Pays To Be Polite in Business

Presentation, from the suit/clothes you wear to how welcoming your offices are and the look of your website, are often carefully thought about by small businesses.

But how often do people take stock of they way they present them to clients, and potential clients, directly?

When you are in a rush, or have been putting in ridiculous hours for a deliverable with a deadline coming up soon, how polite are you when you pick up the phone or bump into a former client unexpectedly?

Being polite, and if possible, pleasent, will often have just as much, if not more, of an impact on the persons image of you and your work then the work you actually provide!

This may come as a shock - surely providing a need and adding value is what is most needed? Certainly; what you have to realise is that value and presentation should be given equal importance. They are not either or's.

Of course you must offer value, and it should be central to your business/organisation. If you customer is king, adding value to that clients life or business will naturally follow suit from that. But giving top notch value is no excuse for being dismissive or unhelpful.

I remember sitting in a dank tiny room in the last year of my first degree phoning round for information. I had a business idea I wanted to start and was looking for ways at vetting potential employees. I phoned up a business that turned out only took on clients who needed this service for a whole HR department over and above the 50 employee mark. They were very kind, told me that they wouldn't be of much help, but then preceded to spend half an hour on the phone with me.

I left that conversation not only knowing what needed to be done and how to do it, but thinking these people were top class gentleman. If this is how they treat people they are not going to do business with, I envy the excellent service their clients get.

Each person you come into contact with might one day become a customer, or know someone who will. If even the receptionist is rude, than that is a lost relationship, a lost sale.

The secret millionaire is a perfect example of this. A millionaire goes undercover and 'roughs' it out for ten days before deciding whom to bestow a lot of money on. Now I don't want to make comment on the show itself; i'm too busy too watch it. However it does just go to show that who you are speaking to may not be whom you think. They may in fact end up being a client, if you are nice enough.

So remember to put your clients at the heart of any strategy, any new initiative, and make sure you smile as you do so.