Much like in your personal life, building meaningful relationships in the business world takes time and effort. However, there are many characteristics of professional relationships that differ from personal relationships. For instance, the way you approach a business contact is (hopefully) different from the way you approach a new friend in your social circle.
Understanding the nuances of business relationship-building is crucial. To help you out, a panel of Forbes Coaches Council members shared the most important things a leader should keep in mind as they work toward growing their customer or partner relationships.
1. Build Trust First
In business relationships, both internally and externally, it is important to develop trust and build rapport. When managers and employees trust one another, business flows easier and smoother. When customers trust companies they purchase from, they become loyal. Trust in business means operating with integrity, keeping your word and making things right if you make a mistake. Trust is priceless. - Lori A. Manns, Quality Media Consultant Group LLC
2. Set Intentions Of Collaboration And Support
Before you go into any situation—a negotiation, an interview, networking, sales, etc.—shift your energy into setting the intention of collaboration and support. Before any meeting or call, ask yourself, "How can I help this customer, business or team?" It works wonders in building any relationship. You'll see that you'll attract more growth rather than detract during your interactions. - Joyel Crawford, Crawford Leadership Strategies, LLC.
3. Give Before You Try To Take
You can only withdraw money from your bank account if you’ve made deposits. The same basic principle applies to business relationships. It’s often too late to wait until you need something from a customer or partner to start asking how that person is doing, what their business needs are and where their kids play soccer. You need to make upfront deposits by asking those questions over time. - Eric Beaudan, Odgers Berndtson
4. Articulate How You Add Value
When building relationships in the business world, it's important to focus not only on what you have to offer, but also how it adds value. You must truly understand your customer’s needs and how your solution makes an impact on their business, customers and so on. It's about the whole impact chain. Think further on your impacts and support you bring. Look at least three levels out, not just one. - Faith Fuqua-Purvis, Synergetic Solutions
5. Honor Your Collaborative Agreements
Honor collaborative, bilateral agreements and contracts. These need to be clear and concise to avoid negative and unexpected surprises. Define roles and expectations in a win-win way. Be transparent with outcome expectations. Know that relationships exist in a global community, and so be conscious of the wider impact on the planet. The rest is authenticity and cultivating trust. - Cheryl Leong, Leading with Consciousness
6. Listen And Show Them They Matter
Your business will stand out head and shoulder if you can show how much you listen, how much you care and, more importantly, how each of your customer matters. Leaders can prepare this in creative ways to offer personalization and choose a platform for direct communications. - Whitney Mullings, Whitney Mullings
7. Create Win-Win Situations For Your Bottom Lines
In most meaningful relationships, emotion leads the way. People prefer to associate with people that they like or are like them. In business, it really is about creating win-win situations from a bottom-line perspective. If you can't help each other make more money, then it is unlikely you will have a long-term meaningful relationship, even if you like each other. - Donald Hatter, Donald Hatter Inc.
8. Take A 'Whole Person' Approach
In business, relationships will often be solely focused on work. As a result, it can be more challenging to get to know individuals as 'whole' people with families, friends, hobbies and passions outside of work. Of course, there is a certain etiquette that should be considered when delving into other people's personal lives. However, embracing their full lives is a way to build trust and rapport. - Carolina Caro, Carolina Caro
9. Activate Your Empathy
Sad to say, but most people in business pretend to care about building meaningful relationships while actually seeing others as objects toward their overall success. And others can feel it. First, be honest with yourself about this. Then, see if you can activate the part of your brain and heart that actually cares about other human beings as an end in itself, rather than a means to an end. - Dr. Joel M. Rothaizer, MCC, Clear Impact Consulting Group
10. Create Profitability Through Personal Touch
Think how your brand touches others without face to face or voice -- social media posts, emails, social comments, connection requests and responses to InMail. The lack of a personal touch can kill an opportunity. It's easy to create and personalize email templates, maintain a schedule for checking social media and spend the seconds it takes reviewing LinkedIn profiles before sending off-base messages. - Laura DeCarlo, Career Directors International
11. Be Useful
Trust, honesty, presence, kindness, listening, an ability to make others feel important—just to name a few factors building all meaningful relationships. What makes the business environment unique is, of course, a financial aspect of it that influences the contact. That’s why, while doing business, we are more focused on being useful than being liked. - Inga Bielińska, Inga Bielinska Coaching Consulting Mentoring
12. Genuinely Care About Others
Most of us have heard many different versions of what needs to precede a profitable business relationship. Some are valid, and others are not. From personal experiences, I know only one that has worked consistently and is independent from the latest fad: genuinely caring about the person. It is not sexy and doesn't require some elaborate setup, but it has never let me down. - Kamyar Shah, World Consulting Group
