(Every job has some benefit or you wouldn’t get paid to do it.) The advice to the folks above is: Don’t say ‘estate agent.’ Say ‘I help people moving into our area find the right home.’

Whenever you suggest a meeting or ask a favour, divulge the respective benefits. Reveal what’s in it for you and what’s in it for the other person – even if it’s zip. If any hidden agenda comes up later, you get labelled a sly fox.

Another way to warm hearts and win friends is to become a carrier pigeon of news items that might interest the recipient. Call, mail, or e-mail people with information they might find interesting. If your friend Ned is a furniture designer in North Carolina and you see a big article in the Los Angeles Times about furniture trends, fax it to him. If

Say something like, ‘Mr Allen, I just want to tell you how much pleasure your wonderful films have given me over the years. Thank you so much.’

Quick as a blink, you must praise people the moment they a finish a feat. In a wink, like a knee-jerk reaction say, ‘You were terrific!’

Like an air-traffic controller, track the tiniest details of your Conversation Partners’

Whenever someone persists in questioning you on an unwelcome subject, simply repeat your original response. Use precisely the same words in precisely the same tone of voice. Hearing it again usually quiets them down. If your rude interrogator hangs on like a leech, your next repetition never fails to flick them off.

Before opening your mouth, take a ‘voice sample’ of your listener to detect his or her state of mind. Take a ‘psychic photograph’ of the expression to see if your listener looks buoyant, bored, or blitzed. If you ever want to bring people around to your thoughts, you must match their mood and voice tone, if only for a moment.

small talk is not about facts or words. It’s about music, about melody. Small talk is about putting people at ease. It’s about making comforting noises together like cats purring, children humming, or groups chanting. You must first match your listener’s mood.