Networking for today’s business world is about relationships. Social media is the tool we are supposed to be using to build these relationships. We’ll play on Twitter, Facebook; rub professional shoulders on LinkedIn. We’ll know what it means to Digg the Delicious.
Relationship? Are you kidding? Nope, now we’re going to all be business BFF. We’ll share interests, skills , dreams and more. Of course, it will have to be speed dating because this is, after all business.
Perhaps the term relationship from a business point of view needs to be examined and mapped more precisely.
This is a business relationship, As John Jantsch of DuctTapeMarketing.com says, it is built on KNOW, TRUST and LIKE.
We will work together if our skills are compatible. Not necessarily if we’re pretty, or a genius or have lots of money. We will be skilled and we will learn the depth of our skill compatibility as we get to KNOW one another.
When we’ve told the story of our skills and intentions honestly, we will have demonstrated our trustworthiness. We probably will never lay eyes on one another. At best, we will meet very seldom. But, we will know that each has the other’s back; each is dedicated to the success of the other. We will be able to TRUST.
In the complex activities of demonstrating our skills and delivering knowledge of how we can benefit one another, while building a foundation of commitment to more than number one to TRUST and be TRUST-worthy, we’re going to show our personalities, some dreams and some jokes. By golly, we’re going to LIKE each other. All in the name of business.
There may come a day when we will know that the time has come for us to move on because we’ve a commitment to other clients. Or a commitment to grow in other directions. But because it is business where we support one another’s confidentiality, we’re not going to participate in kiss and tell between and among the clients we will be working with outside our own ‘relationship.’ Because we have a Business Relationship, that won’t be a ‘break-up’, but a ‘growing-on’. That’s how it is with business relationships. They are bonds, but not bindings.
When you go to build a relationship with a new client, remember how it is with us. You don’t need me to be your BFF, you need me to be focused on your business. Your new client needs and wants much the same…mature business relationships. Without trading spit.
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Great post, JudyAnn! I ‘know’ you virtually, ‘trust’ you to be a straight-shooter and tell it like it is, and ‘like’ the personality you share through your writings. Mature business relationships really are the bonds that cement a fulfilling working partnership and move businesses one step closer to attaining their goals while working jointly with another who’s invested in their business but is not an employee of the business. Well said.