How to start a conversation if you are meeting for the first time
How did you end up in this city?
How did you end up in this industry?
Note: These questions lead to details that reveal other parts of their lives like family, university/college, where they grew up, old places of work, interests/hobbies, etc...
The 24 hour Hot Window of Opportunity
Whether it be an email, phone call, or someone you met at a networking event, you have a 24 hour window of opportunity to setup a phone call or a meeting. People can sense urgency and excitement.
When it's fresh, they can recall your interactions with them.
In fact, the 12 hour window is even better. For example, if you went to a networking event, it's ok to send out an email to have a chat that same evening. Latest, it should happen the next morning or at lunch.
How to get people to answer your emails and phone calls
Ask for advice or about their experiences. People love to share their advice and experiences: good for their ego, and you get to learn something too.
Asking for a "short 20 min chat" is easy because 20 minutes is not perceived as a massive time commitment. The purpose of the 20 min chat is to get to another 20 min chat.
Ask for time permission as a respect of time
At the beginning of a meeting, you can ask the client, "Hey, I wanna be respective of your time. I understand we have 20 mins?". The client will give you their "hard-stop".
Establish rapport quickly
I generally like to keep a rapport conversation going and let the client switch to business talk.
However, if someone is particularly chatty, you can make it easy to switch with uncomfortable, but tactful silence, where they would say, "Oh yeah, we should probably chat about work." Then, you switch into the sales talk process.