Success is About Relationships

Today is the fourth post in my series of 16 lessons learned during my 16 years in business. You can read the introductory article here (and scroll down to read the others).

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My Story

I think I have always been pretty good at building relationships, and at some level I realized how important that was in building my business. In instance, I've always said the the consulting business is a relationship business and I've always believed it.

But the history of my business and my observation of the world around me comfirms this in ways far beyond my comprehension when I started making that statement.

When I look at all of the best tangible things that have happened to my business, including the people now on my team, our biggest client projects, my book contract and much more, I can trace all of those to relationships. Yes, I had to be a good employers, had to be able to deliver for the Client and write a good book, but the opportunities all came from relationships.


Let's take just one example, Jenny Pratt. Jenny has been the Director of Remarkable Development at The Kevin Eikenberry Group for the past three years. I can trace the genesis of her being on my team to relationship decisions I made in college - in fact all the way back to the fall of 1980 when as a Freshman at Purdue University I decided to run for the School of Agriculture Student Council. I got on the Council and two years later was Ag Council President. As President I served on the Ag Alumni Association Board of Directors and I build a relationship with Mauri Williamson, the Executive Director during that time.

Because of that relationship, when Mauri retired and Donya Lester replaced him, she came to see me on a planned trip to California in the early 1990's. That relationship led to a call to become the first ever out of state Director of the Association. After moving back to Indiana, and continuing to serve on the Board, I built relationships within the College of Agriculture, eventually having the Dean at the time, Vic Lechtenberg, as a Client, and getting to know his Communications Director Christy Denault. When Christy moved to Indianapolis, she introduced me to Jenny Pratt, her replacement. I could tell more of the story, but you get the idea.


This is just one of many similar stories I could tell. And, if you stop to think about it, you could too.

At any point in this chain of events, if I hadn't built relationships, rather than just showing up - passive networking - or "collecting business cards" - playing the numbers game, I wouldn't likely have the pleasure and honor of working with Jenny today.

Our Lessons

There is no such thing as a self made man or woman. In order for you to reach your goals, you need others. But, as I've said, it isn't about compiling a huge network, for the numbers themselves, but it is about building relationships.

Building relationships means giving of yourself first. It means knowing enough about the other person and their goals that you are able to help them. It means planting seeds and nurturing them.

Building and maintaining relationships can be hard work and will definitely take time. While I am far from perfect at it - I can think of many relationships I haven't maintained as well as I wish I had -I've learned that with the effort comes tremendous intrinsic and extrinic rewards.

Few efforts you can make will be as rewarding and fun as the effort you exert make better and deeper relationships with others.

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To help us celebrate our 16 years in business, you can save 16% on 6 of our selected products or get a fr.ee 16 minute mini-phone consultation with me to help you tackle your biggest leadership and training challenges - but only during October!

Labels: relationships

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