If you now, or have ever served, THANK YOU for your service!
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Whether we’re looking to make sales, land a job, or just keep up in our industry, most of us attend networking events, conventions, job fairs, etc. Making the most of these opportunities involves a little preparation and know-how. Clarify your ObjectiveHave a realistic objective for the event. Your overall goal in life at the moment might be to “increase sales” or “get a job,” but formulate something more specific for the occasion, like:
Distill Your MessageHave an answer ready for common questions. “What do you do?” “What type of job are you looking for?” Stumbling on this is the most common error in networking situations, and the most unfortunate. You lose an opportunity if you’re not perfectly clear about what you have to offer and why the person you’re meeting should know (and remember!) about you. You can even have a unique and powerful response to an ordinary question like “How are you today?” Instead of the usual (and boring) “Fine.” You could use the opportunity to say something positive, engaging, and conversation starting – like “I’m really glad I came. Did you hear that the turnout is better than expected, given the economy?” It’s even better if you can tie your response in with your industry or profession, so that you sound like someone who is really engaged and informed about what’s going on. Dress to Impress, then Forget ItEighty percent of communication is visual. Especially when meeting people for the first time, be sure to “look the part.” If you look like a successful consultant or a professional person, you are more likely to make a good impression and to be remembered that way. Observe the way people dress in your geographical area and industry if you can, otherwise, dress conservatively and professionally. The best thing about being appropriately dressed is that you can forget what you’re wearing and focus on who you’re meeting and the message you’re delivering. You (and everyone else) can literally forget about what you’re wearing because you don’t feel self-conscious and your clothes and grooming aren’t drawing any attention away from your personality and your message. ConversationListen more than you speak. Ask questions. This gets people talking about themselves and their company (which is why you’re there, right?) You may be desperate to communicate your value to the company or the industry, but you communicate much better by investing the time and listening to other people. Keep your own responses fairly short and clear, and encourage others to talk about themselves. They will think you’re a brilliant conversationalist if you let them to most of the talking! Remember that everyone is here to network. Don’t monopolize any person for more than 10 or 15 minutes. If you strike a good rapport with someone and find that you have more to talk about, ask for their contact information and suggest that you have coffee or a phone conversation later. Business CardsDon’t just hand out business cards, or ask people for theirs. Acquiring (or handing out) business cards is not the objective of the day. The objective is to make meaningful contact with people who have a reason to contact you later, or that are looking forward to you contacting them. If you strike a chord in conversation and see that there is mutual interest, ask the person you’re talking with if you may contact them later. They may offer you a business card. If they do, offer one of yours. You should have them ready (in a jacket pocket is ideal) and not go digging through your purse or briefcase or pants pockets in search of them. When you receive a person’s card, follow up within a day or two with an email or phone call reminding him of what you talked about. More InformationNetworking Etiquette by Aviva Schiff on The Sideroad http://www.sideroad.com/Business_Etiquette/networking-etiquette.html 3 Rules to Smart Business Card Etiquette by SparkTalk on Careerealism http://www.careerealism.com/3-rules-to-smart-business-card-etiquette/
 Sneeze etiquette ambassador Elmo the Muppet  Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius took advantage of a “teachable moment” when NBC reporter Chuck Todd sneezed during a recent press conference. “Bless you. What was that about?” She said in response to the sneeze. “Give that man some Purel!” She then demonstrated correct sneeze etiquette and suggested that Mr. Todd could use a special briefing from Elmo, the Muppet. (Sesame Street has teamed up with the federal agency to produce some public service announcements in response to the H1N1 influenza epidemic.)
 Kanye West interrupts Taylor Swift's Acceptance Speech MTV has always been an informal venue, and one of the last places on earth to expect to see a great etiquette lesson. But our hats are off to Beyonce, who showed an incredible amount of class to a fellow musician after the unfortunate incident. We agree with the Today show host Matt Lauer’s assessment – here’s a great example of “Class vs. No Class!” The really interesting thing about this incident is that West didn’t seem to intend any offense – he acted on impulse and simply expressed his opinion. He obviously didn’t consider how disrespectful the gesture would seem to Swift and her fans, friends and family. He’s since apologized on his blog. His apologies, according to Rolling Stone, seemed to miss the point: “I’m in the wrong for going on stage and taking away from her moment!… Beyonce’s video was the best of this decade!” In a later post, he seemed to have a better understanding of the scenario, probably after hearing opinions from all over the media. “I feel like Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents when he messed up everything and Robert DeNiro asked him to leave…,” Kanye writes. “That was Taylor’s moment and I had no right in any way to take it from her. I am truly sorry.” Bad manners: Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech. Better manners: Kanye’s apologies, which can’t undo what was done but seem to show that he didn’t mean any harm to Taylor Swift. Great manners: Beyonce Knowles sharing the spotlight with Taylor and giving her an opportunity to finish her speech.
