A Simple Hello

What a difference a simple hello can make. Everyone says it’s all about networking, and it is. The funny thing is, so many people let others walk by them in a social or business setting and can’t even give a simple, “hello;” a simple acknowledgement of the other person’s existence. I don’t know about you but for me when someone smiles at me and says hi, especially when they don’t know me, it makes all the difference.

If I’m walking by a booth at a tradeshow and I look someone directly in the eye and they don’t look at me and not a word is spoken it’s really disheartening. Even if I’m not planning on stopping, a simple, “Hello,” would be nice. If I was thinking of stopping, it wasn’t very inviting to not get acknowledged.

Have you ever walked into a restaurant, walked up to the host booth and had the host be having a conversation with two other hosts or servers, or better yet, the manager? I’ve stood there for so long at some restaurants I’ve had to be the one to acknowledge them.

I went out to eat recently with someone and after great service and a great meal we walked out, looked at each other and said, “Those employees are trained very well on customer service.” We both had the same reaction because as we walked in and out, every single employee we came in contact with said hello, or goodbye, and told us to have a goodnight. The host immediately greeted us when we walked in, as we walked upstairs to the lounge a random server said hello, when we sat down our server immediately greeted us, as we were eating the manager came by to see how we were doing, when we were walking out we ran into a chef who thanked us and told us to have a good night, and this one had to be the best: We were two feet from the door and there was a cook who was getting out of work, had his jacket on and it made it a POINT to stop, thank us, and tell us to have a great night. All of this stood out to me. All of them were simple greetings, but none the less made me feel welcome, valued, and made the atmosphere of the restaurant friendly and enjoyable.

So basically, I just had to put “the simple hello” on a pedestal for a minute, or maybe longer, since that’s where it belongs.

Expense Reports & Ancillary Fees

I’ve been thinking about these subjects a lot recently so here are some questions to throw out there to the blogging world:

-How do you keep track of ancillary fees?

-Do your expense reports have a “miscellaneous” category?

-How do you know expenses in the” miscellaneous” category are within policy?

-How much do “miscellaneous” expenses seem to add up to every month?

-Do you have a certain monetary threshold travelers have to reach before they have to submit a receipt(s) with their expense report?

-Are your travelers aware of what an ancillary fee is? Is this outlined in your policy?

-Do you participate in ancillary fee research and analysis?

-Who is responsible for such research?

-How often do you have someone go through your receipts and expense reports to make sure they are accurate and within policy?

-What is the difference in your travel spending from 2006 to 2011? What is the impact from ancillary fees?