6 ways to get a shy person to open up to you in 5 minutes or less

John Stoker, president of DialogueWORKS and author of "Overcoming Fake Talk," regularly gives a presentation called "Do you ruin everything by being you?" in which he shares a revealing statistic: About 70% of people are not comfortable speaking up.

"You know what this means?" he asks his audience. "About 70% of you are sitting in the back of the room and hoping that I don't come back and talk to you in front of the whole group."

The audience always laughs, he tells Business Insider - but it's true.

He goes on to say that 40% or more of the population would classify as "shy," meaning they may be comfortable sitting in a conference session, but they're not comfortable talking to you first at a social event.

Why? Because they're afraid of rejection, he explains - and they will do anything to keep from being singled out.

So how do you approach a shy person (who you don't know) and put them at ease? Follow the six steps below: