Building Strong Business Relationships: Strategies for Success
It takes enough time and energy to build good, strong, and effective business relationships. They are an integral and necessary part of success. You must work with people to achieve your goals, whether you are a career professional or an entrepreneur. The need to get along with and depend on others is essential for long-term growth and success.
Ways to Build Lasting Business Relationships in Today’s Professional World
- Be Authentic – This is quite simple. Stay who you are and accept others as they are. It’s easy to create a false persona, especially online, but that is not the way to start a relationship and it does not last long when we start qualifying people and organizations. Look for people and companies you feel an ease of communication and natural connection with and things you both have in common. The authenticity of connecting personality and opinion can accelerate relationships.
- Shared Goals and Values – We look for people we like, share similar goals and values with. Many people present themselves the way they do, only to take advantage of others, once they have their trust. We may not always share the same views with everyone, but the shared values are a must.
- Develop Mutual Respect – We prove ourselves with time and through different actions and experiences. Join a group, or online community to develop relationships. Be patient and selective. Building mutual respect is essential to build effective business relationships.
- Share Some Vulnerability – We all are humans and sometimes that means sharing and helping people through challenge, difficulty and change. Showing our vulnerability is part of our genuineness. Using good judgement, this is best shared with a select few rather than more publicly.
- Make Meaningful Connections for People to Socialize with Each Other – The greatest blessing in business is a referral. We should be thoughtful, have the right incentives and be connecting people for the right reasons. Not all referrals work out. It takes two to make it successful, so don’t do all the work.
Some more points to consider
- Get More Personal – If you really want to get acquainted with people and build effective business relations, be willing to share experiences, ideas, points of view and simply learn more about each other’s story, family and professional history.
- Plan Something Enjoyable to Do Together – All work and no play makes us depressed. Do some fun things together that may not have anything to do with work, to see a different side of each other.
- Abandon Expectations – Always go into relationships with an open mind and never expect. We judge people based on what our interactions have been with them. To save ourselves from disappointment and to build effective business relations, accept the way they are not as you want them to be.
- Schedule Creativity Time – Schedule some time to brainstorm, engage and do business together. Set a time limit and an agenda for what you want to accomplish in it. Leave some time for unexpected conversation. Devote a portion of your day toward relationship building.
- Offer Something Before Asking for Something – When we educate, help and inspire others with our experience and expertise, we are building the foundation for effective business strategy.
Without doubt, the better our relationships are at work, the happier and more productive we’re going to be. Effective business relations make our work is more enjoyable. We’re more innovative and creative when we have good relationships with those around us. What’s more, good relationships give us freedom to focus on opportunities.
Contact us if you are interested in a business strategy training program that is tailored to the needs of your organization or team.
