Business etiquette

“ Who of us has not heard the successful business man decline an invitation to a reception because he "had no time for such nonsense"? To a great many people manners mean nothing but nonsense; but you will find that they are almost invariably people who never win social or business distinction.
The rules of etiquette as we observe them nowadays are not, as some people suppose, the dictates of fashions. They are certain forms of address, certain conduct of speech and manner, that have been brought down to us through centuries of developing culture. ”

“ It is not in order to shine in society that grace of manner is an asset; comparatively few people in a community care a rap about "society" anyway! A man of affairs whose life is spent in doing a man's work in a man's way is not apt to be thrilled at the thought of putting on "glad" clothes and going out with his wife to a "pink" tea or a ball.
But what many successful men do not realize is that a fundamental knowledge of etiquette is no less an asset in business or public life, or in any other contact with people, than it is in society. ”

“ When anyone complains to a milliner of the style of any of the articles she has on sale, she replies that she is obliged to provide for all kinds of taste; that it would not answer her purpose to limit her supply to those who have a faultless eye; that, in order to make her business succeed, she must be prepared to accommodate all persons, and cater for them all alike, studying to please each individual in whatever way she may be disposed to be pleased, and never presuming to do more than merely suggest some slight improvement or modification. ”

“ After he has greeted the elevator boy with a smile (it may be a very crooked one) and the hotel clerk and the waitress and the bootblack and the paper boy he is likely to find that the smile has straightened out into a genuine one. It does not always work—it is like counting to a hundred when one is angry—but it is worth trying.
Salesmen find their greatest difficulties among people of little education. It is the people with fewest ideas that cling to them most tenaciously. ”

“ And since the business man is in numbers, and perhaps in power also, the most consequential person in the country, it is of most importance that he should have a high standard of behavior, a high standard of civility, which includes not only courtesy but everything which has to do with good citizenship. ”

“ People knew, long before this enlightened era of ours, that politeness had value. In one of the oldest books of good manners in the English language a man with “an eye to the main chance” advised his pupils to cultivate honesty, gentleness, propriety, and deportment because they paid. But it has not been until recently that business men as a whole have realized that courtesy is a practical asset to them. Business cannot be separated from money and there is no use to try. Men work that they may live. ”

“ There is no doubt that he who wishes to live, not in solitary and desert places, like a hermit, but in fellowship with men, and in populous cities, will find it a very necessary thing, to have skill to put himself forth comely and seemly in his fashions, gestures, and manners: the lack of which do make other virtues lame.”
Granting dependability of character, courtesy is the next finest business builder an organization can have. ”

“ Very few of them are people of wealth, but an astonishing number of successful business men were born into such conditions. They had no training in how to handle a knife and fork and they probably never read a book of etiquette, but they had one faculty, which is highly developed in nearly every person who lifts himself above the crowd, and that is observation. ”

“ The customer has a right to expect a firm to supply him with reliable commodities and to do it pleasantly, but he has no right to expect it to prostrate itself at his feet in order to retain his trade, however large that trade may be. ”

“ The worker, according to them, is selling his services just as the salesman is selling goods. It may be true, but we all could not (and it is a blessing) go out and sell things in the ordinary sense in which we use the word. Some of us have to be producers. But the salesman's work is important. ”

“ There are certain business men who, during business hours, meet one with a brusk manner that would not be pardoned in a petty tradesman. If we visit them on their own business,—not as intruders,—it is the same. They seem to feel that a certain disagreeable humor is an indispensable accompaniment to the occasion. Such insolence is usually taken as a matter of course by the recipient, who immediately feels penitent at the thought of his intrusion. ”

“ They know that right in their own business spheres there are men who owe their success and position to the appearance that they make, to the manner in which they conduct themselves. And they know that there are beautiful women who are coldly repellent; while some plain women win the hearts of everyone with whom they come in contact, merely by the charm of their manners. ”

“ This has limits, however, and in some instances a mistaken idea of loyalty to one's calling has led to the glossing over of certain evils which could have been cured much earlier if they had been made public. It is all very well to be generous and courteous toward one's competitors but the finest courtesy in any business consists of doing whatever tends to elevate the standard of that business.
Every man likes his business to be well thought of, and most businesses have organized for the promotion of a high standard of ethics as well as for the development of more efficient methods. ”

“ Such practices the employee too often looks upon as a smart way of getting around authority, blithely ignoring the fact which has so many times been called to our attention: that what a man does to a job is not half so important as what the job does to him. ”

“ Another important vantage point which, like the telephone, suffers from neglect is the reception desk. Millions of dollars' worth of business is lost every year and perfect sandstorms and cyclones of animosity are generated because business men have not yet learned the great value of having the right kind of person to receive visitors. To the strangers who come—and among the idlers and swindlers and beggars who assail every successful business house are potential good friends and customers—this person represents the firm,—is, for the time being, the firm itself. ”

“ Nearly every employer exercises more caution in selecting the man who is to meet the public [Pg 52] than any other. It is through him that the all-important first impression is made, and a man who is rude or discourteous, or who, for any reason, rubs people the wrong way, simply will not do. He may have many virtues but unless they are apparent they are for the time being of little service. ”

