Spring Training.  Are you batting 400 yet?

Spring Training for baseball is in full swing in Florida and Arizona, The teams have assembled to get in shape and in rhythm to begin the 2010 season on April 4. It’s a ritual, Spring Training, and a metaphor for re-engaging old skills and developing new ones. No one misses Spring Training.

Not even Ted Williams. Now, most baseball fans claim that Ted Williams stands as the game’s greatest hitter. They say this because Williams was the last hitter to bat .400 for an entire season. He accomplished that feat in 1941, a long time and thousands of batters ago. Williams was so dedicated to the art of hitting that sports writers dubbed him “Teddy Ball Game.”

For those who don’t follow baseball, you’re probably wondering what “batting 400” means, and what is so special about it.

Here’s what it all means. Batting 400 for an entire season means getting a hit 4 out of every 10 at bats. I know what you’re thinking: “If I did what I’m supposed to do at work only 40% of the time, I would be invited to do it elsewhere.” Or, “My business would fail in six months.” Probably true.

But it’s not the raw number so much as it is the degree of difficulty. Most experts consider hitting a baseball to be the most difficult sports action to perform consistently well. So difficult that doing it only 4 out of 10 times is considered great. Hitting 300 for a career is considered Hall of Fame material. So Williams’ 400 is huge.

So what does this have to do with anything other than baseball? Think of it this way. Ted Williams, the game’s greatest hitter, went to Spring Training every year. He practiced. He studied hitting. He studied the pitchers. He worked with his coaches to perfect his swing, his stance, his timing. He watched other players. He did not take his ability for granted. He never assumed he had reached the last measure of improvement. There was always the next thing to master.

Whenever I think I have something down cold, have it knocked, I think about Ted Williams and ask myself, “Are you as good as Ted Williams? Can you sit pat where you? Are you good enough? ” You probably can guess what my answer has to be.

What’s yours?

If you need to work out some kinks in your business “swing,” consider working with a business coach. Ted had coaches. Other world class athletes have personal coaches in addition to the cadre of team coaches. Bill Gates uses a coach. So can you.

To find business coaches of every specialty in your area go to http://www.wabccoaches.com/index.htm and click the link to “Find a Coach.”

You can also contact “Coach Up” at coach1@coach1up.com

Check Your F.O.R.M.

Ever since Xerox pioneered consultative selling over 20 years ago through its Professional Selling Skills training program, people in sales have heard about the importance of establishing rapport. Rapport is all about making a personal connection with the potential client/customer before engaging in the “business” part of the interaction. Many newer sales people have an intuitive sense of what this means,  but may lack a method for channeling their intuition into actual behavior. Before breaking down F.O.R.M., we must understand two caveats.

1. While building rapport occurs in every selling (and life) interaction, F.O.R.M. is more appropriate in personal selling situations where the salesperson anticipates a longer relationship with the client. This is not to say that a supermarket checker shouldn’t be pleasant and personable with the shoppers who come through the line. The nature of that interaction focuses on speed and accuracy. F.O.R.M. takes time.
2. F.O.R.M. is not a mechanical technique. It is a communication approach the acknowledges that people buy from other people, and buyers need to feel comfortable with  the seller as a person.

That said, here’s a simple F.O.R.M. to follow that facilitates rapport-building.

F = Family

After an initial greeting, it is quite natural to ask after the well-being of the client/customer and his/her family. If it is the first meeting, you may not know if the prospect has a family. In that case, you might have to wait for cues from the prospect. But in subsequent encounters, you will know, so frame your comments/questions accordingly.

O = Occupation

After inquiring about family, it is a natural transition to ask about the prospect’s job. If meeting with a couple, be sure to divide your attention (and eye-contact) between both members of the pair. Without getting into too much detail, try to learn what the job(s) entail. If the job is not something you run into everyday, a good secondary question is to ask about the biggest challenge in that kind of job.

R = Recreation

Another common area people make small talk about is their recreational activity. An easy entre to this topic is to ask, “What do you do for fun?” Keep in mind that sometimes a recreational activity provides important insights into the person’s character or style. You can assume a skydiver is more of a risk-taker than a quilter.

M = Money

Unless you are in financial services, the money question is more metaphoric than literal. So think of the money question as a way to transition from rapport-building to the business reason of the meeting. So M = money really translates into business purpose (but F.O.R.B. just doesn’t quite make it as an acronym). The transition question sounds something like, “Well, as you know, the reason we’re getting together today is . . . “And you then summarize the purpose of the meeting.

Follow that F.O.R.M. every time you meet with a prospect or client, and you will build a firmer basis for earning their trust, confidence, and business.

Schedule a complimentary “F.O.R.M. Check-Up” Coaching Session.

