Basic Business Etiquette Practices to Apply Immediately
Basic Business Etiquette Practices to Apply Immediately
Being a successful entrepreneur and a small business owner requires a lot of communication, observation, and relationship building. You should start using your knowledge of business etiquette to help you form and maintain those strong business relationships. Business Relationships are just like personal relationships: you usually know from the beginning whether they will work out.
If you are like most people you often follow your instincts to determine the people you like to work and socialize with.
Do not ignore the red flags. See below the basic etiquette practices that you can apply immediately.
- E-mails - a response to an e-mail shouldn't take more than 48 hours. If takes a few days to respond, he or she should offer you a really good explanation.
- Phone Calls - returning calls is exceptionally important. When you call and leave a message you have the right to expect the person to return your call. I wouldn't work with a person who can not return my calls, takes a week to get back to me or worse yet - doesn't get back to me at all.
- Being late for a meeting - now we conduct 95% of our meetings on zoom. Still we do have the responsibility to be on time. Things happen, the internet connection might be a problem, the computer went off, we should find a way to inform the host or the business partners we are hosting that we are here and we are hoping for a successful meeting and we ask everyone to be patient. Communication is everything.
- Appearance - it may seem like a common sense, but people who are unkempt, sloppy, and unclean won't be your best bet either. If they do not have the desire to take care of themselves, it means they will probably be sloppy in their business relationships.
- Respectful demeanor - if people do not give you the respect you deserve, move on. You will find plenty of other who will.
