Building Better Business Relationships Today

We're all looking for an edge to create loyal customers, clients, and fans. So let me put some currency in your pocket.

Build better business relationships using this mantra:

Find a Way to Help, Find a Way to Care.

People always ask me “but how?” The quick and dirty answer is, "Ask them!" But to provide some structure and help get you thinking proactively, I’ve broken relationship currency – that is, forms of generosity that you can use in building business relationships – into three categories, what I call the Generosity Pyramid.

1.   Universal currency: This refers to our innate human ability to connect to others. We can all embrace intimacy with another human being by listening, empathizing and caring. We can all become the colleague who blocks off that extra time to fetch a cup of coffee or who connects more deeply with a client, customer, employee or peer. Sensitivity, charm, the ability to crack a good joke — we’ve all got universal currency to develop and share. Universal currency also includes encouragement.

2.    Professional Currency: First, this is knowledge of your product and your ability to connect your product and benefits to issues the client deals with. But it is important to understand that any product or service you offer is only one piece of the broader, full-service solution for your target’s business.  So the other aspect of professional currency is providing useful assistance to help a person’s career.

3.    Personal Currency:  This is the pinnacle of the pyramid - the most powerful form of currency. To discover your personal currency, don’t look inside — that’s too hard for many people. Instead, look outward. Personal currency requires discovering what others need to be happy, then figuring out what you can do to get them there. It could be your professional expertise, your problem-solving ability, your network of relationships, your black belt in judo or simply your unfaltering optimism. The secret to optimizing personal currency is to establish a close enough relationship with others so that they’re willing to share their deepest-felt dreams and aspirations with you, along with the issues that are holding them back.

Can you think of a time when, in a professional context, you've helped someone with a deeply personal goal or challenge? Please share!

Keith Ferrazzi is the world’s foremost expert in professional relationship development. His signature focus on success through relationships has transformed the lives and careers of clients and readers worldwide – and is equally responsible for his own incredible rise to prominence. Both Forbes and Inc. have called him one of the world's most "connected" individuals. www.keithferrazzi.com