For more information: Harvey Mackay’s How to Swim with the Sharks and not be Eaten Alive lays out the Mackay 66. The Mackay 66 is a 66 point profile sheet that allows you to record 66 important pieces of information about your prospects and clients that you gather over time and that help you to really understand them and their needs. Check it out.

“Is this your best work? A case for professional development

When Henry Kissinger was Secretary of State, any staffer who approached Kissinger with a report or document he/she had drafted could expect to hear the following question from the esteemed Secretary: “Is this your best work?”

Talk about a loaded question.  How do you answer that? It’s like the question, “Do you still beat your dog?” No good answer there either. Think about it.

Put yourself in the mind of the State Department staffer pondering how to respond to his boss.

Kissinger: Is this your best work?”

Staffer (you) thinking: If I say “yes”, and Kissinger finds weaknesses or errors, I’ve just declared that shoddy work is the best I can do. If I say “no”, I can expect to be blasted for submitting less than my best work. But at least I’ve left myself wiggle room, some benefit of the doubt.

I could hedge and say that it’s the best I could produce under the time constraints. Then I leave myself open to the threat of being replaced by someone who can do better “under the time constraints.”

Oh man, damned if I do; damned if I don’t. OK, I’ll hedge.

It’s my best work, sir, under the time constraints.

Kissinger: I see. Why don’t you go re-work it and come back when it is your best work?

It’s about time

The former Secretary of State’s recommendation reminds me of the old business dictum: “There’s never enough time to do it right; but always time to do it over.”  This truism raises the corollary question, “How do I do my best work by minimizing or eliminating doing it over?” One answer is to get better. Easy to say; how does one raise his/her game while playing the game?

The Japanese had an answer in the 70s and, which they adopted from American quality/productivity expert, W. Edward Demmings. Demmings’ improvement prescriptions were issued to American industrial giants following the Korean War in response to what he correctly perceived as a quality deficit that would sooner than later leave the GMs , GEs, and U.S. Steels at a competitive disadvantage to foreign corporations. They didn’t heed the message. Can you say, Toyota and Sony, boys and girls?

The Japanese used a buzzword to summarize the Demmings approach, kaizen, Continuous improvement. Applied to the overall organization, kaizen is a way of managing work processes so that managers and workers are always looking for ways to improve the process, reduce product defects, streamline supply chains, manage inventory, improve marketing and sales, bind customer loyalty, and so on.

Tom Peters, 80s management guru, became a Demmings apostle and preached the gospel of ongoing organizational development in seminal works such as In Search of Excellence and Passion for Excellence. American business got the message.

If it is to be, it’s up to me

Since the whole is the sum of its parts, and the chain is only as strong as its weakest link, it follows that individual continuous improvement is a means to moving entire organizations closer to its a-game. We call this professional development, and it begins with taking personal responsibility for your own professional improvement. Formal education usually precedes occupational practice. Professional development is the in-game education and skill-building that allow workers and managers to initiate an ongoing process of personal kaizen.

Pathways to Personal Excellence

Demmings outlined 14 steps to business success. Let’s apply four of the ones that can be adapted to a personal application for achieving personal business success through continuous professional development.

1. Create a constancy of Purpose. In his own seminal work, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey emphasizes the importance of beginning with the end in sight. In other words, know what you’re aiming at, define your purpose. Purpose gives meaning; it separates essential tasks from unimportant activities.  Make professional development a priority based on career goals. In your industry, business, or profession, what do you really want to accomplish? Take the development steps to move in that direction. Would a graduate degree contribute to your purpose? A Professional certification? Attendance at a conference? Membership in an applicable organization? Individual study in a relevant content area? Forming productive relationships with others?

2. Adopt a new philosophy. Covey calls it a paradigm shift, the way you view something. Are conditions in your business environment changing, but you are “doing business” based on your knowledge of and comfort with former conditions. Think buggy whips here. Do you need to learn/adapt a new technology? Or assimilate new buyer demographics and motivations?

3. Drive out fear. The business environment is always changing. Change engenders concern, sometimes fear. Embracing the change doesn’t necessarily mean agreeing with it. It does mean adapting effectively to it. Adaptation always involves learning. In fact, learning is the basis of adaptation. Think dinosaurs here. Remember when you knew basic math but had not learned Algebra? Or how about becoming involved in a new sport? You adapted by learning new content and developing/perfecting new skills, and then applied those new “problems.” Knowledge and skill building yield confidence. Confidence reduces fear.

4. Involve others. You’re 100% responsible for your own results, (see above), but you don’t have to do it alone. Seek the viewpoints, advice, and support of others who have demonstrated proficiencies that align with your purpose. Mentors, coaches, champions of professional development in other departments or even other (non-competing) companies. They have already plowed the ground you may have just set foot on. Tap into what they’ve learned and tried successfully.

