How to avoid awkward coffee chats

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TOPIC
How to avoid awkward coffee chats

Picture this, you’re in a coffee with that key person who could potentially refer you to your dream company.

Then, all of a sudden, silence.

Your brain freezes.

You ran through all your questions and there’s still 20 minutes left.

Sounds familiar right?

If you’ve been networking for even just the past few months, I’m sure you’ve ran into this scenario at least once.

Awkward coffee chats are the worst, and the #1 culprit of them?

It’s not a lack of preparation, it’s a lack of improvisation.

You see, anyone can prepare 30 questions in advance to make sure they don’t run out of things to say.

But that takes a lot of time, plus it’s boring, we’re not doing a Q&A here.

Instead, what you need is improvisation - the ability to come up with new questions on the fly.

Easier said than done right?

Not really. For years, I’ve been looking for a framework that perfectly explains how do to this other than saying,

Finally, I found the framework last month.

I was having a chat with one of my coaching clients who brought it up, it’s called the A-C-A framework, let me show you how it works.

The A-C-A framework

It comes from a popular YouTuber, his name is Alex Harmonzi.

The strategy itself is nothing special, you might already know how to do this, but Alex packages it nicely in a 3-part framework that makes it teachable.

Here’s how it works. Every time the other person answers one of your questions, do these 3 things:

1: A → Acknowledge them

Paraphrase their response in your own words.

For example, if you ask them what they studied in school and they say:

You can then respond with:

We do this to prove that we’re actively listening to them.

If you can show them you’re paying attention, they’ll appreciate it.

2: C → Compliment them

People tend to want to live up to their ideal expectations.

Read that again.

You can influence someone to do what you want if you tie the action to a positive trait of their character.

It’s a powerful move in sales, but equally powerful in networking.

For example, let’s say you want the other person to give you a referral, and somewhere in your chat, they mention volunteering at their local animal shelter.

You could focus in on this and say,

By saying this, you’re imprinting an idealized version of themselves in their heads by enforcing a positive trait of theirs.

Later on, when you do ask for that referral, there’ll be a higher chance they say yes, because they want to live up to that positive trait.

3: A → Ask

The last and simplest step.

Ask another question, but treat it as a follow-up to the previous one.

For example, let’s take the same question from part 1 (Acknowledge).

You could ask this follow-up question,

This is how we can improvise so easily.

You’re basically stacking that new question on-top of a related one.

The big picture

See how effective A-C-A is now?

Most of us do this sub-consciously, but to see it written out in actionable steps makes it so much clearer!

The next time you find yourself in a chat, follow A-C-A, and I promise you’ll never run out of things to say.

That’s all for today. If you enjoyed this post, share it with a friend!

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See you next Tuesday 🤝

-Michael Ly

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