A few days ago I came across an article  suggesting ways to make email more efficient and less time-consuming.  Sound like a good idea? Who doesn’t want to spend fewer hours sorting through email, trying to decide which to open first, what to do next and when?  The author of this particular article suggested that to abbreviate the process you could simply compress the entire message into the subject line. Then you add the acronym “EOM” at the end of the line. An example might be, “Tomorrow’s Book Festival Cancelled. EOM”  There you are. Done in seconds.  In case you don’t know, “EOM” stands for “End of Message.”  In my opinion “EOM” signifies “End of Manners.”

I have a couple of issues with sending a message like this.  While I totally  agree that email should be brief and to the point, and I stress that point during my business etiquette courses, I believe this suggestion takes email etiquette to a new low. Putting the message in the subject line might be fine between friends, but it is not appropriate for business email.

In my courses on email etiquette I remind the participants that email represents them professionally the same as the handshake they offer, the clothes they wear and the greeting on their voice mail.  You are sending email, not a text message.

1. Write a pertinent subject line such as ‘Tomorrow’s Book Festival Cancelled.’”
2. Begin with a greeting to the person or persons to whom you are sending the message.
3. In the body of the email you might say, “Tomorrow’s book festival cancelled. We will get back to you later with more details. In the meantime, call me if you have any questions.”
4. Use a professional closing, your name and your contact information.
5. Avoid acronyms. Not everyone knows what “EOM” stands for.

It may take a few minutes longer to type that message, but it shows respect for your recipients and makes you look like a polished professional, not some high school sophomore.

Earlier this week Time magazine  published an article titled “Why American Kids are Brats.” The article was inspired by the newly-published book, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman.  The book has created quite a storm since the Wall Street Journal wrote an adaptation of it that they called “Why French Parents are Superior.”    While I don’t want to get into a lengthy discussion about whether American kids are brats and French parents are superior, I do think it is worth noting that on the whole French children are better behaved and more respectful than their American counterparts.

As the writer for the Times points out, French children are more polite and better socialized.  They learn at an early age that other people have feelings, too. They do not demand nor do they expect to always get their way.

I think there are lessons for all of us to learn from the book and the articles.  Good manners and proper behavior should be taught at a young age so that people grow up with a mindset that others should be valued and treated with courtesy. That is the premise of all my business etiquette courses. If you want to be a successful, you need to have respect for others and you need to demonstrate it.

I sometimes wonder if there would be a need for business etiquette training at all if parents did a better job of parenting. As it is, that job now falls to trainers like me who teach business etiquette and protocol to pass it on to those who missed basic manners when they were children.

It is obvious that the holiday season is finally over. The lines at the mall and the super market are shorter. You can even find a parking space at the mall. The decorations are all down, and most everyone has come off that holiday sugar high. As for those New Year’s resolutions you made on January 1st, have they vanished as well?

Some people take the opportunity of a new year to make changes  in their lives.  Others think it is a waste of time because they rarely manage to keep them. Yet another group of people makes resolutions, but by mid-April can’t remember what they were. Nonetheless, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to come up with the list of the top habits that people vow to make or break.  Here are just five:

1. Lose weight
2. Exercise more
3. Stop smoking
4. Drink less
5. Spend more time with family and friends

While it is not always easy to keep our pledges to ourselves, it is never a bad idea to work on issues that could improve our health, our happiness and our productivity.  In addition to recommending those resolutions that will affect your personal life, I would like to suggest some that will improve your professional life as well.

Do you want to grow your business this year, attract more customers, keep your current ones and increase your bottom line?

