Relationships are tricky to maintain and keep healthy, but if you run a business, it is vital to the continued success of your enterprise. I’m not talking about having an excellent relationship with your wife or husband; I am speaking about all of the relationships you form while working in a business. They all matter. They are key to supercharge business profitability.
Are you one that believes that creativity can be learned? We are among that group. We also believe in suggestions for innovative thinking can boost team creativity through effective collaboration.
Through a series of sparks and not a single flash of insight. Certainly our way of thinking.
I’m using the term relationship to cover a wide variety of human interactions you will encounter as an employee of a company. They are key to business profitability.
In the future, we can expect the underlying logic of social search to continue to play a role in determining how people and information related to each other. Using similar algorithms, we will be able to find commonalities among seemingly disparate groups of consumers and content, improving our ability to establish relevance between those that we market to and the information they seek.
Consumer targeting, content management, and overall web usability will benefit greatly as we learn.
There is an argument to be made that your relationships with your employees are the most important when it comes to the success of your business.
No matter how amazing you think you are the boss, your business will fail if your staff want it to. This is probably the thing I wish more managers understood.
People – your staff – are what make your company a success, and it has very little to do with you.
So next time you want to force overtime or stop some advantages, just remember that a staff member will hold onto every single little slight and will use it against you, whether it’s blabbing your secrets to competitors, messing with your software, or in extremely rare cases, destroying/stealing equipment. You seriously do not want a disgruntled employee.
Your clients and relationships define your marketing.
Customers/Clients
The second most important (or first depending on how you look at it) is your relationship with your customers and clients.
Based on your business, you may not have a direct correlation with your clients and customers, but these are still the people that are making you rich, and if they get angered and look somewhere else because you were an insufferable idiot, then you’re going to look pretty stupid.
Luckily with this one, there are ways you can use software to get a better understanding of your customer base, which means they can then be manipulated.
For larger businesses running SAP, companies such as www.weaveability.com/sap-certified-b2b-portals provide applications that are SAP-certified to help utilize master data in an omnichannel environment. This is invaluable ammo in your ‘squeeze the customer of all their money’ gun.
Suppliers
This one isn’t 100% vital as there will always be more suppliers, however maintaining a healthy relationship with a select few vendors who you use regularly, will be mutually beneficial.
If you get on well with them and keep things rosy, then you will buy more which will give them incentives to reduce prices and give you deals, which then leads to you buying more, etc. It’s the perfect never-ending circle.
Essential relationships will make or break you.
Wife or Husband
I lied; this is an important part of running a business, surprisingly. I don’t just mean your spouse, either, as it extends to your entire family.
Keeping a happy family life will mean you come to work every day knowing you’re working for the success of something more important than financial reward and success.
You’re trying to keep your family happy and comfortable, to ensure a good relationship with them and you will flourish as a business leader.
The bottom line
Remember one simple thing here: all companies need to view themselves as relationship builders, period. Customer service actions that are remarkable get talked about.
And getting mentioned in this light is a great thing, right? No question.
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is entirely up to you.
It’s up to you to keep improving your customer attention and focus. Lessons are all around you. In many situations, your competitor may be providing ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And this struggle gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And this struggle gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas to make your customer experiences better.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on a business process from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
