Building Informal Relationships

This is primarily for the folks in sales and marketing but “sales” isn’t confined to our professional lives.   The truth of the matter is that whether you are working on a 7 figure deal with a F100 company or getting your co-worker Kevin to help you with a project, you are selling. ("Sales" here is defined as getting someone to do what you want when you don’t have any authority over them, or even when you do but don’t want to use it).

We like to believe that decisions like this in our personal lives and especially in deals between companies are done strictly on merit. But that is simply not true. If it were, golf courses would be empty during the day and the word "schmooze" would lose its place in our vocabulary.

Successful salespeople have an uncanny ability to establish informal relationships with people.

This is critically important. People do not buy from companies. People buy from people.  And all things being equal (and often unequal), they prefer to do business with people they like.  

So how do you do that?  There’s no question that some people have a natural talent.  But this is a trainable skill.  It is a misconception that you need to be a life-of-the-party extravert.  Some of the best relationship builders I’ve met are quiet introverts.  The reason for this is that real relationships are based on depth.  You will not build them by mingling and talking about weather.

And speaking of weather...  In the US, it seems to be in poor taste to get right down to business.  Parties prefer to engage in some small talk first.  More often than not, conversation turns to weather.  This is completely fine on a conference call with multiple participants, but my advise is to avoid this topic like the plague in any 1-1 conversations.  There are two reasons for this:

1. Relationships are personal and you are squandering an opportunity to get personal.
2. Talking about the weather signals that you aren’t interested in the other person.

Luckily, there’s a myriad of other topics that are every bit as acceptable but get you so much closer to your target.  

So how do you break the ice? How do take the conversation into the informal realm? How do you get them to show you their personality? You show them yours first!  You proactively think about offering them something to like about you.  You want them to say "Wow, what a great guy / gal" to themselves at the end of that conversation.  

Lots of topics easily lend themselves to this type of conversation: sports, families, shared work experiences, where you / they are from, travel, vacations, hobbies.  Reveal something about yourself and they will reveal something about themselves.  "Hey how you doing?" "I'm good, working from home today, though.  Just adopted a shelter puppy and helping her adjust to her new home".  BOOM!  You are an awesome person who rescues dogs from shelters and perhaps your interlocutor likes dogs too.  Or perhaps you took your kids to their rugby camp over the weekend, or spent the weekend building a train track. If it's something a bit uncomfortable or a tiny bit embarrassing - even better. Showing vulnerability is a great way to get personal. Perhaps you spent Sunday in bed binge watching House of Cards? … And then ask them about their lives.  And if they reveal something, remember it.  Write it down. Ask them about it next time you talk.  Show sincere interest and feel sincere interest. We care about people who care about us.  But don't expect things to move overnight. Be patient. Different people build relationships at different paces, so you need to have sufficient EQ to move at their pace, but we all do it.  

Ownership - Just one step to a great career

Below is the ultimate secret to professional success.  If you do one thing at work - do this. I'm dead serious.

But before we jump in head first, let's take a step back and look inside your manager's mind.

Whether your manager is effective or not, hardworking or lazy; her most precious resource is not time (although time is of course very important too) - it is mindshare.  

We all have a limited capacity to keep proverbial balls in the air.  This is why a manager should not have more than a handful of direct reports.  This is why we have a limit to the number of relationships we can maintain. And there's a limit to the number of projects we can manage.  Projects are like classroom sizes - a good teacher can probably manage 35 kids, but 12 is a lot better for everybody.

So the most valuable thing you can do for your manager is to reduce the number of "floating" balls.  Give your boss complete confidence that she does not need to worry, that things are under control.  And the way you do it is by taking full ownership over every project you take on.  Act as if a project is a small business and you are its owner, and your manager is your customer.  If the product isn't delivered, you do not get paid.  

What does that mean in practical terms...?

1.  It is YOUR responsibility to understand precise requirements and the desired outcome.  Don't be afraid to ask questions, to challenge, to offer better ways, but once agreed YOU need to make sure that you fully get it.
2. It is YOUR responsibility to drive the project forward.  it doesn't matter that your computer crashed, that IT screwed up your access to systems, that a colleague promised to deliver a product update and the deadline came and went.  It is YOUR responsibility to find another computer, borrow a colleagues credentials or find another workaround.  It is YOUR responsibility to hold your colleagues responsible to their commitments.  
3. It is YOUR responsibility to give your boss updates.  Often, the frequency of updates goes down the longer you work together but it is YOUR responsibility to give your boss full confidence that things are under control.  This is called "managing up".
4. It is YOUR responsibility to deliver the highest possible quality of work.  There's a famous story about Henry Kissinger and one of his staffers.  The young man brought Kissinger a report.  After a few days, Kissinger asked the staffer whether this is the best work he's capable of.  The young man took the report and came back with an update a few days later.  Kissinger asked him the same question and the young man answered "Yes.  This is the best work I'm capable of."  Then Kissinger replied "Good.  Now I will read it."
5. It is YOUR responsibility to recognize when you are over your head and when the best you can do is not good enough.  It is your responsibility to seek help from your colleagues or from your boss.  I doubt that you will lose points for admitting that you cant do something and I guarantee that you will gain points for self-awareness.  Nothing will give your boss as much confidence in your ability to handle projects as asking for help at the right time.
6. And if you do come to your boss for help with a problem, it is YOUR responsibility to present a couple of solution ideas.  If you run into a brick wall, go to your colleagues, look on the internet, ask your Linkedin connections but do not come to your boss empty-handed.  The reason you got that project is because your manager trusts your judgment.  So offer your ideas and your solutions.  You can read up more on this concept here.

Do this, and you will see nearly immediate results.  And if you haven't been doing this, go to your manager and tell her how you plan to change things and take greater ownership.  It'll be like music to her ears.