If you answered “yes” to any of those, here are my top ten business etiquette recommendations for you in 2012:

1. Be on time for meetings, presentations, workshops and networking events. People who habitually arrive late  send a clear message that their time is more important than everyone else’s.  They develop a poor reputation, and they miss out on information and opportunity. Keep in mind that if you are not five minutes early, you’re late.
2. Pay more attention to your professional attire. Resolve to dress like the polished business person you are.  People do judge you by your appearance. Your 9-5 wardrobe should be different from your after five clothing.
3. Send more handwritten notes.  Take a few extra minutes when someone does something nice for you and write a thank you note.  You can send an email message of appreciation, but follow it with the written one. You’ll stand out from the crowd of your competitors.
4. Be more tolerant of people from other cultures.  Our business world is shrinking, and we find ourselves connecting with people from all over the globe.  Take time to read up on international etiquette so you can understand and appreciate cultural differences.
5. Call people by name. Using names in conversation makes others feel valued and acknowledged. However, make sure you are addressing them correctly. Don’t assume that “William” wants to be called “Bill” or that your new business client wants to be addressed by first name. Wait until Ms. Brown asks you to call her Mary. Until she does, use her title and last name.
6. Resolve to use the phone more often. We live in a world of email. Some people think that it is the only way to communicate. Email is intended to transmit information quickly and efficiently. It does not build relationships.  Make sure you take the time to talk to your customers, particularly about complicated or sensitive issues.
7. Be dependable.  Say what you will do and do what you said.  Your credibility will go right down the tube if you promise but don’t deliver. The same goes for deadlines. If you promise to have the project done by Monday, do it. If you find there are obstacles to meeting that deadline, alert the other person.
8. Use your cell phone with courtesy and respect for others. By now everyone should know to turn that phone off in meetings or at least put it on silent ringer and never take a call during a meeting. Even those people who consider themselves to be polite because they leave the meeting to take the call are clearly sending a message that they have other more important business than the meeting.  Continually coming and going is insulting to the meeting leader, workshop presenter and other attendees.
9. Pay attention to your cubicle etiquette.  Not everyone has an office with a door these days so keep your voice down, turn off the ringer on your phone while you are away and don’t eat noisy or smelly foods at your desk.
10. Take time to be nice.  Everyone is stressed and overworked, but we shouldn’t be so busy that we can’t take time to be kinder to others.  I have heard too many people say lately, “I don’t have time to be nice.” If you don’t have time to practice good manners and follow the rules of business etiquette in the workplace, you soon may find yourself without customers, clients and colleagues. In today’s economy it pays to be nice more than ever.

So finish that yogurt, pick up your copy of Manners that Sell, get on the treadmill, read, walk  and envision the profits that will come from adding polish.

It happened again.  A cell phone rang in the midst of a concert, and this time it made all the national media, including several international publications. It seems that while the New York Philharmonic Orchestra was playing Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, a cell phone began to ring.  The proud new owner of an iPhone had set his ring tone to play “Mirimba,” not exactly a good fit for Mahler’s Symphony. The ringing continued so long that the conductor, Alan Gilbert, stopped the orchestra until the disruption ceased.

When will people  learn about the etiquette of cell phones?  This particular person claimed that his was a brand new iPhone and that although he thought he had turned it off, an alarm he had set earlier went off anyway. There is much debate about this part of the story.  Many iPhone users claiming that this could not have happened if in fact he had truly  turned off the phone. Not being a iPhone user (sorry Apple) or skilled in the complexity of cell phones, I will leave this issue alone.  My expertise is in business etiquette and my focus here is cell phone etiquette.

Here are my thoughts on how this situation could have been avoided:

