Members | Support This Site | Logout

Home   Newsletter   Tutorials   Columns   Articles

How To Improve Business Relationships In The New Year

While many leaders of this publication see the New Year as "out with 4th Quarter 2004 and in with 1st Quarter 2005." ?(As ghastly as it may seem, there are still a few who only set goals once a year.)? Even those who work on business relationships every day can benefit from new ideas. Are you planning to build business relationships once a year, or are you building relationships every day?

Jon Strande of Business Evolutionist offers Top 50 Things To Improve Relationships that provides a wholesale list of things you can do to improve relationships in business and your personal life. In your planning for the coming quarter, you are encouraged to browse his original article.

Here are three key points that should be highlighted in detail:

• "Ask them what the biggest source of pain or discomfort in life is."? Your customers have problems that you could solve if only you knew about them. Even if it's not something you can help with, it's part of relationship building to know what problems customers experience. This way you can connect them with other providers that complement your good intentions.
• "Find out what is TRULY important to them, and focus on that (first)."? If you don't first work from the priorities of a customer, you will always have conflict. Even if you know what a customer should want, it's important find out exactly what is important to them. Prioritize first, then take action, and finally educate.
• "There is no finish line, per-se. Relationships are journeys that unfold in magnificent ways, if you allow them to."? Even business relationships should be for the long-term, or at least for the life of the customer's true need for what you offer. At the end of any business relationship, a customer should want to come back for more and send anyone they meet who wants the results they experienced.

To improve business relationships in the New Year encourage employees to take specific actions each day to grow the value customers see in your solution. Start by just choosing one of these points each month, implement it with vigor, and measure your results. Before you know it, you'll improve business relationships in this New Year.

/ customer-relations | magic-one /

By Justin Hitt at January 1, 2005 4:03 PM  Subscribe in a reader