Is this your best work? Only you know for sure. If it’s not, now you have a pathway to personal excellence. Be like Dorothy and her flawed friends: follow it.

Suspend your Self-Interest

In my past corporate life, when I was responsible for new hire sales training for a major financial firm, I brought in Bob Burg on two occasions to facilitate a Referral Networking Workshop for our trainees. Bob is a referral coach and his book Endless Referrals is the source of the 11 key networking questions enumerated below.

The basis of Bob’s referral strategy is that “all things being equal, people will do business with, and refer

business to, those . . . they know, like, and trust.” So the goal of networking is to build familiarity, likability, and trustworthiness. You can’t do that by attending a bunch of “events,” glad-handing, back-slapping, and flicking out your business card like a PEZ dispenser. You do it by suspending your self-interest.

I once made the argument that even Mother Teresa did her charitable and merciful work out of self-interest, so suppressing a natural inclination is not easy. Think of it this way: It is in your best self-interest to suspend self-interest when referral-networking. It’s a “pay-it-forward” mindset.

In actual practice, suspending self-interest manifests itself by keeping the focus of your networking conversations on the other person. You do this through questions. Below are Bob Burg’s eleven essential networking queries. Bob cautions not to attempt to ask all of them of one person, but to know all of them cold so you can construct a dialogue around a handful of any of them.

1. How did you get your start in the “widget” business?
2. What do you enjoy most about what you do?
3. What separates your company from your competition?
4. What advice would you give someone just starting in the widget business?
5. What one thing would you do with your business if you knew you couldn’t fail?
6. What significant changes have you seen take place in your profession through the years?
7. What do you see as the coming trends in the widget business?
8. What’s the strangest (or funniest) incident you’ve ever experienced in your business?
9. What strategies have you found to be the most effective for promoting your business?
10. What one sentence would you like people to use in describing the way you do business?

These ten questions are “feel good” questions. They engage the listener’s self-interest and inclination to talk about his/her favorite topic: self.  The one key question that will set you apart from everyone else is number 11:

1. How can I know if someone I’m talking to would be a good prospect for you?

When you ask that question you do two things:

a)      You demonstrate a willingness to refer prospects to the other party (be sure to ask for his/her card. Never offer yours unsolicited); and

b)      You activate the principle of reciprocity. Most people will reflect the question back to you about your ideal prospect. And/or will put themselves on alert to look for opportunities to refer to you.

In an actual conversation, Burg advises that you use only 2-3 questions, punctuating the questions with “natural” declarative statements. So if you asked how your counterpart got started in the widget business, respond to the answer with a statement or two. Then ask a follow-up from the list, such as “What advice would you give someone just starting in the widget business?”

After the response to that question, you ask number eleven: How can I know if someone I’m talking to would be a good prospect for you?

This whole process could run a quickly as 10 minutes. It won’t make you Mother Teresa, but it’s a small price to pay for suspending your self-interest. And you’ll love the payback.

http://www.burg.com/

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0071462074/?tag=bobburgbestse-20

Are you HIP in your business?

The American Dictionary of Slang defines “hip” as having knowledge of what is stylish, fashionable, or cool. So are you HIP in your business practices? In this specific context being HIP means conducting your business with Honesty, Integrity, and Professionalism.

It’s safe to say that most business people would make a claim to honesty, integrity, and professionalism. Just to set an LCD—a lowest common denominator—let’s explore this ethical trio more closely. Then we can all go off into the privacy of our inner offices and conduct a little personal due diligence.

Honesty

We’re all familiar with the stereotype of the butcher who leaves his thumb pressing on the scale along with the steak to “goose up” the weight so he can charge more. Hopefully, none of us is that blatantly dishonest. But are we always totally forthright with customers and colleagues? Consider the following:

1. When we see ads for drastically reduced prices on jewelry or clothing, do we wonder how much the regular price is marked up before it is marked down? Shrewd marketing some would call it. At bottom, that practice is less than an honest representation of price.
2. Have you ever gone to a “quick oil change” shop and been advised to change out your air filter, flush your cooling system, and switch to the latest (and more costly) synthetic oil?  Strategic upselling? Maybe. Padding the bill? Good chance of that.
3. As an employee, have you ever felt “shorted” when your manager tells you that the company didn’t do as well as projected so raises and bonuses are going to be slim? Happens all the time. Later you see lavish company spending on executive retreats or other ancillary perqs.
4. Worse than number 3, have you ever been the manager delivery that message?
5. Have you ever prepared a statistical or financial report for your boss and conveniently omitted data that might not show you or your department in the best light?