“ It is the foundation upon which all civilization is built.
THE MANNERS OF TO-DAY
Certain sensible rules of etiquette have come down to us from one generation to another. To-day only those that have stood the test of time are respected and observed. They have been silently adopted by the common consent of the best circles in America and Europe; and only those who follow them faithfully can hope to be successful in business and in social life. ”

“ And the employee should listen—it may not be his fault but he should check up honestly with himself and find out. The same thing that lost him this place may lose him another, and a good many times all that he can get out of being discharged is a purification of soul. ”

“ It is a trifling thing but politeness consists largely of yielding gracefully in trifles.
Old-fashioned gentlemen held it discourteous to mention money at table, but in this degenerate age no subject is taboo except those that would be taboo in any decent society. Obviously when men meet to talk over business they cannot leave money out of the discussion. In a number of firms the executives have lunch together, meeting in a group for perhaps the only time during the day. ”

“ Some business men would have persisted until they got what they wanted from the young lady. Others would have angrily reported her to the head of her office, but the majority would have acted as this man did.
Most men (and women) , whether they are in business or not, do not underestimate their own importance and they like to feel that the rest of the world does not either. ”

“ He joins them and the conversation runs along pleasantly enough until one of the number begins to retail dirty stories. Some of the others try to switch him off to another subject but he is wound up and nothing short of a sledge hammer will stop him until he has run down. Our salesman has a healthy loathing for this sort of thing. He has a good fund of stories himself—most traveling men have—and in the course of his journeyings he has heard many of the kind that the foul-minded man in the smoking car is retailing with such delight. ”

“ Business men have not grown perfect but they have raised their standards of business morality as high as their standards of personal morality. They have learned that business and life are one, that our lives cannot—and this has a number of disadvantages—be separated into compartments like so many tightly corked bottles on a shelf. ”

“ And this very virtue which is the foundation of successful salesmanship is likely to lead the salesman into gross rudeness. [Pg 138] For the man who is selling is so eager and so earnest that he forgets that the man who is buying may have his own ideas on the subject. ”

“ An excellent salesman may be able to convince a man of good breeding and wide social training if he tucks his napkin into his bosom, drinks his soup with a noise, and eats his meat with his knife, but the chances are against it. ”

“ Letters of introduction to and from business men, for business purposes, may be delivered by the bearers in person, and etiquette does not require the receiver to entertain the person introduced as the private friend of the writer. Good nature and native courtesy would suggest some attentions, which could be increased according to the pleasure conferred or received, but it is entirely optional. ”

“ The next is to gain access to the man who is to buy it. This is not always easy. Business men have been annoyed so much by agents that they have had to erect barriers, in many instances almost impenetrable ones. ”

“ In a word, the secret of business success, and the true criterion of action for the business man, young or old, is to be found in that blessed Golden Rule, which will forever hold good, viz.:—
Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you. ”

“ The temper of the great American business man is an uncertain quantity. Famous for good humor and generosity as a general thing, he is, for all that, at his worst moments the terror of the office boy's life. ”

“ It has certainly been good for business, and in considering the men who have developed our industries we have to take them, and maybe it is just as well, as they are and not as we think they ought to be. ”

“ It has been written, not for the exceedingly ill-bred or for the highly polished, but for those who find a certain sense of satisfaction in doing what is correct—sincere men and women who, in the performance of their business and social duties, find that there is a constant need for cordial and gracious relationship with those around them. ”

“ Our salesman is careful with his appearance. He bathes and shaves every morning and takes special care that his linen is clean and that his shoes are polished. He does not ornament himself with a lot of jewelry, and the material of which his suit is made is plain. He presents, if you should see him on the street, the appearance of a clean, solid, healthy, progressive American citizen. He is poised but he is not aggressive. He is persistent but he is not obstinate. ”

“ Instead, when he is talking to them—and he likes to talk with the people in the towns he is serving—he talks about what they have rather than what they have not and about what they can do in the future rather than what they have failed to do in the past. ”

“ Never breaks appointments, and never fails to keep good his word to the hour and the letter, if there is no just cause to prevent.
Never is absent from his business, except when absolutely necessary.
[47]
Never allows others in his employ to do what is not perfectly intelligible to him. Always understands his books; always keeps the run of the entire day's transactions; always knows the exact state of his bank account; always is acquainted with the doings of each one in his employ. ”

“ Salesmen are warned not to bother with the little fellow but to go straight to the head of a firm. Like most general advice, it is dangerous to put into universal practice. The heads of most firms have men to take care of visitors, and in a good many instances, the salesman helps his cause by going to the proper subordinate in the first place. It is all very well to go to the head of a firm but to do it at the expense of the dignity of one of the smaller executives is doubtful business policy and doubtful ethics. ”

“ Men are in business to work, not to entertain, and they must protect themselves. But the people who are turned away must be turned away courteously, and the business house which has found some one who can do it has cause to rise and give thanks. ”

“ They do not say that the customer is always right nor that he is perfect, but they assume that he is honest and trust him until he has proved himself otherwise. The biggest mail order house in America never questions a check. ”

“ If we haven't a book in stock they want to know why. If we don't drop everything to attend to them they want to know why. If anything goes wrong they want to know why, but they won't listen to explanations and won't accept them when they do. They simply can't see our side of it. And they make such unreasonable demands. Why, last year during the Christmas rush when the shop was fairly jammed to the door and we were all in a perfect frenzy trying to wait on them all, a man called up to know if his wife was here! ”