Formal meetings in informal setups

I entered this field of pre-sales/sales without any kind of formal education, so you can expect me to be a bit rusty. One month ago, I was in a casual dinner setting with a potential prospect. We were having dinner, chatting about projects, states and their cultures, etc...It seemed like everything went well that evening. I was giving my usual DW and BI story, maturity, roadmap, etc...I was invited into this meeting to primarily impart some potential pitfalls about a tool that the customer was planning to buy.


It has been more than a month and we didn't hear back from them, in spite of repeated followups. I was wondering why. Today, I received a call from my sales manager, who was also in that dinner meeting that evening. He told me. 


"Senthil, I would like to give you a small piece of useful tip. Never use your mobile during such a meeting, even though it might be a casual dinner meeting. Either excuse them and use it or don't even use it". 


After some analysis on that particular incident, I recollected that I used the mobile to text my wife that I will be coming home late. And some more analysis revealed that I had taken the dinner meeting with the prospect a little too light. After I was done with my job of educating the prospect on something that they were looking for, I was relaxed and forgot that I was still with a prospect and not a customer. I should have been more careful.


I realized that it was a bit rude from my end for having used my mobile. I wouldn't have certainly used my mobile, had I been in a conference meeting room or more of a formal setup. The restaurant made me feel that it was a very casual meeting and I felt it was okay to give up some of the "formal" rules.

Formal meetings in informal setups can be tricky. Never fall for the casual ambiance. It is still a customer meeting. I screwed up that day and I am thankful to the gentleman who called to correct me.