BizSugar.com › Sales › Etiquette Consultant Jodi Smith On How to Make Small Talk (Part 1)

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.