Business Etiquette Courses Prepare Companies For the Global Market.

Your corporate sales team has just learned that a delegation is arriving from an Asian country to negotiate a business deal. One of your employees is chosen to meet the delegation at the airport. In his American exuberance, he greets the leader with a handshake, and then puts his arm around his shoulders, patting him on the back as he walks him to the awaiting car. As he rides with him to the hotel, your salesman. begins talking about aspects of the "deal."

The Asian guest does not respond. He may nod and be polite, but there is a good chance that your salesperson already has blown the deal.

As Southern California becomes the global marketplace to the world, corporations are realizing that good manners make good business, according to Executive Protocol International, a business protocol and cross-cultural consulting firm. The firm offers corporate training sessions to individual companies and is now opening its seminars to the general business community on Saturdays, November 6, December 4, and January 15 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Regency Club in Westwood. A second series will begin in January on weekdays at the Los Angeles City Club downtown.

Bee Canterbury Lavery, former United States Department of State Official and Chief of Protocol for Los Angeles for nearly 20 years, has teamed with Eleanor Schrader Schapa, a professor of Business at Santa Monica College, who is a certified as a Corporate Etiquette and International Protocol Consultant by the Protocol School of Washington in Washington D.C., to offer business diplomatic skills training.

"One untrained, unsavvy person sent abroad on a business trip can destroy any good business relations that may have been established between two countries' business partners-- just as the person who met the Asian business prospect at the airport became too familiar and immediately jumped into the business discussion without first establishing a friendly relationship," according to Bee Canterbury Lavery, President and CEO of BCL International Consulting Firm and a partner in Executive Protocol International. She has planned the visits of many high-profile international leaders, including Queen Elizabeth II, Emperor Hirohito of Japan, China's President Jiang Zemin, and King Juan Carlos of Spain.

"It's not enough any more to be technically brilliant in this global economy. Good business manners and knowledge of protocol are absolutely essential for financial success," Eleanor Schrader Schapa says.

The partners explain that business and social etiquette combine to make social skills an indispensable part of doing business. Respect for protocol and etiquette is deep-rooted in European, Asian, and Latin countries, much deeper than most Americans realize. Form, in many places, is more important than substance.

In selling to people from other countries, the correct gesture at the right moment can mean the difference between a sale and going home empty-handed. In entertaining guests from other countries, dining manners can define your personal image, which is closely linked with your company's image.

Your company's key to success in business dealings as well as personal relationships with persons from another country is thoroughness of preparation in learning about that country and its culture. A small mis-step can threaten or even destroy your marketing efforts in another country.

With American culture having gone global, some people from other countries may adopt American manners, but may still think in their native language and culture. Others cannot or will not adopt American ways, so you can't afford to leave them out of your company's plans for globalization.

"Companies who have the competitive edge are the ones who train their employees to not only practice good manners in the workplace with each other, but insist on those dealing in the international marketplace to have cross-cultural training," says Schapa, who is a member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners and is a certified Arbitrator and Mediator.

Executive Protocol International has an impressive Advisory Committee, whose members randomly participate in the training. William Codus, former Deputy Chief of Protocol, U.S. Department of State in the administrations of Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter, will speak at the November 6 seminar. He is currently in Los Angeles from Washington D.C. as a consultant on a motion picture that will deal with the Cuban missile crisis.

Others on the Advisory Committee are Caroline Ahmanson; philanthropist and Vice Chairman of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations; His Excellency An Wenbin, Consul General of China; Peter Antoniou, President, Pomegranate International; Sherry Ferris, Protocol Professionals, and former Deputy Chief of Protocol, San Francisco; Marcia Wilson Hobbs, Chairman of Christie's West Coast Fine Arts Auction House; Richard Jacobs, international business consultant, formerly with Occidental Petroleum and an expert on Russia; Adrienne Medawar, President of Town Hall Los Angeles; Wanda L. Moore, author, motivational speaker, and an expert on African culture; Donn Morey, a partner in Morey/Seymour and Associates, government relations and business consultant to Japanese firms; Yolanda Nava, television journalist and author; Carl Terzian, Chairman of the-Board of Carl Terzian Associates; Ronald T. Williams, Talon Executive Services and former Secret Service Protection Agent; and the Honorable William Wilson, former Ambassador to the Vatican in the administration of President Ronald Reagan.

Eleanor Schrader Schapa is a Professor of Business at Santa Monica College and a widely known business consultant in cross-cultural communications and corporate etiquette. As an accountant specializing in detection of fraud and embezzlement, she is dedicated to improving the integrity of business relationships and financial procedures.

Bee Canterbury Lavery opened and managed the U.S. Department of State Office of Foreign Missions in Los Angeles and served as Regional Director until 1994 when it became a Foreign Service post. Prior to that assignment, she was Chief of Protocol for the City of Los Angeles in the administration of Mayor Tom Bradley. In 1994 she opened her own international consulting business, BCL International, Inc. She has produced trade conferences and shows for Latin American and Asian countries and was a consultant to the BBC for the documentary, "Tales of the New Pacific."