The Pedestal Group

Recently, a friend of mine and I were in a meeting and she asked me to blog about cell phone etiquette.  I was surprised because I thought, “what do I know about cell phone etiquette?” and then I started looking around. People are really rude when it comes to cell phones!  So here’s what I’ve noticed:

First, when going into a meeting, turn off your cell phone.  That’s an easy thing and no one should have to be reminded.  Take out your pen, and put your cell phone on vibrate.

Next, if you are in a public place, put your cell phone on vibrate.  The meeting we were having was in a small coffee shop so when the person at the next table received a phone call.  It rang so loud we all jumped.

When you answer the phone, think about the people around you.  I can’t tell you how many conversations I can recount to you from the last week of paying attention that were people just talking loudly on their cell phones.  I’m tempted to start commenting – wouldn’t the person on the phone be surprised?!

Keep conversations short when you are in public.  In you are in line somewhere or at a restaurant, keep it short. It is frustrating when you are holding up the world so you can finish your conversation.  And exactly how is a company suppose to provide you customer service if you are on the phone the whole time?

Be conscious of when you check your phone during a conversation with someone else.  If you know there’s an important call coming in that you have to take, warn the person up front.  If the phone rings and it might be a school or other issue, let the person know you have to check for that reason.  Otherwise, focus on the person in front of you and let the phone go for awhile.

And just to invoke a little common sense, if it would be reasonable for another person to say, “shhhh” to you in that location, don’t take a phone call. The library, a church, a lobby of an office, a movie theater, a quiet restaurant, etc. are all places we would shush you so do it yourself!

The bottom line here is as the face of your company, your behavior speaks volumes about who you are and what your company is about.  If you are rude with your phone, regardless of your intentions, your company will be judged that way.  If you take my call and are in public, I will wonder who can hear what we’re saying and how conscience you are of confidentiality.  If you infringe on my lunch or meeting with your phone, I will assume you are insensitive and don’t care about other people.  Not the right messages, right?

Let’s just say you are hosting an event. You walk into the room and your speaker is already there as well as several attendees. If this is 30 minutes before your event, no problem. But what if it is FIVE minutes before your event?

I bring this up because this has happened to me a number of times lately. Either I was the speaker or I was an attendee who got to spend a great deal of time with the speaker because the organizer didn’t show up early. For the one the organizer got there right before it started and the other he arrived on time but then had to get coffee, etc. so we didn’t start on time. So what did they communicate?

In both cases someone sitting near me said, “I’ll have to remember this the next time I’m rushing to get here”. Great. Now at the next meeting of this group someone else isn’t going to show up on time. In one meeting someone took the initiative to make sure everyone was introduced and had a short discussion on why they were there. When the organizer sat down, she was already behind and everyone looked to the guy who had introduced them to run the meeting. Loss of respect was NOT what she was going for at that meeting!

So what should have happened? If you are in charge, get there early. That isn’t a big deal, just schedule the meeting 30 minutes earlier in your calendar. Next, have a plan for what happens when people get there. Will they sign in, will they be introduced to someone, etc. Finally, be sure you own the meeting and run it. Clearly people came when you called, so they already have a reason to listen. Be sure to make it worth their while so they will come back the next time.

Marketing and Sales are clearly different.  In marketing, you get your name out there, make prospects aware of you, and generate leads.  In sales, you close the deals.  But how can the two functions work more closely together?

I love to build marketing messages based on sales objections.  You already know what issues people bring to the table and how to answer it, so do so before they even get there! Leading with those objection-answers gives you a chance to show you do understand your customers and why they should make the call.  These can be done as a series of emails, a series of blog posts, testimonials that give the reader insight into why the customer was skeptical and how you overcame it, or voice mails that are left for prospects.  Here’s an example of how to work this:

I recently met with a client who’s prospects don’t trust them.  There are some unscrupulous people in their industry and they are always fighting an uphill battle to overcome those concerns.  We developed a list of what other companies have done wrong, and used it as our messages.  We did an email marketing series as well as used them in voice mails.  We pointed out that there are some companies who have experienced X.  We don’t do that – we do this.  It was extremely effective and yielded 40% more inbound contacts.

It was tough for this customer to come up with marketing messages in the past, but now that the sales team is giving them objections and answers, the possibilities have really opened up.  Try this technique and then let me know how it goes!