WOW Manners – Knock Their Socks Off!
While having nice manners in general is important because you make others feel valued and appreciated, and because you’ll have more friends, influence, and opportunities when you do have WOW manners, but there are just some manners that really blow people away and make you stand out from the crowd.
Here are a few examples of things you can do, and things you can teach your children to do, to make a great first and lasting impression.
- Send a hand-written thank you note for something unexpected.
For example, I received a hand-written thank you note from the photo company, Shutterfly, from the exact customer service rep I was talking to on the phone when I had an issue with my order. I was happy when I got off the phone with her, but then when she sent me a personal note in the mail thanking me for my business, I was blown away! They will now always have my loyalty.
Other examples might be to send a note to someone who helped you in some way even something small, and have your children write a note to their coach or teach saying thanks for something they helped them with.
- Don’t let cell phone calls interrupt your face-to-face conversations.
A friend had a meeting schedule with someone that had jumped around several times. The gentleman with whom she was meeting with emailed her the evening before the meeting and said. “I will be at xyz at 8:30 for our planned meeting. I would like to let you know that a business call has come up that I will need to take at 8:35. It will be a 5 minute call. I wanted to notify you ahead of time so you would not think me rude.” She did not think him rude – in fact it automatically made her “like” him more because of his insinuated respect for her and her time!
If you are talking with someone in person and you know that you will be receiving a call that you have to take, tell the person ahead of time and apologize then and when the call comes in. They will be so impressed that you care enough about them to apologize for having to interrupt their conversation.
- Complement and support others on social media.
The other day I saw that on a social media site, Linked-In, that someone who had attended one of my etiquette workshops took the time to view my profile and endorsed my skills I have listed. It might have only taken him a couple of minutes to do that, but the fact that he took the time out of his day and did that for me was so nice and thoughtful, and I was really impressed.
This is a great lesson to teach your kids too. My daughter showed me a video clip that was on YouTube of her friend singing. She wrote a nice comment about it and sent the link to others so that they could hear the song as well. I’m sure her friend was happy she did that and appreciated the nice comment because too often the only comments kids write are bad one! Perfect example of WOW Manners
So, try to take the time to write nice comments if you see something on Facebook, Instagram, etc. that someone has done, if they have won an award, or created something you like. The act of kindness to complement and support someone only takes seconds, but it means so much to the other person.
- Children greeting adults properly and making small talk.
One thing that my friends and I all agree on is that we are so impressed when a child we’re meeting for the first time greets us with a warm smile, looks us in the sys, and says “Hello, it’s nice to meet you.” What is even more of a shock is if the child actually even shakes your hard! Wow, we should really be so blown away by this, but because not many kids actually do this, we get so impressed and think they have great WOW manners!
What’s also nice is for when an adult walks into your house is to have your kids stop what they are doing and come over and say hello to the adult and make a few minutes of conversation. It’s a small thing, but it really shows respect for the person and also encourages then to learn good communication skills.