You can probably provide a double handful of similar examples. The common thread is that we all play at the margins of honesty from time to time. We fudge, hedge, and sometimes double-speak. ‘Tis the season for making a list and checking it twice. Let’s make sure honesty and fair-dealing are on our lists.

Integrity

The second leg of the tree-legged ethical business practices stool is an interesting word. Many blur the meaning and equate it with honesty. Integrity is certainly related to honesty, and the two together form a powerful success magnet. Those of you old enough to remember newsman Walter Cronkite will recall that he was unofficially America’s “most trusted man.” Why? The public believed that Cronkite was outwardly what he was inwardly. Viewers felt and sensed that his public persona and his unseen heart of hearts were aligned. That alignment is what integrity is. Congruence. Saying what you mean, and meaning what you say. Walking the talk.  These are the clichés that we use to express the idea of what an “integrated” person is.

What does business integrity look like? At its most basic and crucial it is being in a business that reflects your values and beliefs. Wherever and whenever I acquired it, I developed and recognize in myself a strong conviction that we should approach every day as an opportunity to be and do our best, to learn something new, and to help at least one other person do the same. In my professional life, I have been most comfortable, effective, successful, and satisfied in those “jobs” that by definition allowed me to do that: teacher, trainer, coach (both athletic and business). So, do what you love. Do it well. The money will follow.

Another dimension of business integrity is treating customers and employees alike (and hopefully, that means you treat both constituencies well). Each group is necessary for your long term business success. Customers provide the revenue; employees, the productivity that builds and protects the profit. So each group is a critical asset.

There are two caveats here. If employees observe that you value customers more highly than you do them, the eventual resentment will erode productivity. If employees see you mistreating, under-appreciating, or even cheating customers, it won’t take much of a leap of logic before they begin suspecting similar tactics could be leveraged against them. There is also a risk that customers stop doing business with your company if they detect or observe mistreatment of your employees.

One effective approach to keep your two most important assets aligned is to regularly communicate to employees your philosophy of customer service. Involve them in brainstorming how to serve customers better and provide them even more value. Help them buy into your business vision and give employees a stake in your profitability. Another powerful vehicle is customer appreciation events. http://www.mypartyplanner.com/party_tip_Using_Entertainment_to_Create_Great_Customer_Appreciation_Events.html

Professionalism

I had a friend years ago who consistently described any job he ever had using the phrase, “I once did “X” professionally.” He meant to project a professional status, but the reality was that he simply did a certain work activity for pay.  Just like most people—professionals or not.

So what is a professional? One definition claims that a professional is a person who performs a service and “dictates” the cost of that service. Traditionally, the term professions was restricted to doctors, lawyers, accountants, architects, some teachers. Nowadays, it can refer to any degreed or licensed person working in a field related to that degree.

As an element of ethical business practice, professionalism is not so restrictive or elitist. Many would argue that professionalism consists in performing work at a high skill level, based on a thorough knowledge of the information related to that work, where the result of that work conforms to a set of objective quality standards. This is a demanding definition and challenges us to bring the “A” game to every work-related instance. There’s an old baseball cliché that applies: “Some you win. Some you lose. And some get rained out. But you have to suit up for all of them.” In other words, be ready to play and win the game.

Honesty, Integrity, and Professionalism. Together they represent a tall order to fill every day on the job. But the order must be filled to create long-term personal and business success. So the question remains: “Are you HIP?”

Rapport Report: 7 tips for connecting with clients the first time

Meeting with prospects for the first time is a critical event in the process of converting them into clients/customers. The adage about only getting one chance to make a good first impression is a cliché for a reason—it’s true.

Former alcoholism counselor turned financial advisor Dennis Nolte recently detailed the following tips for building rapport in a “Horse’s Mouth” column (Horse’s Mouth is a popular and idea-packed subscription website for financial professionals).

Tip 1. Treat the first meeting like a first date. Have you ever noticed that the person who asks the questions allows the dating partner to feel good about him/herself and therefore build a positive impression of the encounter? The same principle applies in meeting prospects for the first time.

The business application is to develop a portfolio of “opening” questions pertinent to the business you are trying to initiate with the prospect. This question portfolio is not like a lawyer’s interrogatories. That would be off-putting. Compose the questions conversationally and practice them so you can ask them naturally. You don’t run through the whole portfolio but ask the ones your instinct tells you fit this specific interaction.

Tip 2. Create comfort by opening with non-business matters. If you were hosting a dinner party.yu probably would not open the door as the first guests arrived and command them to sit down and eat. You would extend certain social pleasantries to ease your guests in to the dinner-event.

The prospect is like your dinner guest. Eventually you will seat the guest at table and get to the business at hand. The overall meal-experience is more satisfying after people warm up to each other. Your initial goal in the prospect interaction is to get to know each other because the relationship always precedes the transaction.

