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7 Steps to a Profitable Relationship – Part 2

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In Part 1, we talked about the 3 steps on the ladder that we go through whilst developing Visibility in the relationships that we have.

The first step is Awareness, that moment in time when people first come into contact with us. Either when they meet us in person or when they hear about us, in whatever way that may happen.

Step 2 is Familiarity. This is the point when people start to recognise you or your name. Interestingly, you don’t have to actually meet people to get on to this second step.

Step 3 is when people start to Know & Like you. This is when the relationship is starting to develop quite nicely, ready to move it on to the next phase.

The next phase is all about building Credibility and the steps we need to move through in order to gain credibility in our relationships.

Steps 4 & 5

You know when you’re on the 4th and then 5th ‘rungs’ on someone’s relationship ladder when they start to display a level of Confidence and then Trust, both in you and in what you do. This is a very important development in your relationship and moves you in to the realms of having Credibility in this particular relationship.

People are very unlikely to refer a personal contact to anyone that they don’t see as being credible. At least, not without making that referral with lots and lots of qualification and, effectively, removing any endorsement of the person being referred to their contact.

Given that the type of referrals we all look for are those that are accompanied by a powerful endorsement of us, and of what we do. Having a high level of credibility is essential if we want to achieve this.

Profitable Relationships

So what are some of the things that you can do to make sure that people develop Confidence and then Trust in you? [Read more…]

7 Steps to a Profitable Relationship – Part 1

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For those of you familiar with Dr Ivan Misner, the founder of BNI, you may be familiar with his formula for developing profitable relationships;

V + C = P

Where V = Visibility, C = Credibility and P = Profitability.

The key thing to note, here, is that relationships don’t just happen, you have to work at them to develop them to the point where they become profitable.  It’s also worth noting that ‘profitable’, in this context, doesn’t necessarily relate to a monetary profit. The important thing is that there should be a mutual benefit gained by both parties in the relationship.

Yes, you can apply this philosophy to any kind of relationship, not just a business networking relationship. It applies equally to the mutual benefit gained through developing a relationship with your life partner, your children, business contacts or friends. In fact, it applies equally to any type of relationship you can think of.

For me, a truly profitable business relationship is one where the parties involved are keen to refer one another to business opportunities.

This is referral networking. You might think of a profit as obtaining a sale. And there is value to this, but building that relationship to the stage where there is a desire to refer one another is the pinnacle that we should be aiming for.

Profitable Relationship

I like to break down this relationship building process into smaller chunks to help me understand and grade the relationships that I have with different people. And I think of these steps as the ‘rungs’ of a ‘ladder’ that I wish to climb – Hence, “7 Steps to a Profitable Relationship”.

It probably seems obvious to say this but I’m going to, anyway.

You have a different ‘ladder’ for each individual relationship that you have and you’re, almost certainly, on a different ‘rung’ of the ‘ladder’ with different people.

So, if you have relationships that you don’t think are bringing you the reward that you think they should be, whatever kind of reward that may be, understanding this philosophy will help you realise which ‘rung’ you’re on with those people and, more importantly, it will help you to identify what you need to do to move that relationship up the following steps to where you want it to be.

The first 3 steps on the ladder relate to building your Visibility.

Step 1

The first ‘rung’ on the ‘ladder’ is Awareness. It’s that point in time when someone becomes aware of you – and it only happens once. They say that you only have a few seconds to make a great first impression so this first step is quite important. However, if you don’t quite make the first impression that you’d like to, all is not lost.

Building a relationship is a process and all processes take time. You do have control over how long it may take because you can choose how much time and effort you put into building that particular relationship.

But, you shouldn’t be seen to be rushing it as that will send out the wrong message.

So, how do people become aware of you? That can happen in a number of different ways and, as I’m relating this specifically to the process of business networking, I’m going to talk about the ways people may become aware of you from a business perspective. [Read more…]