Smart salespeople never bring their phones into meetings.

Is your smart phone ruining your relationships? If so, there’s a good chance it’s also killing your sales career. If you’re bringing too much technology to client meetings, then you need to smarten up, or you may find yourself with a lot more time to check your friends’ status updates.

Here are the cold, hard facts: You might think you can listen and check email at the same time, but no one else is fooled.

Your company, colleagues, and customers look to you for insights and opinions. They expect you to listen well and craft a thoughtful response. To do that, you must be present—i.e., not multi-tasking. Otherwise, you’re likely to miss an important point that could either boost your sales or derail your career.

Just Say No to Rudeness

If you think checking phones during meetings is rude, then do something about it. Whether or not you’re in charge, you can set standards of behavior for meetings by telling your texting colleagues or employees to put their phones away, especially when there are clients present.

You can be certain you’re not the only one in the room who feels this way. Whenever I’ve spoken up about such rudeness, others tell me they’re so glad I did, because they were thinking the same thing. Most people are too timid to call it like they see it. So when you lead the charge, others will thank you.

Say Yes to Smart-Phone-Free Zones

That’s why I resonated with Kevin Kruse’s Forbes.com article, “Why Successful People Never Bring Smartphones Into Meetings.” He writes:

Do you check your phone for text messages or emails during business meetings?

According to new research from the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, you are probably annoying your boss and colleagues. Furthermore, the research indicates that older professionals and those with higher incomes are far more likely to think it is inappropriate to be checking text messages or emails during meetings of any kind.

Click here to read the full article.

Kruse even offers a download for a “Smartphone Free Zone” sign for your conference room. Take him up on it, and make your team’s meetings more productive and respectful.

Connect with No More Cold Calling

Follow Joanne on Google+ or Twitter @ReferralSales, or connect on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Comment Here

How do you feel about smart phones in meetings?