Most of us have business and personal reasons to use social media.  Social Media seems to encourage us to mix business with pleasure. Forrester’s Research indicates that 51% of online Americans have joined a social network. Another 73% are consuming some form of social content on a regular basis. People are connecting with, listening to, following and collaborating with each other online at an amazing rate. We may have personal or business accounts, and the nature of many of these sites, like Facebook, seem to encourage mixing business with pleasure. I have a personal account on Facebook, and business accounts on LinkedIn and Twitter. I also have fan pages on Facebook that are linked to my personal account as well. I don’t see this as a problem, because we’re all complete human beings and we all engage in some small talk around the water cooler at work; and we sometimes talk to friends and family about our careers at home. But this mixing can get out of hand. In the worst cases it and can compromise your professionalism at work or it can result in friends and family avoiding you because you’re constantly flogging your product. Here are some guidelines I’ve come up with: 1) Be honest and be yourself. It’s okay to tell friends and family what you do for a living, and it’s okay to tell business associates that you enjoy gourmet cooking. 2) Equally important, respect your own privacy as well as everyone else’s. Social media is not private, even on personal accounts. No matter what the “settings” say, nothing is secure and anything can be overheard. Don’t say anything in the social media that you wouldn’t say on a crowded airplane when you don’t know who is sitting next to you. 3) Don’t send game invitations or forward long lists of jokes or memes to business contacts. My rule is not to play games with anyone that doesn’t invite you first. 4) Use screen names and profile images that respresent you (and your company) well. Photos that show your face are best. (They’re authentic, they help people recognize you as the Paula Williams they met at a conference among the sea of Paula Williamses out there.) Getting too clever with your profile image, using an image of a cartoon character or household object, or calling yourself a “slackerfromdetroit” doesn’t usually inspire confidence in a profile that potential business partners might be viewing. 5) Compose your posts and tweets as carefully as you would any memo or document that’s going to be sent to hundreds (or potentially thousands) of people. Use a word-processing program to compose so things don’t get sent accidentally, use spell-check, and verify that your links are good before posting. 6) Realize that what you post is out there for good. Potential employers routinely search social media for information by and about the people they intend to hire. 7) Don’t sell stuff on social media. You can include links to announcements or blog articles or your web site, but social media is for connecting, not for selling. (Your company’s web site is for selling.) In other words, saying that your new book has finally been published (with a link) is fine as a status update or post, but I think that saying “Buy my new book!” as a post, tweet or update, is bad manners. What are your rules for social media? This is an emerging field and we’re all making it up as we go. I’ve probably violated a few of my own rules at times, and have made up new ones. I’d like to hear what you think!
 Get the information you need for quotes and proposals, but don't it hard for customers to do business with you! I ran across this post in a forum and thought it was an interesting discussion.
My own process is that I give people an informal quote over the phone, but for a more detailed, binding quote (in writing) I request that both parties sign an 2-way nondisclosure form. That way their information is protected, as is mine. And then I can feel free to ask them questions relevant to my pricing and I can tell them a bit more about how I go about doing things, since they’ve promised not to share than information with my competitors.
I guess the key thing is to be sure that all the information you request is really needed to give a good quote, and not just “filling out a form.”
Here’s the forum discussion that got me started on this topic: (It’s amusing and educational!) ________________________________________________
Hi,
I am trying to price up a piece of machinery for a potential business idea I have lined up, however one of the companies whose product I have been researching doesn’t have a price on their website. I emailed them for a price, but now they are asking me to supply full company details…which I don’t have. Is this to protect competetive advantage and fairly common? Or is it a bit weird? I’d have thought you’d want to promote a product as much as possible… but maybe not. _______________________________________________________ I am amazed at how hard some companies make it for potential customers to give them orders I would tell them, either give me a price or you will loose out on a potentially very large order We approached a Company last week for prices and were told after being passed around the office that we needed to open an account first and that they would send us a form to complete and then they would check us out and then it would be passed onto the relevant sales rep etc etc, Muppets They were told that in view of their ridiculous procedures that we would not be buying from them and that we would be going elsewhere, the sad thing is they didn’t appear to care, if it was my business they would have all been fired ___________________________________________ We do this all the time, me hates all the punters and the scheming, conniving, time wasting, gits. Need to be weaselled out!!! A lot of punters have massive potential to suck you into a bottomless pit, where nothing but your time gets consumed.
(Original forum discussion is from http://ow.ly/15MdaX)
This is a business ethics video Elizabethtown College SIFE created to teach high schoolers about business ethics in the workplace. They did a great job with this video – I love the fact that it’s really informative while acknowledging that not every situation has a clear and safe course of action, and that realistically, making the ethical choice involves some risk (and courage) for the person involved. It’s not always easy to do the right thing. Have you ever been in a sticky situation?
Top Ten –
To see Chris Brogan’s whole article, go to http://www.chrisbrogan.com/a-brief-and-informal-twitter-etiquette-guide/  Clinton with the Self-Employed Women's Association If I’d known in advance about Hillary Clinton’s visit to India, I would have sent a copy of The American Businesswoman’s Politically Incorrect Guide to Bangalore. Although the Secretary of State is a politician, not technically a businesswoman, and she visited Delhi, not Bangalore, I think she would have found a lot of the information very helpful. I’m sure her briefers clued her in about what to wear (and what not to wear!) the use of lakhs and crores rather than thousands and millions; and the other little things that make a visit to India more comfortable for hosts and guests.  What can Harry Potter teach us about ethics? You’ll have to forgive me if you think this is a trivial treatment of a serious topic, but I have two good reasons: 1) I’ve had a soft spot for Harry Potter since he’s gotten millions of kids, especially boys, to actually READ BOOKS! Of their own free will! 2) What we teach our young people is of vital importance to a society. Harry Potter might live in a make-believe world, but he faces some of the same ethics challenges. He has to deal with different factions in the Hogwarts school and in the Ministry of Magic that many of us find familiar themes from our experiences with corporations and governments. He learns the hard way that the people in authority aren’t always the best arbiters of right and wrong. At many points, Harry has to make decisions, and sometimes he has to struggle with some really difficult questions. He sometimes makes mistakes, as we all do, no matter how smart and ethical we think we are. (!) But luckily for us (and for our kids) he really makes an effort to straighten things out and he always makes good decisions where it counts. What do you think would have happened if Harry Potter grew up and worked for Ken Lay at Enron? Or if he ran up against Bernie Madoff? The Voldemorts of this world are not always as easy to recognize, but I’d like to think that Harry (with the help of his friends, of course) would struggle but come out better for it. |
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