Tip 3. Find out how they feel. Poet e e cummings once wrote, “since feelings are first,” acknowledging that emotion precedes, if not directs, reason. It is useful to learn how your prospects “feel” about the business purpose of your interaction. You can be “softly” direct in carrying this out: “Mr/Ms Jones, what does [your product/service], mean to you?” Framing it this way gives the prospect freedom to respond both from the head and the gut. The response outliners the parameters you will work within.

Tip 4. Practice reflective listening. It can’t be emphasized enough that having asked a question, you have an obligation to listen to and reflect on the response. As you hear what the prospect has to say, reflect back both the content and the feelings that you hear. For example, let’s say you offer long-term care insurance, and the prospect says,

“My parents went into a nursing home and weren’t well enough prepared for that. So I wanted to talk to you so I’ll be in a better position if I’m faced with the same thing.”

Your natural inclination is to address the practical aspect of what was just said. Resist that inclination. Build the habit of responding to the overall human aspect of the utterance: “That must have been a very trying time for all of you.”

Tip 5. Show empathy. The sample response above expresses concern for and understanding of the prospect’s total situation. You can follow up that opener with, “I understand why you wouldn’t want to put yourself and other family members through a similar experience.” Such a response goes a long way in positioning you as a caring professional who can provide a solution.

Remember that empathy is not maudlin sympathy. It grows out of thinking of yourself in the situation the prospect has just described and responding genuinely.

Tip 6. Look for a healing opportunity. As you transition from this initial relational phase of the interaction, resist making a frontal sales approach. Look instead to ease the prospect’s pain. This may sound melodramatic, but all buyers are looking to solve some problem that is causing them discomfort of some sort. When you are confident that you have a grasp of what that discomfort is, describe what you have done to ease the discomfort of others in the same situation.

If you want to float a trial close at this point, you can ask if that approach sounds like something that could help the prospect. If you get an affirmative response, don’t dive for the paperwork just yet. Ask to go into more detail with the prospect. You want to get the “deal” right (because that reduces the chance for issues later and increases the opportunities for referrals).

Tip 7. Include all the players. Building a relationship with a prospect involves learning who else participates in the decision-making process or is impacted by the decision. If working with a couple, don’t assume the one who does most of the talking is the decision maker. As one person responds, seek out the reactions of the other(s). Or ask what so-and-so (who might not be present) would think of the decision being considered.

Going forward

Depending on the nature of your product/service, you may or may not conclude the business in this first meeting. If business is concluded, going forward entails setting up service expectations, additional opportunities to meet other needs, and referrals.

If the additional meetings are required to conclude the business, then set up the next meeting and agree on what the desired outcome of that interaction should be. After the current meeting, send an email summarizing the content and outcomes of that meeting and previewing the next meeting.

Following these 7 tips for building genuine rapport in the first meeting will help you fulfill an old sales adage: People only do business with people they like.

Front-end alignment: are you going where you’re steering;

or are you steering where you don’t want to go?

I recently brought my car in for an alignment. Alignments are important because they help to keep your vehicle going where you steer it. Proper alignment also allows the tires to wear evenly, which helps traction, braking, and overall tire life/safety. Correctly aligned cars protect the ball joints, which insure that the steering and suspension work properly. All of this keeps the car, and you, “on track.”

It occurred to me that some businesses get out of alignment and off track. Then they suffer a decline in performance (productivity, efficiency, sales, service, customer/client acquisition). So it is as necessary to get a front-end alignment for your business as it is for your car.

A natural question to ask at this point is, “What is business alignment?” Let’s examine it.

Connecting the dots

Connecting the dots has become a common metaphor for finding logical functional linkages within a business organization. Alignment is about identifying the dots and defining how they relate to one another. Some of the big and important dots are Mission, Purpose, Marketing, Sales, and Profit. Expressed another way, these Big 5 can be identified as Values (Mission/Purpose/Profit); Beliefs (Marketing); and Actions (Sales). To be in proper alignment, a company’s Values, Beliefs, and Actions must be consistent with each other, reflect each other, and harmonize with each other.

Some simple examples

Companies spend a lot of time and money to develop and promote a slogan. So let’s take a well known slogan and use it as an exemplar of alignment.  “Have it your way at Burger King.” This slogan has at least two motivations: 1) to position Burger King against MacDonald’s, where you pretty much take the sandwich the way MacD’s makes it; and 2), it signifies a company cultural belief that customer choice is important.

Now, what if you walked into a BK and ordered something your way, and the server rolled his/her eyes and announced that you couldn’t have the sandwich that way? You would feel disappointed, offended and hoodwinked because the pronounced corporate value was not lived out in the actions/behavior of the server. In this hypothetical, Burger King could lose the sale and would probably lose a customer.

