Today’s post is drawn from Rob Jeske’s Mentorforce University masterclass, “The Art of Relationships.”
On the surface, many professionals make the mistake of believing that “relationships” are a core competency for specialists in the sales and communications sectors. On the contrary, the ability to build and maintain strong relationships is a critical success factor in almost every aspect of both professional and personal life.
A reality of today’s professional world is that most people will make 6-8 external moves over the course of their career. Whether developing a career network or targeting one specific job or company, the ability to build and leverage key relationships will be a key factor in building successful outcomes.
At the personal level, possessing strong relationships skills and a consistent process will greatly impact the outcome of your family, social and community ambitions.
Rob breaks the art of relationships into five chapters of learning.
Lesson 1 – Be Strategic: Develop a purposeful plan when targeting new relationships
Every relationship plan begins with the four W’s – What, Where and When and Who. It’s important to keep them in order and be disciplined in the process. Most people make the mistake of pre-determining “Who”, which can lead to wasted time, dead-ends and the worst possible outcome, being seen as a serial networker, trying to meet and impress all. This “shotgun” approach rarely bears fruit, which is why Rob recommends typically more of a “rifle” approach.
Lesson 2 – Discovery: Slow down and do your homework before jumping in
The key to building a strong relationship, in both your personal or professional life, is first gaining a deep understanding of the individual or entity you wish to engage. If there’s ONE rule I can emphasize regarding relationships, it’s that the better the discovery, the better the outcome!
There are two kinds of discovery. The first is “indirect”, which in other words mean, doing independent research on your target without any personal interaction. And the second is “direct”, which occurs in some of your early interactions with your target. It’s important to note that discovery does NOT end once you meet your target. On the contrary, to observe and ask some casual questions, some of the most valuable insights will come in those early meetings and communique.
Lesson 3 – Development: Translate your research into a successful relationship with a defined and patient process
Before embarking on this next phase, take some time to review both your strategic plan and your discovery notes. When making this review, we want to ensure that the building blocks of your strategic plan and the findings of your discovery are still aligned.
In most cases, some assumptions or aspects of your plan will have changed. This is normal and means that you did a thorough job during your discovery. Before proceeding, we now want to take some time and make any refinements to your plan.
However, if the alignment challenges are significant, you may need to make substantive changes to your plan and re-visit the discovery phase. If this becomes necessary, don’t view this as a failure! On the contrary, it’s precisely why we follow this process and place so much emphasis on discovery.
Lesson 4 – 3D Value Generation: Consider how you sell yourself, much like you would sell a product.
In the math world, if we want to master calculus, we must first develop a series of foundational competencies – addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, algebra, and geometry. Eventually, we are able to pull it all together and use what we’ve learned to do calculus.
Up to this point, we’ve followed a similar progression of building blocks. We’ve built a strategic plan. We’ve performed quality discovery. We then used that discovery to lay the groundwork for a relationship, during which time we amended or expanded the insights gained from the discovery. Now, just like in math, we are ready to leverage all of these tools to create value and incent your target to deepen the relationship.
Every relationship is based on real or perceived value. Without a two-way value proposition, personal, social, and professional relationships will eventually erode. Before we proceed, let’s frame what I refer to as the 3D Value Proposition. In each aspect of our life, we can define the three dimensions of value, as follows: relationships, social, and business
Wrap-Up: Continue learning and adapting to the process. The journey never ends.
To see what Rob has to say about developing relationships and to learn more about building your leadership skills, visit Mentorforce University.