Building business relationships

You’ve entered a courtship with someone in business.  How you communicate in these early business relationships quickly informs its development or failure.

Bombard your would be partner with sales patter and it will falter as rapidly as  if you’ve made an inappropriate demand on a first date.

Business love

As in any relationship, we want to know first — how quickly will you understand and get my value?  Do you have what it takes to support me?  How can I trust you?  We need to seek these answers long before we’re asked to leap into business relationships with a price tag?

Even in business, we want a bit of seduction, to feel special in someone else’s world.  We’re seduced by confident expertise that doesn’t over-reach or grandstand.

Then when you serve so well you eliminate pain, you’ll be loved for it.  When we love, we respond enthusiastically to help, advice and new knowledge and we talk about it.

Serving, not selling, is key to building business relationships.

And of course, story

And, we never tire of a good story, especially one that puts us in the picture — when we can say:

‘That’s me!; that’s where I’m at; that’s what matters to me; so that’s why that happened; that’s what I need to do.’

Science shows how such stories release oxytocin in our brains, making us feel trust and a willingness to co-operate.

Are you telling the right stories to build your business relationships? Or are you just speaking your expertise? —my world; my process; my knowledge? There’s nothing quite like an endless list of features and benefits to dampen the ardour.

Try telling purpose-driven contextualised stories, and watch how quickly the romance blooms.

If you would like to craft a little romance into your business relationships by telling stories, give me a call, I’d love to help.  You can contact me here.