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

Chapter 10. GAIN RESPECT THIRTEEN WAYS

Business relationships go two ways: Even as you ask questions of customers and colleagues, they silently ask questions of you. They may not consciously be aware that they even have questions, but you should always be sensitive to the questions in the air. Everyone with whom you hope to build a strong relationship wants to know:

• Is this person good at what he or she does?

• How will this person's work reflect on me?

• Does this person want what is best for me and my organiza-tion?

• Does this person understand my challenges?

• Is this a person I will like working with professionally?

• Can this person be trusted?

To simply announce to a prospect, customer, client, or colleague, "I'm good at what I do, my work will make you look great, and of course you can trust me," is not sufficient.

Value and mutual respect are key elements in building a strong business relationship. So how do you gain someone's respect?

IDENTIFY QUALITIES YOU RESPECT

Think about the person you most respect. This individual need not be one of the people with whom you want to have a better business relationship; it might be a parent, a teacher, a former boss.

Write down four or five qualities about that person. What are the significant traits of someone you respect? (To obtain the most value from this exercise, you should stop reading and write down the person's qualities on the form in Figure 10.1 or on another sheet of paper.)

I ask participants in my seminars to do this exercise. Here are some ...