1. Leave the cell phone at home or in the car, but don’t take it to the concert. If you have to have it with you, and I will concede that are a number of justifiable reasons for doing so these days, make sure you follow rule #2.
2. Put your phone in silent mode, on vibrate or turn it off. You can check for messages or send them during the intermission.  There probably is no one on the planet who has had a cell phone for any length of time who has not experienced that embarrassing moment when the phone that was supposed to be turned off rang.  Mine once rang on an airplane during landing of all times. I never for a moment  considered that it was my phone, and like everyone else was looking around to see who the culprit was.
3. If your phone rings in the midst of a public event, turn it off immediately.  If you can’t or don’t know how, find the nearest exit and head  for it as fast as you can. Don’t try this on an airplane.
4. Never let your phone continue to ring and try to pretend that it is not yours.
5. Absolutely never answer the phone during an event and engage in conversation.  That actually happened  during one of my business etiquette presentations. One of the participants who, for obvious reasons sat in the back of the room, had his phone on. This was no accident. When a call came in, he not only answered it, but he also remained seated and launched into a lengthy conversation. I stopped talking. Fifty participants in a presentation, which included the topic of  cell phone etiquette, turned to stare or glare at  the offender. I walked back to where he was seated and stood in front of him until he got up and left the room.

Some people can’t be helped, but others can.  The people in my etiquette session understood how inappropriate this behavior was.  The crowd attending the concert got it as well. We stop the presentation or the concert and we wait, hoping that these thoughtless people will get the message. And people like me who make a living teaching, preaching and coaching on manners in the workplace do have followers and believers in the importance of being courteous and respectful of other people.

Cell phones are as much a part of our daily lives as eating, sleeping and breathing. Let’s use them appropriately.

It is that time of the year again, and no, I am not talking about the holiday season.  We just did that. Now we need to move on, get back to work and  on track for 2012.  As we think about being more productive and profitable this year, what better way to begin than by cleaning out your inbox. I don’t know about you, but I can’t see to the bottom of mine. No matter how hard I try, I never manage to clean it out completely.  I get just so far and then I am slammed with another couple dozen emails and off I go again.

An important message that I bring to those who attend my presentations or who read my articles on email etiquette in the business world is that you need to respond to email in a timely fashion.  You need to be in control of what comes in and what goes out of your mailbox. You need to understand that your business email is an extension of your professional  image.

There is hope and it is right around the corner. Two weeks from now, January 23-27, we recognize “Clean Out Your Inbox Week.”  How timely is that, especially if one of your New Year’s resolutions is to take control of your email. The person behind this event is my good friend Marsha Egan, the author of Inbox/Detox. Five years ago Marsha realized that almost everyone in the workplace is suffering from email overload and that productivity is affected by our email addiction so she started something akin to the Betty Ford Clinic for Email Addicts.

If you want to take back your work life, recover from your addiction and project the image of a polished professional online, I suggest you check out Marsha’s programs.   You might think about purchasing her best-selling book, Inbox Detox and the Habit of Email Excellence (Acanthus 2009), available on Amazon.

While I still haven’t been 100% successful in my efforts to clean out my inbox, each year when I go back into treatment, I get  better.  Who knows, this may be the year I succeed.

Welcome to Lydia Ramsey’s monthly newsletter. Each month we send you tips that focus on current business etiquette concerns. Our tips are designed to be timely and to help you master the details that open doors and close deals.

December 2011

Feasting Faux Pas to Avoid at the Holiday Table

This is the time of the year when my cup of business etiquette tips runneth over. There are too many timely topics to cover in a single newsletter. That is one reason why I gathered my holiday etiquette tips together in November and published them in an eBook titled Being the Polished Professional Throughout the Holidays –The Complete Guide to Etiquette and Protocol During the Holiday Season. This simple guide to appropriate behavior covers everything from sending out greeting cards to tipping the babysitter. Having published the guide, I was left pondering what topic to tackle in my December newsletter. Real life provided me with material.

The event that led me to write about the holiday meal was a Thanksgiving dinner that I attended with friends. I observed behavior that in some cases was appalling, in others it was simply thoughtless, and in a few it was just plain ignorant. My friends, by the way, had impeccable manners, but a number of their guests did not share their graces.

