SmallBizResource Blog -- Women in Business

Wednesday's Woman: She's So Shy -- Etiquette Consultant Jodi Smith On How to Make Small Talk (Part 1)

Posted by Gayle Kesten Wednesday, Aug 20, 2008, 01:33 PM ET

Jodi Smith wasn't always so outgoing. In fact, she was so shy in high school that she knew "maybe three people out of a class of more than 1,000" when she graduated.

Heading to college, however, Smith made the conscious decision to reinvent herself, "just to see what would happen." Well, her experiment seems to have worked. After a decade-long career in human resources, during which she gave etiquette training workshops -- "only then they were called 'new skills for emerging leaders' or 'manager leadership tracks,'" she says -- Smith launched her own consultancy, Mannersmith Etiquette Consulting, in 1996. Based in Salem, Mass., Smith's roster of clients includes Accenture, MIT, Citibank, PennWell and Shutterfly.

Suffice to say, Smith can't emphasize enough how important making small talk is in the business world. "People underestimate the importance of these little dialogues," she says. In the first part of this two-part posting, read on for Smith's refreshing, stress-relieving perspective (replete with helpful tips), including overcoming shyness, why everybody needs a "snippet starter," and the three things you must know before ever stepping foot into a networking event.

SBR: Why is making small talk so important?
JS: People think of it as being so frivolous, but in the business world small talk leads to big talk. We do business with the people we enjoy. There are very few people who are exclusive and the only service provider of a particular sort. So if we have a choice of banks, insurance companies, of even where we buy our clothing, all else being equal we'll choose the one we enjoy. Also, I belong to many networking groups. One of them up here in Boston is the New England Women Business Owners (NEWBO). The people I meet when I go for dinners and workshops are not my clients, but all of the people in the room also are service providers to potentially my clients. I'll give you a specific example. In NEWBO there are a number of image consultants who do the hair, makeup, wardrobe kind of thing. When they give a dressing for success workshop in a bank, the bank might ask, "Do you also do dining skills?" Well, they don't, but they've met me at NEWBO and refer my name.

SBR: So what makes small talk so hard?
JS: What makes it hard for people is they don't do their homework up-front. They wait till they get into the room. Now they realize they have to be on, and they've lost an opportunity because they didn't plan appropriately.

SBR: What does planning entail?
JS: I coach my clients that before you go to any networking event, there are some questions you need to ask yourself. Why you are going? Am I going to learn something? Perhaps it's a seminar. Or is it because I want to build my network and I'm looking for clients? If I don't know why I'm going to event, I'm not going to go. Sometimes it's just to have fun: It's a chocolate tasting in NYC. I'm going because I love chocolate, and I don't care if I meet anybody new. But you should always have a goal.

You also need to know who else is going to be in the room. You can look up the guest list online. Almost everyone publishes the guest list now. If they don't, you can call whomever is organizing the event and ask for a demographic breakdown. Now, there's a reason why I want to know who's going to be in that room. Who's going to be in the room then catapults you into what are some of the things that I'd like to talk about. The way to not bring up the weather or something inane about the food is to think in advance about what you want to talk about. This can be far-reaching: For example, if I'm going to a great Boston Chamber of Commerce event, I might say I was just on TV. Then what's the obvious question?

SBR: Why were you on TV?
JR: Right, and then I get to talk about my business a little bit. If I'm going to a NEWBO event, I might not want to be as forthright as I would be at a Chamber of Commerce event where there are more men. Men are always very good at promoting themselves. I have to be more assertive. But at a women's networking event, I might go with a question. Imagine yourself as a journalist, and you're going to find out information. Going in with an idea of how you're going to have these conversations helps you launch you into good, meaningful small talk conversations.

Look, going into networking situations where you're standing up, you've gotten dressed, you're smiling politely at a complete stranger and you're expected to engage them in nice conversation is by definition strange and awkward. Having what I call a "snippet starter" as part of your introduction, such as, "Hi, I'm Jodi Smith and I'm an etiquette consultant," allows you to build bridge from the introduction into a conversation much faster. People are actually thrilled to actually have a topic to talk about so they're not talking about the traffic or the weather.

SBR: What's at the heart of an inability to make small talk?
JS: By nature I'm a horribly shy person. When I ask people at the beginning of my seminars to their raise hand if they're introverted, it never fails that almost everyone in the room does. I think there's something about the 7th grade lunchroom that goes through people's heads that when they walk into a room filled with people, they think, oh it's 7th grade, I have my lunch tray, and no one is going to let me sit at their table. People worry about that rejection factor. You need to go in with a positive attitude and say, "People aren't going to ignore me. They're going to be happy to talk to me." Occasionally you will get someone who'll look you up and down and walk away, but you know what? That's their problem, not yours.

SBR: How did you overcome your shyness? And why did you do it?
JS: I can tell you exactly why! Being shy wasn't a whole lot of fun. I decided when I was going to college I'm not going to be shy anymore. No one knows me, and I'm going to be positive and outgoing and see what happens. There's a huge Pygmalian effect that if you go into the room and say, "I'm going to connect with three new people," you'll do it. The more you do it, the better you get at it and the more comfortable you feel.

Now, I don't encourage you to go to first networking event out of the box with 2,000 people. Start off small. Start with groups 20 or 30, and then go to bigger and bigger things from there. Using a marathon analogy, I tell people to put on your shoes, wear them for a half hour around the house and then take them off. That's the first step. Then you build yourself up. This goes back into to why you have a goal. Your goal might be to go to an event and meet one new person. If you do that, then you can go home. But the fact of the matter is, when you're at a networking event, people are there to meet other people. So they should be fairly receptive to your opening lines.

NEXT WEEK: How to gracefully end a conversation, what do consider when planning your "second date," and why you should never be the last one to leave a networking event.

---

Recent Wednesday's Woman articles: >> Words of Wisdom You Can Really Put to Work >> Just Say No to Yes >> Push Your Senators for Fair Pay >> A $1 Million Business Plan >> Tips Before Putting Your Honey on the Payroll >> Archives

The Wednesday's Woman series is written for today's community of hard-working, small-business women, featuring profiles, industry trends, research, work/life balance issues and other topics of interest. As always, send your ideas to Gayle Kesten.

Women in Business

This is a public forum. CMP Media and its affiliates are not responsible for and do not control what is posted herein. CMP Media makes no warranties or guarantees concerning any advice dispensed by its staff members or readers.

Community standards in this comment area do not permit hate language, excessive profanity, or other patently offensive language. Please be aware that all information posted to this comment area becomes the property of CMP Media LLC and may be edited and republished in print or electronic format as outlined in CMP Media's Terms of Service.

Important Note: This comment area is NOT intended for commercial messages or solicitations of business.