Essentials For Building New Business Relationships

Last summer, I took a big entrepreneurial leap and started my own business.

One of the most valuable lessons I've learned is how to effectively get myself in front of new business contacts for first-time meetings. Every week, I’ve been having first-time meetings with people who are new to me and my work. At first, it was nerve-racking. But over time, I’ve been able to relax by taking a strategic approach to new conversations and lots of practice. Lately, it’s been exciting to see these connections bloom into new friendships, partnerships, and projects.

Below are five points I recommend you follow when building new professional relationships:

1. Lean on your network to introduce you. If you have someone in common – even a few degrees away – reach out and ask if they’d be willing to make an intro. From my experience, people want to help. They just need to be asked.

2. Have a service orientation – lead with empathy and focus on building trust and understanding first. It sounds obvious, but these are necessary ingredients to any successful relationship. Get to know them as people – what issues and interests are most important to them, and what challenges keep them up at night?

3. Ask open-ended questions, and listen closely to the answers. Powerful questions are a key to unlocking and deepening your relationships. Ask exploratory questions to gather the initial info, and continue following up with more open-ended (why, how) questions to elicit more thoughtful answers. When preparing for meetings, I spend about 60% of my time researching the organization and the individual, and then 40% writing and refining questions to ask. I recommend Mishkin Berteig’s guidance and examples (the concepts are widely applicable).

4. Take a “good faith” approach. Be clear eyed, but assume people have good intentions and are sharing the level of detail they are able to. As Adrienne Maree Brown champions in Emergent Strategy: “Trust the people. If you trust the people, they become trustworthy.”

5. Ask if they are looking for help, and have a clear value proposition to share. Be responsive to what they’ve told you, and decide how you can leverage your experience and network to make their life easier.

Now, think about your new year’s goals and consider: Who are 1-2 new connections you’d like to make in the next month? How can you make these conversations happen? Who in your network can help?

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All the best,

Dan