3M Corporation of Minnesota has long enjoyed a reputation as a company that delivers “Innovative Technology for a changing world” (their tagline). 3M’s culture encourages experimentation and “fast failure” (try things, if they fail, decide that quickly , and move on). Suppose you’re a 3M chemist, and your performance reviews are suffering because you spend a lot of lab time “tinkering” with things that do not consistently turn in to products. Would you be feeling a misalignment between the on-paper value of experimentation and your written performance review? Probably so. The walk doesn’t match the talk.

A practical and personal application

You get the point. As the fourth quarter winds down, many business people are working on 2010 business plans. If you haven’t started planning, get started now by checking your front end alignment. Do this simple exercise, and respond to the following questions:

1. What is the purpose of my business (values)? Is it the same purpose I had when I started the business? If not, when and why did it change?
2. What business principles (beliefs) do I hold that led me to my business purpose? (Spend some serious time with this. Be very honest with yourself).
3. Think about how you conduct your business (actions/behaviors). What are you actually doing that communicates to your customers what you value and believe in?

Write these responses down. Having to write them helps you think more clearly and completely. Writing them objectifies them—gets them out of the vague thought stream in your head and transforms them into valid “data points” you can assess and make rational decisions around.

Once written, look for inconsistencies. If any one of the elements is not aligned with the other two, you’re off course. Even if you’re turning a profit, misalignment takes a toll on you. And the more you wear down—just like your tires—you eventually break down.

So begin your 2010 planning by checking and correcting your basic alignment. When your business values, beliefs, and actions connect,  you can better steer in the direction you know you want to go in.

Want some help with this process?  Schedule a free Business Alignment coaching session

The ABC’s of Business Etiquette

It’s no secret that most forms of social behavior in the U.S. have become more casual over the last 20 years. Ironically, one of the last arenas where etiquette still matters and following specific protocols is still important is business.

But business etiquette is rarely actually “taught” anymore. Executives and salespeople, who regularly meet with other business people and clients, are left to figure it all out without corporate preparation. We’ve all heard about how much business is conducted on the golf course. We don’t always hear about business lost because someone just didn’t know how to behave. And manners are only a part of it. I once directly witnessed a salesperson taken to task by a client because the salesperson hadn’t shaved for the client meeting. Sounds petty, you’re thinking. How petty is it that the salesperson didn’t get the business because in his own cultural context, sporting a little stubble was considered cool? Clearly, his context wasn’t the one that mattered.

To find out more about business etiquette, I met with Sylvia Fine of Richmond, VA, who has trained hundreds of business people for 20 years on acceptable business etiquette. Here are the highlights of our conversation.

Coach Up: What first got you interested in training business etiquette?

Fine: In working with new Financial Advisors, I saw firsthand how little traditional common courtesies and practices were followed. And I’m not talking about just table manners, which have eroded in certain age segments due to the popularity of fast food, which is eaten quickly and usually with the hands only. I’m referring to handshakes, making small talk. personal space, cell phone management, and much more.

Coach Up: Then how do you define “business etiquette”?

Fine: It’s general etiquette practiced in a business setting. A good way to remember what comes under the banner of etiquette is ABC—attitude, behavior, culture.

Attitude refers to one’s demeanor and approach to other people. In a business setting, do you stay positive, relate to the other parties as valued peers, and foster beneficial outcomes? In doing business, money is going to change hands. It should be a positive, even pleasant, experience.

Behavior does involve being polite and civil and proper. It includes knowing to whom to extend a hand for a handshake (e.g. man-to-man or woman-to-woman, either party may extend a hand first. Man-to-women, the man should wait for the woman to extend a hand first). Door-opening has become a hot potato, causing much confusion. A simple guideline is for the person “hosting” the other, should open for the “guest.”

Eye-contact is behavior that indicates that you are paying attention to the other party. For the same reason, turn off your cell phone and don’t sneak looks at your Blackberry under the table.

In conversation stay away from the sensitive topics: politics, religion, and sexual matters.

Showing a willingness to serve is behavior that scores business points because it defers to the other, a traditional virtue of proper etiquette in general.

Being aware of the culture that is observed in the location of the meeting also helps to make the other parties feel more comfortable, which is the goal of etiquette. Regional customs are important. A longer period of small talk is expected more in southern settings than in northern.   Rate of speech is another consideration. Formality of attire can vary from one end of a state to the other. So be aware of the local mores and customs.

Coach Up: What is the worst faux pas you have observed recently in a business setting?

Fine: I attended a business meeting where the meeting leader placed a cell phone on the table, leaving the phone in vibrate mode. Sure enough, in the middle of the meeting, it began to vibrate and dance all over the tabletop. This faux pas communicated two negative points: The leader was careless; and placed a higher priority on the device than on the real people around the table. Not a good message to the people whose buy-in the leader needed.