One of the guests balanced his cell phone on his thigh—in plain view I might add–during the entire meal. It was blatantly obvious that he was not engaged or interested in the people and conversation around him. Another individual arrived not only late, but also with cut flowers in hand for the frantic hostess. A third invitee rushed to be first in line for the buffet and piled his plate so high that it was doubtful if there would be anything left for the patient last. It was difficult, if not impossible, to ignore these mealtime misdemeanors committed by well-educated experienced professionals. It was hard to tell if the real turkey was on the serving platter or seated at the table.

In an effort to keep you and others to whom you might choose to share this newsletter from committing these feasting faux pas, I have compiled a list of “don’ts” so that you will be sure to position yourself with polish and professionalism at the holiday meal, whether it is a business function or a family get-together.

Don’t arrive late. The host or hostess who has prepared or planned this meal has a timeline to follow. A few dishes can be ruined when the meal is delayed. Your tardy arrival tells your host and others that this occasion was not high on your list of priorities.

Don’t arrive with a bouquet of cut flowers. It seems like a nice thought, but it requires that the hostess, who is trying to greet guests, check on the food and tend to all the last minute details of serving a delicious meal, has to stop whatever she is doing, find a vase, arrange the flowers and then position them appropriately. Chances are she already has a centerpiece for the table as well as other decorations. Send the flowers the next day as a thank you or select another gift.

Don’t come to the table with your cell phone. IF you do, turn it off. If you can’t get through the meal without checking email and voice mail, stay home. Your actions say that you are not present anyway and are downright insulting to everyone else.

Don’t heap your plate to overflowing when going through the buffet line. To begin with it makes you look like a pig. While there is usually more than enough food for all, things do happen and the last person through the line could find themselves staring at empty serving dishes or scraping out the few crusted remains.

Don’t use your napkin for anything except to blot your mouth. This is cold and flu season. If you have a cold, bring your own handkerchief or a good supply of tissues.

Don’t start eating or touch anything at our place setting until your host has had time to welcome everyone or ask the blessing. That includes not taking the napkin off the table or taking a sip of wine or water.

Don’t use the boarding house reach. If you want something that is beyond your grasp, ask the person closest to it to pass it.

Don’t ask for any condiments that are not on the table or being served with the meal. That includes salt and pepper. By asking for additional sauces or spices, you are implying that the host did not season the food properly. Eat it as prepared.

Don’t leave the table until everyone else has finished eating and the host rises. To my utter amazement at this memorable occasion, I witnessed a dinner guest get up from the table and settle himself in a chair in another part of the room. Can you guess who it was? I am sure you know. It was the very same person who kept his cell phone in plain view during the meal.

My best advice for dodging dining disasters is to brush up on your table manners before you head out. If you are not willing to be the polite, engaged and engaging guest, stay home or go out alone.

Happy Holidays to all!

Lydia

Order Now and Access the Book Immediately!

Special Holiday Offer

Feasting faux pas are not the only missteps you risk committing while celebrating the holidays. If you want to be confident that every move you make during this special time of year is one that positions you as the polished professional, I invite you to read my newest publication, Being the Polished Professional Throughout the Holidays –The Complete Guide to Etiquette and Protocol During the Holiday Season.

This easy-to read booklet on holiday business etiquette is designed to guide you through the protocol of sending out greeting cards, following the rules of conduct at the office party, hosting holiday meals with grace and good manners, selecting and presenting appropriate business gifts, and finally showing your appreciation with personal thank you’s. This booklet is available as a digital download for only $9.95 and can be yours within seconds.

Order Now and Access the Digital Edition Immediately!

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Did you miss reading the last edition? Not to worry, because you can access both the current and past editions online. You will also find single topic articles that address business etiquette challenges. To learn more, please visit Business Etiquette Newsletter Online.

About Lydia Ramsey

Lydia Ramsey is a Savannah-based business etiquette expert, executive etiquette coach, professional speaker and author of Manners That Sell™, offering keynotes and seminars to corporations, associations, colleges and universities. Learn more about Lydia, or call here at 912-598-9812. If you have clients or colleagues who might enjoy this business etiquette newsletter, please feel free to forward it to them and let them know they can register at the link below to get their very own copy!

