saramurraysales
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saramurraysales/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saramurraysales/
