The Alternative Press

Why not welcome 2012 with a good first impression? It’s the New Year, so why not start the year with the goal to improve your professional image. Making a good first impression is one of the most important steps in building and maintaining a successful relationship with anybody you come across. It is in a first meeting and some experts say, the first ten seconds that the other person will assess your professionalism, mannerisms, and overall character. Whether you are initiating contact with someone through an email, over the phone, or in a face-to-face meeting, it is important to make sure your presence is a lasting one. Below you will find some tips on how to improve your overall communication etiquette.

Email and Text Mistakes to Avoid

1. This is no LOL matter – Hey U! Text speak is not appropriate for business communication. It is perfectly fine to text your friends using your own made up texting lingo. However, businesses run on grammatically correct English, not text speak. The last thing you want to do is send your boss a text saying “Hey U! Can u c me?”
2. Double Check the “to” email address – The last thing you want to do is send your email to the wrong person or have the wrong email address and have it bounce back. If the email you are writing is confidential, sending it to the wrong person could lead to major problems. It is better to be safe than sorry, so always double check who you are sending any email to and make sure you have the spelling correct as well!
3. Use Spell Check – Silly mistakes like these are easily avoidable. Whether you are sending a lengthy email to your boss or client, or a quick email to a co-worker, take the time to proofread your email. It’s a good practice to always set the email so it performs an automatic spell and grammar check before it is sent. It takes just a second to press the spell check button or to glance over your email one more time for any mistakes, so take the extra time to do so to avoid these careless mistakes.
4. Make sure to delete any additional text not meant for the recipient – If you are forwarding an email to someone, make sure you delete any text that is not meant for him or her to see. You certainly do not want to be the person at fault for sharing information that was not supposed to be let out as it could have serious consequences.
5. Limit your use of the reply all button – Unless it is absolutely necessary to broadcast your email, err on the side of not replying to everyone. This is the number one complaint of many workers; they receive hundred of useless emails that are of no relevance to them.

Telephone Etiquette

1. Identify yourself and your companies – When you answer the phone, make sure you give the person your name and company, or follow whatever guidelines your company may have. This will ensure that the caller has the right number and exhibits overall professionalism.
2. Talk with a smile – Now you may be thinking, “The person cannot see me, why does it matter if I’m smiling?” It does. When you talk with a smile on your face, your voice immediately sounds more welcoming and friendly. If you are doing a phone interview this little trick will definitely make you sound more energetic, excited, and willing to work.
3. Repeat any information back to the caller – If the caller is giving you important information that you need or you need to pass on to your boss, repeat key information back to the caller to make sure you have all the correct information. This will help you avoid relaying incorrect information.

Meeting Etiquette - Why a PAL is your best tool – Purpose, Agenda and Limit

1. Send out an invitation prior – Utilize the meeting notice tool in your email to send out an invitation for the meeting. In this notice, include the purpose and an agenda for what is to be covered at the meeting. This will allow people to decide if they need to attend the meeting or not, as well as provide them a chance to speak up if there are other topics that need to be covered as well. This meeting notice will also go directly into their calendar and will block out that time so there are no double bookings.
2. Allow everyone the chance to speak – Remember that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. If the meeting happens to get heated, give everyone an equal opportunity to speak and do not interrupt them. Take into account what everybody is saying regardless if you disagree with them or not. If the meeting turns into a debate, try to find a common ground and honor everybody’s thoughts.
3. Stay within the time limits – In the meeting notice you most likely set a specific time for the meeting to start and end. Make sure you follow these constraints. Start on time out of respect for all those who arrived promptly and end on time as well. Even if not all of the agenda topics were covered, schedule a secondary meeting instead of going over the time constraint. Often times, people will have appointments scheduled for right after your meeting, so you do not want to interfere with any other meetings or appointments.

I would like to thank Caroline Ryder for preparing this article with me. Caroline is a senior at Mount St. Mary's University majoring in Business with a concentration in Marketing. Don’t forget, you can email me at Peggy@Consultants2Go.com with any questions you might have and I’ll be glad to answer them.  You can also follow me and my business on Twitter @peggymchale and @consultants2go.