3 Things You Must Never Do When Building Relationships

							Building business relationships is so much more than getting someone card and
saying hello. It is about turning a fragile, unsure acquaintance into a die-hard partner
that would never leave your side no matter what. Developing a strong business
relationship is about taking time, dedication, effort and knowing what to say and do
and more importantly, what not to say and do.

 It seems so many people are missing the whole concept of relationship building. It
doesn?t matter whether you are trying to build a business relationship online or offline,
there are 3 key things you should never do if you want to build a strong one.

 Assume Closeness After First Meeting

  Never assume you are ?friends? after meeting someone for the very first time. Think
about your current friends: the first time you met and said ?hello? didn?t make you
inseparable for life, did it?? Of course not! You needed to find out more about that
person before they know you, love you, and trust you. You probably found out if they
were married or had kids, you probably found out where they worked and if they liked
it, you probably also found out of you had similar likes and interests when it came to
recreational activities. This is just scratching the surface. You probably also didn?t
find these things out through mental telepathy, but through asking questions. As your
relationship grew, you probably found out their favorite color and their pets names.
My question is: Why would you assume a business relationship is any different? You
may not need to know someone?s favorite color or how they take their coffee in order
to do business with them, but knowing more personal information about someone and
what really makes them tick can help form a bond of trust between you and your
business relationships. So, never assume that you are life-long buddies from hello.
Relationships need to be worked on and built and that takes time and dedication and
asking questions.

 No One Likes Being Pitched
 You know that person who calls you in the middle of supper and starts telling you
about how great his business is and why you should join?? How does that make you
feel? I don?t know about you, but I usually hang up. When you are trying to build
business relationships, again this takes more than one meeting. Your first initial
contact with someone when you are networking is to get to know them and build
rapport. How else would you know if that person is even what YOU are looking for in
a business relationship? Think about this: you would not be very successful selling a
drill to someone who doesn?t need a hole, right? And how would you know what
someone needed or wanted if you didn?t ask a series of questions in order to find out??
Pitching the sale on the first meeting is like a deadly sin in business relationships. You
won?t just lose that person, but you will lose them forever.

 The same thing goes for when you are online networking. You never want to talk
about business before you even know if someone is looking for what you have. It is
not just a turn off, but it is so much easier to lose people online because you never
really had them in the first place. I see so many people online in social networking
sites like facebook throw a link for their business out there along with their ?pitch?, in
hopes that if they throw the line out there, someone will catch it. Instead, they end up
offending people because they are assuming they know what the person is looking for
when they never even took the time to get to know them. What happens is that person
who is doing the pitching is now getting reported as a spammer.

 The Assumed Sign Up

 This may be the worst one of all. It doesn?t matter if you are selling widgets or a
service, signing someone up for your service or to receive something they didn?t
specifically give you verbal or written permission to do is not only rude, but very
presumptuous and simple bad business manners.


 The last thing you are trying to do is get someone angry. By signing someone up for
something they didn?t want, etc. without their permission will only make them
assume you are only looking for a another notch in your business belt and not a
business relationship. Just remember that when you lose a person to mistakes like this,
you usually lose all the people they network with as well. You need to make sure to
engage in conversation and get a firm ?yes? before moving forward on closing any
deals, big or small. Always ask permission.

  So overall, building business relationships is like being on a blind date. You are
trying to find out everything about that other persons needs and wants and then
working with what you have in a professional, yet friendly way. By building business
relationships beyond the hello will not only make you a better networker and earn
more peoples respect, but it will allow more doors to open in the business world for
you.
  Mark Manderville is a professional in attraction marketing and personal branding.
Click on BUILDING BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS to learn more strategies on the
right ways to build a smart business.