Will you marry me? NO? (I’ve heard that before…but I digress).OK…I don’t want to get married, but I do want to build a relationship where we know each other, like each other, and trust each other enough to do business together. When we find someone we are attracted to, obviously we don’t run up to them on the street and ask for their hand in marriage and guarantee live-happily-ever-after bliss. Building a business relationship is no different. If you’re jumping into social media or making cold calls and asking for a new client’s hand in business wedlock, maybe you’ve got the wrong approach.Here is the wrong approach:

ME: “Hi, I’m Dan! I’m a Solutionist! Can I have all of your business?”

YOU: “NO! Go away!” (again, I’m having flashbacks).

A better approach is this:

ME: “Hi Paul, I see you know Bill Gates, I think he may be a good prospect and I can save him money. Can you make an introduction for me?”

YOU: “Hi Bill, I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine. He’s saved me money and he may be able to save you money. His name is Dan! He’s A Solutionist!”

BILL: “Never heard of him Paul, but if you recommend him, I’ll meet with him.”

The key to building a long-term client base is to create long-term relationships. The new prospect may be a total jerk, but you don’t know that until you do a LITTLE business together. But you can’t do a LITTLE business together until they know you a LITTLE bit. On the other hand, the prospect may think you are a jerk as well. If either or both are true, then that relationship is not a good fit…and we haven’t even started talking about your product. Asking for an introduction through a mutual contact may be able to avert this problem.

PAUL: “Dan, I know what you can do for Bill, but I don’t think he could hang intellectually with your sarcastic wit. It’s probably not a good fit.” (That’s Paul’s polite way of saving my valuable time and money.)

When we start dating, maybe we are introduced to each other through a friend. We start with a conversation over coffee, then maybe dinner, then a movie, then we can begin a relationship. A business relationship is not unlike a courting process. The first contact could be or is becoming more likely a connection via a social media site or, I know it sounds crazy, you may make first contact with a phone call (crazy huh?). When you are jumping onto the social media bandwagon and finding a lot of new prospects, please remember what my Mom used to tell me. “Remember your manners young man!”

• Be polite - Don’t be pushy.
• Provide information - Don’t be selling.
• Look to give something - Don’t look to get something.
• Help others make connections - Don’t force yourself on others.
• Ask questions about others - Don’t be self-aggrandizing.
• Look to learn - Don’t look to impress.

Sometime I am the master of the obvious, but I hope you found some value in this article. But if we do end up doing business together, remember that my Mom told me to be polite, she never said anything about sarcasm (wink wink).

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 16th, 2010 at 3:05 pm and is filed under Social Media, marketing, solutionst. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.