Successful business is ALL about RELATIONSHIPS. It is essential for business owners to build relationships with their employees, clients, stakeholders, and even competitors. Having connections around the industry (even outside the industry you are focusing on) is critical. It is mandatory, especially for leaders to be able to have different networks from all facets of the industry.
Growing a company starts with engaging with different people; growing and establishing a meaningful relationship. As a business leader, your goal is to connect with them on a deeper level- showing them that you genuinely care, not only about a “business at the moment” type but actually seeing it as a long-term partnership.
It is important for every employee to know how to engage with people, even if they are working on the backend. One of the most engaged people in a company- often talks to clients, customers, or potential partners are the sales people, but not all of them are building relationships.
The whole Chinese world revolves around “Guanxi”, personal connection. And yet, incredible (and frustrating!) how few people understand this.
Most of the time sales people just go directly for the ‘KILL.’ They introduce and pitch their services or products without prior connection to the person they are talking to; without knowing what they have in common to start a conversation. Hoping that the other party would just magically be interested in what they are presenting. This kind of strategy may have worked before but it is just different now.
People now, personally and business-wise prefer something that they already trust or that they have a background with; for example, their personal connection or something that was referred to them by the said people. The root of all this? The RELATIONSHIP they built and want to build.
You do not just send a uniformed message to hundreds of people and wait for their reply. What you would want to do is more than that. It should be more personal, more valuable, and something that will really connect to people. It is better to approach 10 people and really put a thought on it and then think long-term rather than sending presentations to a lot of people and not getting any real connection with them.
Building a business relationship (or any relationship) takes a lot of time and effort. It is something that is not given nor acquired easily. The main factor of it is having mutual trust, connection, and open communication. It is what helps you increase your client pool, partnerships, great employees, and even attract talents. Sometimes, the greatest asset of a company is the relationships they built.
