The Relationship Edge: The Key to Strategic Influence and Selling Success, Third Edition

Chapter 3. HOW TO BUILD A RELATIONSHIP

As I said at the beginning, building a strong business relationship, moving up the Relationship Pyramid, is a process that you can learn. Actually, it's one you've already practiced. It's not magic, it's not chemistry, it's not luck. Because it's a process, you can master it and you can replicate it. If you need to build a relationship, you are holding the instructions for building one and have no excuse for not doing so.

On the other hand, as I said, the process will not work with every person every time. The failure in such a situation is not the process, but the other person's personality, or the circumstances, or an issue over which you have no control.

Nevertheless, everyone who has a close friend, a loving spouse, or a loyal colleague has gone through the relationship building process. Unknowingly, perhaps, but he or she has succeeded in taking the three steps the process requires.

Taking the steps unknowingly, the way most people build relationships, is the difference between unconscious competence and conscious competence. Most people are unconsciously competent at building good relationships. They do the right thing without deliberation with some people, and it turns out well.

If you understand the process, however, you are consciously competent, a good place to be. The relationship-building process does not merely happen. You know how to do it and you can do it when it counts, when you have to build a relationship with someone with whom ...