What seems like 100 years ago, FIG wrote a white paper: Book of Business: What Is It and How Do I Build One? It was an article outlining strategic networking, marketing efforts, name recognition, expertise and referrals. In short: business relationships. We thought we’d take a deeper dive into this proposition and discuss the maturation cycle of professional alliances: what are some of the actual mechanics of maintaining, nurturing and sustaining these relationships and how exactly do we execute our desired goals without being transactional or mercenary?
If we can agree that relationships are a connection, an alliance and/or involvement with another human and, by extension in business, a mutually beneficial connection, then we can also agree that these affiliations need care, attention and time, (this is the nurturing part, dear readers). What does “nurturing” mean? Essentially it means to protect, support, encourage and foster the growth of a person or a thing, in this case, the rapport of a mutually beneficial collaboration in business. What does sustaining mean? It’s an action or a process meant to support, bolster or feed, in this case, a professional connection.
But, let’s begin at the beginning, shall we? Business is conducted because of relationships. Full Stop (unless of course you’re buying a used car - and even then you’re likely to return to a salesperson who wasn’t obnoxiously trying to close the deal for the commission and was genuinely interested in finding and meeting your automotive needs, but I digress…) . Yep we’ve said it before and will keep saying it: business is conducted because of relationships! The evolution of any relationship - guess what? - takes time, intention and perseverance, torturing the allusion further, they are not car sales. Yes, business is conducted through relationships largely because two people share each others’ common goals, intentions, relationship to truths, work ethic, commitment, reliability and integrity (sure, there are those who gravitate to unscrupulous, questionable business practices only out for themselves, kill or be killed, but these are not FIG people!). The expansion of a professional union has more to do with commonalities which - yep, you guessed it - take time to uncover, especially these days where immediate gratification is so prevalent. Authenticity and a genuine desire to discover the humans behind the work, and show the humans we are, actually requires some degree of vulnerability and candor - also rare commodities today when we’re all walking on eggshells so we don’t offend anyone or ask a “wrong” question. I’m reminded of being in elementary school and my 3d grade teacher telling the class “the only wrong questions are those that are never asked, politely, of course, and for any question you want to ask, there are probably many others with the very same question.” It can be scary as hell, this vulnerability thing. It takes confidence and a bit of chutzpah, but, if you’re true to yourself as a professional, if you know who you are, what you want to accomplish and truly care, it’s real, it’s authentic and undeniable. But back to the mechanics…..how do we maintain these delicate progressions?
There’s been a notable recurrence in behaviors that has occurred in “FIG world” several times in the past couple of months that illustrates part of the nuance we’re writing about, specifically involving referrals calling for analysis.
We try very hard to practice what we preach at FIG, and there have been at least five occasions recently where we were able to make introductions to like minded individuals who might possibly benefit from knowing each other - it’s just part of what we do. All but one of these connections resulted in business being had, (in some cases, fairly lucrative business) broad professional exposure was incurred and advantageous partnerships - on both sides - were formed, which we are absolutely thrilled about! Here’s the sociological nuance: not one of the parties, again, on either side, circled back to report on the evolution or subsequent progress and direction of the encounters. In all cases, when we reached out to check on the status of the progression of the encounters - because this is also one of our practices - every one of the parties exclaimed some variation of “Oh my god, that was you who introduced us!! Thank you so much!!” And then proceeded to tell everything about the interaction and the results thereof. We revelled in the retelling which sparked all manners of extended conversation. Time very well spent on our humble opinion!
Look, again, practicing what we preach, we certainly didn’t make any of these introductions for accolades, praise or anticipated genuflection, it’s not what we do or why we do things around here. The thing is: there are a ton of potential missed opportunities for subsequent interactions, conversation topics (“I hear your meeting with so-and-so went really well! Tell me all about it?”) and reasons to be back in touch with all of these people! Business to be discussed, stories to be told and heard, further networking to be had and relationships to be furthered. AND as an added bonus, everyone is in the proverbial loop and knows who’s talking to whom! Pretty slick, right? Our intention is not to throw shade on any of these folks, absolutely not. We all get wrapped up in life and business, but merely to highlight the importance of communicating with each other, especially someone doing you a professional solid. These habits take practice and intentionality but are well worth the effort, plus, it just feels good to do right by others and to hear about their progress - it’s building commonality and yes, relationships. Just sayin’.
Until next time…….