Coach Up: What’s the worst business outcome you ever saw as a result of a breach of etiquette?

Fine: I saw a salesperson direct all his business conversation to the husband of a couple, ignoring the wife. The couple did not buy from that salesperson and would not give any future business to that company.

Remember one thing: all business is earned by first building trust. The best way to begin to demonstrate that you are a trustworthy business person is by exhibiting that you know how to treat people—by dressing appropriately, being properly groomed, and being polite.

Coach Up:  We’ve only scratched the surface here. Where can business people learn more about business etiquette?

Fine: For years the Bible on etiquette of all kinds has been Letisha Baldridge’s books. Readers can google her.

Coach Up: Any parting words?

Fine: In any business transaction, the first sale is yourself. Following correct business etiquette is a great sales tool.

Coach Up: Thanks, Sylvia.

If you or your company is interested in learning more about Business Etiquette Training, Sylvia Fine can be reached through coach1@coach1up.com. Please type Business etiquette in the subject line.

Leveraging LinkedIn to lift your career                               

More and more business people are using LinkedIn to promote their professional activity. Recently C.G. Lynch of CIO.com wrote for PC World magazine about adding more horsepower to your LinkedIn profile to boost career opportunities. Following are the top 5 LinkedIn enhancements you can easily implement today. Whether you’re managing your career through transition, launching a private enterprise, or looking to attract clients to your existing business, these features can boost your online stature and credibility.

Tip #1. Get in the Picture

If you are not featuring a photo of yourself on your LinkedIn page, you’re making a mistake. Granted, some people might be trying to avoid having LinkedIn visitors jump to conclusions based on a photo. But unless you have three heads, excluding the photo suggests you might be trying to hide something or that you’re not comfortable with yourself.

The key is to use a professional photo, not a poorly cropped snapshot of yourself at the last tailgate party. It’s not about revealing your inner self. It’s about projecting your current professional persona. So wear business attire and pose for the picture against a neutral background.

Tip # 2. Write a Descriptive Professional Headline

When you create/edit your LinkedIn profile, you can enter a “professional headline” right beneath your name. Most subscribers simply put their names and title: e.g. Joe Doaks, Marketing Specialist. Try something catchier. If you’re a project manager, say something like, “Joe Doaks, managing complex projects involving IT and marketing—on time, on budget.”

When people search for you, they will see this professional tagline, and it might decide whether or not they feel compelled to click on your name and see your profile.

Think of LinkedIn as part of your e-marketing effort. It has to sizzle a bit.

Tip # 3. Properly Label Websites Displaying Your Work or Blog

LinkedIn allows you to list websites where your work might be displayed. This is a value-add option if you maintain a personal website with a resume or a blog, or a business website that offers free-downloads, newsletter subscriptions, a contact form, or a shopping cart.

Instead of using LinkedIn’s default labels (My Company; My website), when you edit your “websites” section, click the LinkedIn drop down menu and select “other.” You can upload the link to the relevant site and describe it to your best advantage. For example, instead of “my blog,” you might write, “my blog on complex project management.”

Tip # 4. Consider a Vanity URL

Ever notice all the personalized license plates and state-sanctioned specialty tags dressing up front bumpers and trunk lids? Use the same principle to personalize your standard LinkedIn URL. You can modify the default URL that LinkedIn provides for your profile. Doing this reaps both cosmetic and communication benefits. If you offer your LinkedIn profile address over the phone or print it on your business card, it should be as concise and self-explanatory as possible.

You can do this in a minute or two, and it makes your profile look more purposeful. Go to the “public profile” section to create your LinkedIn URL of choice.

Tip # 5. Finish with a Strong, SEO-Friendly Summary

This tip is a little techy, but the web-designers are all about “driving traffic” to a website by using words and phrases that the top search engines are programmed to seek out. The web folks refer to this as “search engine optimization” (SEO). The “summary” section of your LinkedIn profile is a good place to “attract” the searches from google, yahoo, or bing.  Job seekers, networkers, salespeople, and business owners will benefit from optimizing the language in the 2,000 characters that LinkedIn allows in the professional summary section.

The likelihood of people finding you will depend on LinkedIn’s search engine linking your name to certain search keywords. So, staying with our fictional project manager, Joe Doaks, a project manager might want the term “project management” to appear a few times throughout the summary. Since Joe works on IT and Marketing projects, repeating those terms would also help direct traffic.

LinkedIn is like the Yellow Pages—chock full of information, yours and your competition’s. So “stopping” visitors on your page is key to opening opportunities. Your summary should feature short “problem- action-and results” stories that show how you contended with challenges that helped you succeed. Lead with verbs the same way you compose resume items (e.g. “manage implementation of cost-effective sales automation projects that help sales forces increase sales by 20%”).

