To successful people, relationships are like gold. They tend to relationships like a farmer tends crops, nurturing them every day, remembering names, birthdays, gifts for newborns, and interacting frequently. Successful people seek to help their relationships and their business associates, even when there is nothing in it for them. They are focused on others, rather than on themselves.
For successful people, networking is a prerequisite to their success. They develop systems and processes as tools to assist them in networking efforts. They search for reasons to reach out to their contacts, such as birthday contacts or congratulatory calls, cards, or gifts. They attend important celebrations and milestones such as graduations, funerals, and weddings. They network with individuals who are like-minded. They do not waste their time developing and nurturing relationships with individuals who are only out for themselves. They cut all ties that are harmful or destructive, and stay clear of individuals who are perpetually in a state of turmoil. Many times this turmoil is financial in nature. These individuals have bad habits and often drag down their friends or associates.
Successful people are students of relationship building. They faithfully return phone calls right away. They continuously seek out ways to improve their relationships.
Unsuccessful people have a “What have you done for me lately?” attitude about relationships.
Some, oddly enough, even consider it a virtue when they intentionally shortchange others. If an individual cannot provide them with some immediate value, they are ignored until needed. No calls, emails, or cards on birthdays. No gifts congratulating their “friends” or associates on the important events in their lives. Unsuccessful people are not good net workers. They don’t seek to improve their relationships with others on a continuous and regular basis. They do not return phone calls right away, and sometimes not at all.
Unsuccessful people adopt a “put out the fire” mindset in managing relationships. When a crisis arises, and unsuccessful people often have sudden crises in their lives, they reach out for help. Oftentimes, they seek assistance from an individual they have neglected. When it comes to relationships, unsuccessful people simply do not care enough to invest time in developing relationships.
Successful people employ a system in managing their relationships. Some have systems that can be quite sophisticated and utilize the latest in technology and software. Whatever system you create for yourself, find a way to track various types of information about each of your contacts. Besides names, addresses, phone numbers, and email information, capture other important data such as: professions; birthdays; spouse names; spouse birthdays; names of children; college, graduate school, law school etc.; hobbies, interests, and other important data. “Important” means important to your contact. The most common contact management system is Outlook. Almost anyone with a computer has Outlook. Some cell phones even link up with Outlook, giving you the ability to carry contact information with you.
Having the greatest contact management system in the world does you no good unless you put your system to good use. The most basic system provides a process that reminds you of a contact’s birthday so you can reach out to them to wish them a happy birthday. Even if you do not regularly communicate with a specific person, this minimum amount of contact keeps your relationship alive. Birthday calls allow you to maintain a relationship by being in touch at least once a year. Your contact may reciprocate, thus increasing the frequency of your contacts with this individual to two times per year.
I have never met a successful person who has not shared with me the same nasty little secret...each of us has difficulty remembering names. To overcome this failing, successful people create a system to help them remember names of even the most remote contacts.
A good way to remember names is to group your contacts by category. For example you can group contacts into the following categories:
Tennis contacts
Golf contacts Bowling contacts
Club contacts Neighbor contacts
Friend John Smith’s friends
College friends
Spouse's college friends
Business partner’s friends
Work associates and their families
Church/synagogue/mosque, or community contacts, etc.
Before any event in which you are likely to run into one or more of your contacts you can pull out that category’s group of contacts and review their names just before you go to the event. Names are important to each one of us and we all appreciate when someone feels we’re important enough to be remembered by name.
Summary: Successful people foster, grow, and improve their relationships with others each and every day. They devote significant amounts of time networking.
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