On my way home from the office, I decided to pick up a chicken dinner.

The woman who readied it for me asked, How was your New Years?

Pretty good, I replied.

She leaned over and confided in a whisper with a smile, Mine SUCKED!

Give her an A for honesty.

More important, she deserves a gold star for making meaningful small talk.

What did she accomplish in that 10 second exchange?

(1) First, she became more than a chicken vendor. Shes a person and I like her pluck!

(2) I smiled at her honesty.

(3) She sent me a signal that says, Its okay to talk to me, I can handle it!

So often today, you hear the empty pronouncements about the importance of developing customer relationships. A quick, exchange like I had brings the idea to life.

Too much attention is paid to offering incentives, bonuses, ariline miles and other perks to customers in order to build loyalty and a desire to come back and do more business with us.

You dont have to have lots of contacts with customers to establish a relationship, to build rapport. It can happen really quickly, if you polish the art of using small talk.

Now, the only question is, how do we super-size that?