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Being the Polished Professional throughout the Holidays – The Complete Guide to Etiquette and Protocol During the Holiday Season is an eBook addressing the challenges and opportunities that business people face at this time of year. From sending greeting cards to minding your manners at the holiday party, this easy-to-read downloadable publication provides answers to many tricky questions.

Here are a few tips to guide you:

1. Plan to sign each business greeting card personally and add a short hand-written note.
2. Attending the holiday office party is not a choice. It is a business requirement.
3. Know how to make proper introductions at business events, in and out of the office.
4. When entertaining business guests, give your client the seat with the best view.
5. When toasting, the person being toasted remains seated and does not raise a glass.

Success Tweets for Creating Positive Personal Impact is a book that I co-authored with Bud Bilanich. This is a career advice book that will show you how to create positive personal impact, an important skill for branding yourself as a polished professional.  Exhibiting polish in every aspect of life and career is simple common sense.  It’s not hard, but you need to do it right.

A few of the 140 success tweets include:

1. Never leave your office without business cards and plenty of them.
2. Keep your email brief.  Email is intended to be fast and efficient.  If your message is lengthy, it will not be read.
3. Whether you are placing or answering a call, always identify yourself. The person on the other end of the line should not have to ask your name.
4. For online profiles, use your real information and pictures. Your cat may be adorable, but that isn’t the face of your business.
5. When addressing customers, use their title (Mr., Mrs., or Ms) and last name until they give your permission to call them by their first name.

Is it really important to learn the rules of etiquette and protocol in today's high-speed, high-tech world of business? Do you really need to spend time thinking about how to make a proper introduction, when to present your business card and which fork to use? The answer is an unqualified “yes.” If you care about increasing your confidence, projecting a professional image, developing lasting relationships with your colleagues and clients and becoming a polished professional, etiquette skills are the powerful tools to help you avoid embarrassments and distractions and focus on your personal and professional goals, not to mention the bottom line.

To be successful and effective in your career, it is not enough to be an expert in your field or offer superior products and services. If you want to outclass and outlast your competition—and there is plenty of it—you need to have interpersonal skills. You need to know how to:

1. Greet others with grace.
2. Make business introductions with poise.
3. Dine with dignity, as either the host or guest.
4. Mix and mingle with ease at networking events.
5. Start and stop a conversation with confidence.
6. Write email that positions you as a professional.
7. Practice effective meeting behavior both in person and by phone.
8. Dress for success, always with the client in mind.
9. Contribute personally to a more productive and harmonious work environment.
10. Understand the nuances as well as the universal truths about international etiquette.

The rules of etiquette are a common language that all successful professionals must learn to speak. These skills will give you an edge that can make the difference between you and another person who is just as smart and equally as well-trained and educated. The difference is that knowing the rules of business etiquette will put you at ease and make your colleagues and clients more comfortable with you so that you can focus your agenda and not on yourself.

People choose to do business with people they like, but you already know that. Successful relationships begin when you exhibit courtesy, kindness and respect others. Knowing and practicing good manners in the workplace adds the polish that builds profits. Taking the time to learn the rules of business etiquette and protocol is a worthwhile investment.

If you or your organization want to learn more about the services, products and resources that I can offer, please visit Manners That Sell, browse for a while and contact me. I can help you with your business etiquette checklist.

Here's to your success,

Announcing three new products!!!

I have just created three new products to help you add the polish that builds profits:

A book titled Success Tweets for Creating Positive Personal Impact, and two webinars on business dining, Hosting The Business Meal and Maneuvering The Place Setting. The webinars can be purchased separately or in a money-saving combo package.

About Lydia Ramsey

Lydia Ramsey is a Savannah-based business etiquette expert, executive etiquette coach, professional speaker and author of Manners That Sell™, offering keynotes and seminars to corporations, associations, colleges and universities. To learn more about Lydia, her services and products, go to her website, Manners That Sell.

