In the last few decades, American business has begun to dismantle the genteel nature of what used to be fundamental to well breed people. Courtesy is not a tool, rather than a life style. The proverbs and experience that have generated the Milena old Wisdom sayings have been all but wiped off the face of American business, leaving Darkenss with sudden bright flashes of Red as the landscape within which we all have to live.
This post is all about the long term, and how to returning light rather than fire, always, is a productive strategy to build recognition of you and what you stand for,
To do that, let me bore you with a few ancient sayings you most likely have heard a billion times, followed by what that axiom means to us in the #TwitterSphere or on Facebook.
1) "The trite saying that honesty is the best policy has met with the just criticism that honesty is not policy. The real honest man is honest from conviction of what is right, not from policy." ~ Robert E. Lee
Don't lie, exaggerate or make hyperbolic claims. If you do, well, it will eventually bite you. It's true that the fastest track to success is to rely on the sucker who is born every minute, at P.T. Barnum once said, but that changes they type of person you will eventually be stuck with as clientele.
Example: You will burn 1100 calories in our kickboxing class. Just how do you know that? Looked it up on google? Compared your class to other people who are not, in your mind, as good as you? Someone told you? Ask or hire a nutritionist or go to a university and have them do a study. Or, use a number that has been verified when you tweet. Once it's in the Twittersphere, it's there to stay.
Action Step: Tweet something every day that is absolutely true, and not necessarily self aggrandizement. Example. Have your or a team member take a picture of themselves, and tweet it out with their name, thanking them for being there, helping your clients. @staffmember if they have twitter.
2) "Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage." ~ Theodore Roosevelt
Nearly everyone in business is brave. Be different. Everyone knows and remembers and passes on their experiences with people who live and show courtesy. Be one of the few.
Example: Someone just tweeted and teed of on you and your product or system. Be gracious. I read an article once that said if you showed courtesy you might be able to retain them as a client. Ok. Good even, but that is not courtesy, that's manipulative. Show courtesy because it is the right thing to do. What you tweet in reply will show future clients, current clients and past clients who you really are.
Action step: Send a @them on twitter to every single person who follows you, thanking them for following you. consider showing courtesy by following them. Start now.
3) "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." ~ Abraham Lincoln
Just because someone wrote something horrible about you does not make it true or necessary to respond. They are either trying to bully you, or, they are right. Don't prove their point for them by starting a twitter war.
Action step: Thank them for bringing issues to your attention. If you can fix it, @them with the solution. We use a free month, free shirt, some Opps Gift that means something to them.
4) "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." ~ Cro Magnon Mother
So you believe in Guns, or this or that presidential candidate. Say something NICE about what you support, or don't say or respond to it at all. Example: I see this alot. Somebody says something against your political parties leaders, say the president. Don't launch into a diatribe about how messed up their politician is. Nobody trust politicians, and in general 50% of the people disagree with you before you even wrote a response. Don't Do it.
Action step: See a tweet that grinds your gears. Turn twitter off, come back to the news feed later.
5) "You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." ~ Somebodies Mother
We run a rather successful travel blog called www.ThisIsNewEngland.com, with the hashtag, #ThisIsNewEngland. and twitter handle of @TripNewEngland. When we are asked to review a destination, or we go on our own, we will NOT review it, if it is less than 3 Maple Leaves. We do; however, find 1 or 2 points that make each location worthy, if they are worthy, and remark on them. No lies, to exaggerations, just honey.
Action step: Turn on your twitter feed, and favorite or favorite and retweet 3 to 5 things every day.
6) "You reap what you sow." ~ Somebodies Father
You start a twitter war, you will be attacked, by trolls, by friends, by the press. If you are nice, you will get less of a response, but it will be generally good, tending toward helping you.
Action step: Send 1 @them tweet every day with a complement or acknowledgement.
Want help, but don't really want to ask anyone for it? Reasonable. I have found the Idiot guides a good place to get enough information to ask intelligent questions. Click this book to be taken to Amazon, for The Complete Idiot's Guide to Twitter Marketing
Finally, we have gone to seminars, bought many books, dozens if not hundreds of hours on-line and on the phone. We picked Nice over aggressive, and it does work, quickly. If you want to be the Book of 5 Rings warrior business monk ... can't help you. That part of my life is over.
