Being well into my sixth decade of life and fourth decade of a business career, I feel qualified to provide historical perspective on some things, and offer unsolicited advice. If you are not interested, you are free to ignore it, I know you know how.
At the beginning of my business career in the late 1970’s, there were really only three ways to communicate: in person, by letter (delivered by the US Postal Service), and by telephone (including what we called “long-distance”, which was relatively expensive). So if you wanted to communicate with someone, you went to see him, sent a letter (of which you kept a”carbon copy”), or called on the phone (which sat on his desk).
My first boss, “Bud”, was a retired Army Colonel and a veteran of WWII and Viet Nam. I’d like to be able to describe him as “no-nonsense”, but in fact he was “much-nonsense.” He played practical jokes, teased and tormented me (and others) for entertainment, sexually harassed all the women (aged 25-70) in the office as a matter of course, and took several of us to a two hour lunch nearly every day. At lunch he normally had several cocktails-expensed it all to the company-and drove us back to the office for an afternoon of more of the same.
Bud is not my role model, but he was very successful and gave me some advice that has stuck with me for decades. Bud said that if you want to stand out in business, it is very simple. Here is what you do:
1. Take phone calls, but don’t take a phone call when you are with a customer.
2. Return all phone messages as soon as possible, always before you leave the office in the evening.
3. Reply to letters with a letter. If it is going to take some time to do that, acknowledge the letter with a phone call.
4. Don’t make the receptionist (receptionists were what we had before voice-mail, frequently an attractive young woman whose job it was to answer the phone) do your dirty work. Don’t hide behind the receptionist. If someone you don’t want to talk to is trying to contact you, let them know why you don’t want to talk to them. Be direct, but not mean. If there is bad news to be delivered, stalling on the delivery doesn’t make it better.
Communications has certainly changed! Fed-Ex, fax machines, voice mail, cell-phones, e-mail, e-mail on your cell phone-all have come into being since Bud gave his advice. Yet, it is still possible to stand out in business by following this advice! How often do you say “thanks for calling me back” as if this is a novelty? In reality, sometimes it does seem like a novelty! While communication potential has changed, communicators have not.
It is just common courtesy. We all know what that is, because we practice it when it comes to dealing with our superiors, people we want to sell something to, when we are trying to get a job, etc. The test is whether or not we practice it in all situations. That’s how you stand out, and you stand out because many of your contemporaries and competitors don’t do it. It really is just that easy!
Thanks Bud. I’ll always recall your advice, and that you were generous towards me in every way. May you rest in peace.