If you would like to have Lydia speak at your next meeting or conference contact her online or call her at 912-598-9812.

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As I travel around the country and the world, I am constantly struck by the lack of manners today. Few business people seem to place any value on common courtesy, which translates into customer service, which then translates into profits. The lack of business etiquette skills runs the gamut from polite dining, professional dressing to such simple acts as saying "Thank you" to a customer or an employee.  Very few people bother with expressing any sort of appreciation.  Every customer needs to hear those words whether they come from the top executive of the car dealership that sold you a new BMW or the cashier at the check out counter who rang up your toothpaste.

Customers should to be thanked for coming in, waiting to be helped, holding for you on the phone, making a purchase or simply showing interest in a product or service.  It is not rocket science and requires no advanced degrees. It is easy to implement when it comes from the top down.  When the CEO thanks his employees, those people are more inclined to thank the customers.  It is "viral" as we say. When the organization offers formal training in business etiquette, it makes an even greater impact.

The hospitality industry is the best at expressing appreciation to their clients. They actually spend the time and the money to train their employees in good manners. I recently presented a program at an association convention that was held at the Ritz-Carlton on Amelia Island. The effort that the Ritz puts into training its employees is obvious.  It struck me that the courteousness of the staff carried over to the guests who interacted with total strangers in the same gracious way. 

Something else that I have noticed in the hospitality industry is the emphasis that is placed on greeting guests properly and promptly. When you are on the road as much as I am, it makes a huge difference to be called by name each time you enter a lobby, pass by the reception desk or eat in the hotel restaurant.

Then they go a step further. They teach employees the correct answer to a "Thank you."  In 99% of the hotels where I have stayed while taking my "Manners That Sell" presentations on the road, when I thank an employee, their answer is either "You are welcome" or "It is my pleasure."  The rest of the world seems to think that the response to a "Thank you" is "No problem."  Who suggested that there was a problem?

You can be like every other company and disregard the simple "thank you" or you and your employees can make it a requirement.  You'll be surprised at how those few words "thank you" and "you are welcome" will set you apart from your competitors and how adding a bit of polish will build profits. Be different from everyone else–be polite.

Thank you,

Breaking news!  The softcover copy of Lydia Ramsey's Little Book of Table Manners is back in stock.  Order quickly while they are still on the shelves.

Coming soon!  My newest book, Success Tweets for Creating Positive Personal Impact, co-authored with Bud Bilanich, is coming out in less than two weeks. Stay tuned for an update.

About Lydia Ramsey

Lydia Ramsey is a Savannah-based business etiquette expert, executive etiquette coach, professional speaker and author of Manners That Sell™, offering keynotes and seminars to corporations, associations, colleges and universities. To learn more about Lydia, her services and products, go to her website, Manners That Sell.

If you would like to have Lydia speak at your next meeting or conference contact her online or call her at 912-598-9812.

Pass It On

If you have clients or colleagues who might enjoy my business etiquette newsletter, let them know they can register here for their own copy!

You just can't get away from them.  Everywhere you go cell phones are ringing, vibrating and lighting up. Almost everyone has one in hand, on the meeting room table, and always at the ready. They are hurting business, reputations and relationships.  One of those businesses might be yours.

Recently I was part of a team interviewing a prospective new employee. Naturally the department head began the questioning. Once he had concluded with what he deemed to be his part in the process, he turned the interview over to the rest of us. At that point he reached for his cell phone and began to check messages. As if that wasn't egregious enough, he then proceeded to text replies.  If an elephant had walked in the room and taken a seat at that moment, it would not have been more noticeable.

Imagine how the prospective employee felt.  Obviously, neither she nor the position she was seeking were of much importance.  She was offered the job, but turned it down.  Are you surprised?

People need to feel important and the way to do that is to give them your undivided attention.