What The Japanese Can Teach Us About First Impressions

In Japan, they take business cards (Meishi) very seriously.

When you hand someone your calling card, they will take it gently with two hands, and then place it neatly inside of a special protective card holder.  And if you ask them to see your business card two weeks later, they will pull it out in mint condition with the corners still crisp.

This is a far cry from how we treat our customers’ business cards here in North America.

In any business relationship, the business card will usually be the first piece of property that your customer ever trusts you with.  And the way you treat this business card tells the client a bit about how you will treat the rest of their property.

So what do we do with our customers’ business cards in the West?

• Write notes on the backs of them
• Pick our teeth with them
• Fold it up and just shove it in our pockets

What does this say about the way we’re going to treat the rest of this client’s property, and the attitude with which we approach our relationship with them?

What if we were to take just a bit more care when interacting with clients?

• What if, instead of just faxing over proposals, we showed up in person to drop off the documents… printed on high quality paper… and packaged in a neat folder?
• What if we were to send handwritten “Thank You” letters through the mail after a prospect meeting?
• What if we showed up on the client’s site wearing a clean, custom branded uniform instead of our street clothes?
• What if – when a client writes us through the contact form on our web sites – we could have the form automatically send them a thank-you letter with some testimonials?

Especially early on in the relationship, clients are critically judging your every action.  Any extra steps that you can take to show that you care will help differentiate you in a positive way.

And whenever a prospect gives you something, make sure to treat it with respect.  Because this can easily be seen as an early indicator of how you’re going to treat them.

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About The B2Bblogger: Paul Rudo helps small businesses attract local customers within their community. You can read his personal blog at http://localbusinessmarketer.info, where he gives advice on marketing to geographically local customers.

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