Ways to Build Business Relationships

Business relationships are an important part of any business growth.  Building business relationships is just as important to you as it is to your customer.  There is a variety of ways to build business relationships; one of these ways is to become visible.

By this I mean getting out there.  Let people now what you do so they can seek you out when they need that service or product.  When you involve yourself with other people, you will find others in your field which will help you in many ways: 

·         You will know your competition.

·         You will make some contacts

·         You will increase publicity

Becoming a member of social networking sites is another way to get exposure and build business relationships.  These will help you reach a larger number of people in much less time than other types of networking. 

Attending events, social gatherings, parties and functions might seem old school but they are just as valuable for building business relationships.  There are a lot of people that use these services so you don’t want to lose out on this opportunity to build business relationships.

Business Relationship Building - Join a BNI Chapter

Business Networking International (BNI) is by far the most effective Business Relationship Building tool that exists today. 

To give you an idea of the size of BNI, BNI is in 54 countries and passes more than 6.2 million referrals generating business for its members of 2.6 billion dollars every year.   The philosophy behind the organization is quite simple.  It’s givers gain and it is based on the old adage “what goes around comes around’.   The mission of BNI is to help its members build their businesses through positive word of mouth advertising.  Word of mouth advertising by many accounts is considered to be the most effective advertising there is.  Here is an example of a chapter - Boston Networking Group

What generates this type of referral activity?  The answer is building long lasting meaningful business relationships.  Think about it, don’t you only refer someone or do business with someone that you trust.  Do you develop that trust in just a few casual conversations?  It seems unlikely…

By utilizing a simple formula of meeting at the same time and place every week, telling people about your business and meeting with these same people offline on an average of once every 3 months.  You develop the long lasting relationships and trust that lead to referrals and in my chapter an increase in every members business whereby the average member increases their revenue by over $50,000 annually.  

There are some things you must understand about BNI and what makes it the number one referral organization in the world. First, there are no competing businesses.  For example if there is a plumber in a chapter then no other plumber can become a member.  That way the members who are in the chapter have an exclusive resource to refer to.  Secondly there is an application process where references are checked and candidates are screened.  There is an actual committee within each chapter called a membership committee that makes all of these new member decisions as well as a lot of other chapter decisions.

This is just the first in a series of articles about this Business Relationship Building organization.

The Importance of Business Relationship Building

Okay, so we have defined the meanings of the words: "business" and "relationship".  Now, we will write about why it is important to build relationships in business.  It doesn't matter what business you are in, you will need to build a relationship with someone.  Maybe even a lot of someones.  Business relationship building is an investment.  At no time, should you consider this a waste of your time or effort. Building relationships is critical to the success of your business.

There are various ways to build relationships.  In this blog entry we will mention several of these ways and then in future entries, we will elaborate on them.

• One of the most usual ones is handing out business cards.  Yes, business cards is number one.
• Join the Neighborhood Chamber of Commerce
• Be a customer
• Never underestimate a connection
• Make time for everyone
• Volunteer
• Share resources and ideas

The meaning of "Business"

BUSI-NESS

noun

1. an occupation, profession, or trade
2. the purchase and sale of goods in an attempt to make a profit
3. a person, partnership, or corporation engaged in commerce, manufacturing, or a service; profit-seeking enterprise or concern
4. volume of trade; patronage
5. a building or site where commercial work is carried on, as a factory, store, or office; a place of work
6. that with which a person is principally and seriously concerned
7. something with which a person is rightfully concerned
8. affair, project
9. an assignment or task; chore

Just as we did with the word "relationship, we defined what "business" means. As you can see the word "business" can mean many things. Although we will mainly focus on the first 5 descriptions above, all these descriptions are relevant and something we can all relate to when thinking about "business." However, for the purpose of this blog, we will focus on the meanings that pertain to employment, jobs or work environments. These work environments can encompass many places: from working at a location where you share ideas or see a lot of people daily all the way to a home business environment where you are mostly by yourself, but still need some business relationship skills to make your business work.

The meaning of "Re-la-tion-ship"

re·la·tion·ship noun 1. a connection, association, or involvement. 2 .an emotional or other connection between people: the relationship between teachers and students. 3. the state of being connected or related 4. the mutual dealings, connections, or feelings that exist between two parties, countries, people, etc: a business relationship As you can see a relationship can be defined in many ways.  It is important to build relationships in all aspects of your life.  When you are a child, you build relationships when you make friends to play with.... as an adolescent, you build relationships with your neighbors, friends at school or at your religious meetings.  As a teenager, you build relationships with your classmates to help you get through high school and other wonderful and challenging times of that age group. Then you are either work or college bound.  You can't help but meet people, co-workers, fellow students, professors, bosses....  all the while you are living your life, you are building relationships.   Life is all about building relationships.  Seriously, can we really get by all by ourselves?