ALL ABOUT BUSINESS RELATED FIELDS

Business gestures are acts made on behalf or at the request of someone for the purpose of obligating that person in some way. Both parties may not even be aware of this purpose. You may like a business associate and genuinely want to do him or her favor, but it is the obligatory nature of the business gesture that separates it from a personal one. Business gestures fall into three distinct categories: gestures that are easily overlooked, ignored or misconstrued; gestures that are appreciated in passing; and gestures that are appreciated in the long term. The first category obviously goes either go unnoticed or actively work against you. There are certain gestures, such as making a call on someone’s behalf or helping out one of his associates, which the other party may not even know about. You can’t expect people to be appreciative if they don’t know why they should be, and it is in your interest to let them know casually when you have made a nice gesture on their behalf.

There are times when one of the best sales techniques in the world is simply to ‘show up’-to hop on a plane and go wherever you have to go to meet at his convenience, at his office. Sometimes this is dictated by protocol, sometimes by a sense of the situation. But as a general rule, you are far better off having meetings at your own office. This has very little to do with ‘power offices’ and everything to do with territorial imperative. Even if all you have is a ‘power cubicle’, it is still best to meet on your own turf. It’s like a chicken wing gets hot when you turn it on.

As we have seen, your secretary is your official link with the outside world and how she deals with it is a mirror image of how the outside world sees you. If she is abrupt, you are perceived to be abrupt. If she drops confidential information, you are perceived to drop confidential information. If she drops names on your behalf, you are perceived as a name dropper. If she is officious and overbearing, then you are thought to be officious and overbearing. Of course, secretaries do play a certain protective role. By screening you from others, they enable you to act rather than react to a variety of business situations. However, there is a whole range of positive and negative ways in which this screening can be done. It is often as simple as the difference between saying, ‘who may I say is calling?’ and ‘who’s this?’

Correspondence-both internal and external-is one of the most frequent opportunities you have for presenting yourself to the business community. I’m a real stickler about any written communication that goes out over my name. I insist that it be nearly typed and contain no spelling errors or typos. There are few things in business that you can easily make stick, but this is one of them. I try to take the time to personalize all my business correspondence-with anything from a couple of sentences to a couple of paragraphs-to refer to some personal interest of the recipient which has little or nothing to do with the subject of the letter. This can mean bringing up a recent business deal that I know gone his way; acknowledging his interest in a local sports team or asking something about his family. It can mean expressing support-hoping that his workload has eased up or that he will finally get a break he’s been looking for.

Consider doing the opposite of what someone expects. Often, it’s remarkably effective. If someone is expecting toughness, it is amazing what a simple, self-effacing remark will do. If someone anticipates a hard line, making an immediate insignificant concession is a good way to begin. The more sensitive someone thinks I want something from him; the more I will go out of my way to appear that I don’t. in international business dealings, I have seen the language barrier-or a perceived language barrier-used effectively in this manner. Americans, who are probably less conversant in second and third languages than almost any other nation, are particularly vulnerable to language barriers and foreign executives routinely take advantage of this fact. The businessman who artfully drops one or two perfect phrases in the other person’s native tongue may find he’s won a useful advantage. Culture and customs are interesting even within the various regions of the United States.

This is a minor point. Nut that’s exactly what making the right business impression is all about. The day-to-day flow of business rarely provides for the Monumental Act or the Grand Gesture. Just as you can gain some of the greatest insights into people by the little things they say and does that often make the most enduring impression. How people are relating to you in business is based on the conscious and unconscious statements you make about yourself. The way you dress, your phone manner, your efficiency, they way you phrase a letter, the way you greet people, all affect the impression you make on others-their ‘reading’ of you-making people perceive you in the way that you want to be perceived. It is an artful form of manipulation. One of life’s big frustrations is that people don’t do what you want them to do. But if you can control their impressions of you, you can make them want to do what you want them to do.