Being our best is often challenged when entertaining clients around a table in a casual dining situation. Many times our most challenging dining occurs when we are dining informally. How do you handle the dilemma of eating casual foods with the same savvy as a more formally presented meal?

Try these tips and see how they work for you.

• When presented with finger food (sandwiches, fries, etc.) in a business setting, use a knife to cut the sandwich down to a manageable size, and preferably eat it in four sections, or if the section is in the least bit large, cut bites off of each section and eat it with a fork. This way your hands will stay clean, and you will not be at risk of bringing anything too large up to your mouth. Fries and pickles can also be sliced and eaten with a fork. If you are working internationally with Europeans always use a fork, not your fingers.

• The temptation when eating finger foods in a business setting is to eat them the way we do at home. In the business setting we want to avoid getting any food on our hands, so we should use utensils and napkins whenever needed and possible. We ruin our visual image if we lick our fingers or wipe our mouth off with our hand. We should also avoid dipping our chips and crackers directly into condiments or sauces. Put an amount of the sauce, dip or condiment on your plate and dip off of your plate rather than from the communal serving dish.

• Always remember if personalizing your food in a buffet line or at a fast food establishment that people are following behind you in line. Get what you need on your plate, but do not hold up the line preparing your sandwich or food. Move around the table to let others get their food if you need time to dress a sandwich, etc. Be conscious of facilitating for others to get their food, rather than solely focusing on your own.

If we focus on tips such as these and use them on a daily basis, we will never have to worry about how we are perceived with regards to our table skills. Dining casually or formally we will be savvy rather than challenged every time.