There’s your top five. Time to get busy.

A-Words

When I began my professional life, I taught English at the college level. This involved teaching writing. One of the tips I passed on to students was to focus their writing style on verbs rather than nouns. Verbs are action words; they keep the writing moving.

I left the classroom many years ago for a career in business (although I still coach people on writing), but I didn’t abandon actions words, or as we’ll refer to them here, A-Words. Here’s what I mean.

Business is a contact sport

Unlike academics, business is a contact sport. Learning is traditionally an individual pursuit and mostly solitary. Business is always social, requiring Action to Acquire customers and Action by customers to be successful.

Before the niche comes the knack

As with any endeavor, business people need certain Aptitudes to run, grow, and protect their enterprise. In addition to a bias for action, they need an aptitude for the numbers that typically measure the health of a business. For example, it’s not enough to make a sale and satisfy a customer. The sale must be made at a minimum profit margin in order for additional customers to be served. An aptitude for relating to people at the level of their needs and an aptitude for communicating that understanding by matching the business service/product to those needs are indispensible. Other aptitudes include an ability to lead others, plan, organize, implement, and evaluate business operations.

An ear to the ground

Many communication experts tell us how important listening is in personal and business interactions. Listening is the front-end.   Paying Attention to what you hear brings the results at the back-end. How do you pay better attention as you listen? The communication experts say to maintain eye contact (without creating a stare-down). As you listen, be conscious of making subtle physical reactions to what you hear: nodding, smiling, making brief interjections such as “I see.” “I understand,” “uh-huh,” You should also offer brief re-caps of what you hear: “So if I’m understanding you correctly . . . .” These “check-ins” let the speaker know you are physically paying attention and mentally processing what you are hearing. Asking clarifying questions rather than assuming you understand helps you and the speaker feel confident that real communication is occurring. Paying attention as you listen also means being alert for the emotional subtext of what is being expressed outwardly. This would come into play more frequently dealing with employees than with customers, although in some consulting work, the emotional subtext could be significant.

The devil is in the details

Paying Attention to detail is also an important business trait. Clearly, knowing the business numbers critical for your industry is an absolute requirement. Your own internal company vitals must also be on your daily radar. Things like sales volume, closing ratio, cost-of-sales, P&L Statements and Balance Sheets, personal and employee scheduling, tax issues, benefits issues, market data, competitor intelligence, and on and on. Managing a business becomes more about these things than about the specific work that is done.

Being there

Related to paying attention is staying Awake or being Aware of what is going on in and around your business. Political, social, environmental, financial, and economic events exert a direct or indirect impact on  your operation. Keeping up on these things and consulting official or informal advisors about how you should react to external events are two ways to keep ship on an even keel and maintaining course.

Questions, we get questions

Many confident business owners and corporate managers become successful because they are directive and proactive. They know their objectives, they’ve learned how to operate and get things done, what and the buttons to push. They know what they know. This directive approach often leads them away from the one of the most effective business tools at their disposal: questions. These strong, confident, and successful managers stop Asking questions. So asking is the A-word that controls conversations, opens up business possibilities (as in “What if we did such and such?”), gains important information from clients and employees (“What can you tell me about . . . “). Questions are more powerful than statements for at least two reasons. First, humans seem wired to answer questions. So if you ask a question, you will get a response. Second, when you tell someone something, it’s received as just a statement that they hear. When that same person responds to your question, what they say is a fact in their minds, and therefore tells you more.

“When placed in a position of authority, take charge”

I heard that statement from General Norman Schwartzkopf. It speaks to the importance and value of Assertiveness, another A-word business trait. A companion word, not beginning with A. is decisiveness. Not all decisions you make will be correct. You often have to make decisions without all the information we would like to have. Successful owners and managers are assertive enough to take charge and make the best decision they can. They key is to make more right decisions than wrong. Nobody bats 1000; but it doesn’t take a 1000 batting average to make the Hall of Fame.

You’re always 100% responsible

The last A-word in our list is Accountability. Whether you are the owner, the manager, the CEO, or the newest employee, you are 100% responsible within your sphere of activity. You always will work with and through others and will need their participation to achieve results. But you are 100% accountable. Leo Durocher, hard-nosed baseball manager in the 1950s, once said, “Nobody likes an alibi ballplayer.” In other words, there are no excuses. In business, stuff happens. Whether you are the owner or a corporate manager, you are accountable for dealing reasonably with the stuff that happens. One way to stay accountable, take charge, and make more good decisions than bad, is to embrace the A-words in this article.

Just as when you were in school, you always want an A.