Relationships: Are you a good friend?

Today I'm breaking away from posts about printing to dive in to another topic that has far reaching implications for our success.  Our family, our employment and even our sales efforts are all impacted by our relationships with other people.


I think everyone would agree that having a good relationship in your family is crucial to long term happiness and success at home.  Why is that?  We realize I think that those who see us the most and know us the best have our best interests in mind...at least at first.  If we don't return the focus on our families best interests, a downward spiral begins.

Almost every person who seeks a life partner wants someone who will be honest, even if what they say hurts our feelings, because we want them to guide us to be better.  Children can help us understand this principle even more.

Me and my daughters

When your child is about to get hurt by their actions, whether jumping on the bed where they may fall off, or by making a bad choice that will lead them down a wrong path, we want to help them and encourage them to make the right choice, or stop the actions that will get them hurt.  We have their best interests in mind, even though the child may not realize it.

Work relationships can be improved by applying this same idea to our interaction with our coworkers.  Instead of routinely showing up for work and "putting in our time", developing good relationships with our coworkers can greatly impact our happiness and success in our career.

When coworkers realize we aren't out to take their job, or to beat them to a promotion, but instead we want to help them succeed, the atmosphere and culture of our work place changes.  Stress will be reduced and our work day enjoyed.

Sales people are also a great example of success through good relationships.  If you sell your product and then abandon your customer, your long term success will be limited.  I don't think a good salesperson is someone who can sell ice to an eskimo.  If the customer doesn't really need what you are selling the first time they make a purchase, you can bet they won't buy what you want to sell the next time you visit. 

A really great salesperson is someone who develops a trusting relationship with a customer and the customer knows the salesperson has their best interests in mind.  These are the relationships that last - even if you change companies, your customer will follow you and buy from the new company you represent because they trust and believe in you.  They believe if you made the choice to change companies, then you, as the expert, know what is best for them as well.

Here is a personal example: I once was working to secure some printing from a potential customer.  I had submitted aggressive pricing several times over 6 months and the customer even acknowledged my pricing was better, our quality was great but he just couldn't move his printing with us. 

Up to this point we had traded emails and a couple of phone calls, but I had never met him in person because he was about 2 hours away.  I decided it was time to get to know him better, so I invited him to lunch.  I drove the 2 hours each way and bought his lunch.  We talked about business and then talked about our families and careers.  When lunch was over I didn't ask for his business, I simply said thank you for having lunch.  The next week he called me to place his first order.  The relationship grew quickly to a $10,000 a month partnership - all from a $40 lunch visit.

So, do you care?  Do others see you looking out for their best interests? 

Relationships matter, at home, at work and in sales.  Be a better friend and I'll bet you'll have better friends as well as success and happiness!