Relationships: that connection, association or involvement with another person, business or group.
You gotta have ’em in both your personal and business life, so how to you find and then build relationships?
At a recent Networking Skills Workshop at the North Dallas Chamber, we covered this topic and gave some simple advice. First, there are two areas of primary focus:
- Finding and establishing.
- Capitalizing them.
Like dating, knowing where to look and act is key. Think of all of your sources of connections, both new and fresh and tried and true.
- Networking groups.
- Chambers of commerce.
- Association meetings.
- Social clubs.
- Personal friendships.
Once you find and connect, you need to put the data you’ve collected (usually in the form of business cards and notes). Your storehouse can be a program like ACT or an online service like Salesforce.com or something as direct as your Outlook contacts or an Excel spreadsheet. The point is to:
- Put them in a central storehouse.
- Access them regularly.
- Keep it current and up to date.
The capitalization of these data is the real heart of relationship maintenance. Create a routine and communicate honestly, directly, frequently and in a dialogue on a regular basis. This will not only ensure success but will burgle up to the top (that’s a technical term) those relationships that will work and be effective for both of you.
Whatever you do with and around the relationships in your business life remember that it is an ongoing process like networking itself. Work at it and it will work for you.
You can find the slides from this presentation here if you want for detail.
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