The Hindu Business Line : Making the first impression

First impressions are more heavily influenced by non-verbal cues than by verbal cues, says Carol Kinsey Goman in The Nonverbal Advantage: Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work ( www.ta tamcgrawhill.com). “Studies have found that nonverbal cues have more than four times the impact on the impression you make than anything you say.”

The author offers a list of six powerful ways to make a positive first impression. Begin with an adjustment of your attitude, she advises, because people pick up your attitude instantly.

Being curious, friendly, happy, receptive, patient, approachable, welcoming and helpful are among the attitudes that attract people, Goman observes. “Attitudes that are off-putting include angry, impatient, bored, arrogant, fearful, disheartened and suspicious.”

Recommended read.

A marketing-effectiveness culture

Marketing Calculator
Measuring and Managing Return on Marketing Investment
Guy R. Powell

Initiatives such as total quality management and continuous improvement take a U-turn at the door to the marketing department, laments Guy R. Powell in Marketing Calculator: Measuring and Managing Return on marketing Investment (www.wiley.com). “Unlike the rest of the company, most marketing departments don’t have an infrastructure and culture of measurement and continuous improvement built into their DNA.”

CEOs — and the rest of the executive team — must no longer think of marketing as only delivering pretty graphics and catchy slogans, Powell urges. “It must not be thought of as an expense in the budget. Instead, marketing must be considered the central investment in delivering incremental revenue and profit, and increased bonuses.”

Striking messages.
When language crosses cultures

International Management
A Cultural Approach
Carl Rodrigues

When Coca-Cola Company initially introduced its beverage in China, a hurdle it had to cross was the translation of the product name into Mandarin. Local vendors used Mandarin characters to phonetically spell the sound of Coca-Cola, but there was a problem.

“The characters the vendors selected actually meant ‘bite the wax tadpole,’” narrates Carl Rodrigues in International Management: A Cultural Approach, third edition ( www.sagepublications.com).

“To deal with this problem, Coca-Cola’s translators eventually selected a group of characters that are interpreted by the Chinese to mean ‘may the mouth rejoice.’”

General Motors faced a similar predicament, in Europe, when advertising on many of its automobiles that the body was made by Fisher. Translating ‘Body by Fisher’ into the Flemish in Belgium ended up as ‘Corpse by Fisher,’ recounts Rodrigues.

A treasure of takeaways for the global marketing professionals.

D. Murali

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Out of the whirl

Nokia’s rural odyssey

Coffee, tennis and James Bond

An emperor in China

Making the first impression