1. Don’t spam
2. Listen
3. Be generous

Notice something about this list: with the smallest amount of tweaking these rules apply for just about any social setting in any age. They can be pretty much summed up with the simple phrase “behave yourself.”

Social Correspondence

Don’t Spam

Make your contributions appropriate to the conversation.  Whether you are at a cocktail party,  a business mixer, the neighborhood BBQ, or online, be considerate of other people’s time and feelings. No one cares for the self-centered, self-promoting blow-hard who has to outshine every other light in the room.

Listen

Remember these old adages:

Two ears, one mouth. Use them in that proportion.

Samson killed 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. Every day sales are killed the same way.

If you aren’t listening, you aren’t learning.

Be Generous

Another adage, made famous by Zig Ziglar: “You can have everything you want in life if you just help enough people get what they want.”

You don’t have to give away the farm, but it doesn’t hurt to help the hungry when you have bounty to share.  In my sales training days we used to teach that professionals who solve their clients’ problems before they become clients tend not to have clients. We called it “unpaid consulting.”   I still think that is largely true. But I’ve tempered my thinking over the years with the realization that when you give away vast amounts of your expertise or deliver at low price points (for relatively low time investment) people will pay a premium for the best you have to offer.

I liken this to the endcap samples at the superstore where you can graze on a Sunday and practically have lunch for free but you end up leaving the store with two or three items that you did not intend to purchase. Because someone was confident enough to deliver free samples, you left with the whole package and will likely come back for more.

Generosity pays, besides just being the right thing do to.

All of these principles  are as valid today as they were in the 1890′s. They just have more leverage and momentum now, which means transgressions are punished with brutal swiftness.