The 5 Mistakes To Avoid When Creating Great Business Relationships That Will Reward You For Life…

And NO! We’re not only talking about financial rewards, but that comes from great relationships too!

A couple of years ago, While campaigning in Roanoke Virginia, Pres. Obama stirred up a lot of controversy with a business comment.

He offended many entrepreneurs by suggesting that they didn’t build their own businesses when he said…

“Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”

Entrepreneurs all over the world went crazy because they felt that he was discounting their hard work.

I didn’t.

I understood exactly what he was saying. Most people didn’t see or pay attention to the second part of the quote below:

“The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own.”

Politics aside (and please don’t leave political comments below because we’ll just have to delete them), the point is that we don’t do anything alone.

Every great entrepreneur who has found lasting success will admit quickly that without relationships — business, personal, and family, no one succeeds with any degree of fulfillment in their lives.

This is a business blog so we’re going to focus on business relationships today. And with any business strategy, there are rules to building relationships in business.

We’ll focus on the 5 mistakes that we’ve uncovered (and made).

Even the most introverted business owner can build meaningful relationships if she avoids these mistakes.

But first you have to establish The Goal.

The goal in any relationship is to build trust with mutual respect. For  relationships to be successful, both of these elements must be present, not just one.

For example, if you have engaged with a partner on a project because you know that she has a great system, expertise and reputation in that niche, that might seem like enough to move forward with a long-term relationship.

But if she drags her feet when deadlines approach causing stress, the results will suffer.

You may decide that you respect her but don’t trust her.

There are multiple levels of business relationships.

As the captain, you’re always building a team.

Finding the right people to put on your “team” is a tricky proposition.

The team consists of:

1. Customers
2. Vendors
3. Partners

Customers

One of my mentors, Alex Mandossian, said that you always need to know your top 20% of customers. They’re the ones who spend money with you because they know, like and trust you more than the rest.

They also get the most attention.

Creating a personal relationship with those special people makes sense, but you must leave little room for others to work their way into that group as well. Otherwise, the opportunity for growth in your organization is limited – even for customers.

The top 20% is important because they generate 80% of your business.

And as you build the relationship with those customers, they feel some ownership in your business. They could lose if your business isn’t around any longer to serve them.

They are not stockholders, but stakeholders.

Of course, all customers must  feel like you have their best interest at heart, and you do we hope. But your time is limited, and you can only invest real, one-on-one time in the top customer relationships.

Vendors

Who is a vendor?

This is the company that provides the infrastructure software for your business, the virtual assistant who helps you get stuff done every day, the programmer that creates your products and software, the social media manager who translates your voice into Facebook, Twitter and Instagram posts, and many other workers.

They represent you in some ways to the public or they help you access the public. These folks are incredibly important to you, and if your relationship is not good, the damage can be great.

A vendor can actually become a trusted advisor, but only after you’ve built a really strong relationship with a lot of respect and trust.

Partners

Partners  can be the lifeblood of your business. Or, they can become the bane of your existence.

In a previous business, I once had a senior sales manager who was incentivized with a 10% sales commission on top of her weekly pay.

Everything was cooking along as I had hoped and expected until one Friday afternoon, I received a phone call from her.

She told me she was cleaning out her desk and would be gone by 5 o’clock that afternoon. Basically, she was walking away with half of my clients and a third of my content providers.

While I was trusting her, and giving her access to my proprietary information and systems, she was quietly stealing part of my business over a period of two months.

Today, my partners become partners with a lot more scrutiny.

Those relationships have safeguards to prevent that kind of sabotage from inside.

Great partners can become your best resources. Once trust and respect are established thoroughly, a partner can become a godsend.

NAMS was built with hundreds of partners. Affiliates, speakers, joint venture partners, instructors, and advisors were the folks who drove the engine that powered NAMS for years.

That’s one of the reasons that we believe in lifetime referral commissions. Partners promote so that we can reward them for years to come. Frankly, our business would not exist without them. So our relationship is incredibly important.

The 5 relationship mistakes that we discuss below apply to all three categories: customers, vendors and partners.

What are the 5 mistakes that we’ve uncovered?

1. You know what they say about assumptions.
2. Give and let give.
3. Relationships are an 80-20 proposition.
4. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
5. Expect long-term relationships, otherwise what’s the point?

You know what they say about assumptions.

“Apples don’t fall far from the tree.”

“First impressions are usually correct.”

“If you want to know what your wife will be like in 30 years, look at her mother.”

“Don’t get too excited. You’ll just be disappointed.”

These and most clichés people accept as truth are ridiculous stereotypes.

We try to use judgments –  or prejudgment in most cases – as a way to protect ourselves in situations outside our comfort zone.

But if you go into a situation believing those prejudices are true, they will definitely become true.

Assuming that someone has a flawed characteristic or quality before we see it, is like walking through a field of cow patties.

You’re bound to step in one at some point, and it will confirm your belief that the world stinks.

If you assume that a person you’re trying to do business with is out to get you, then you won’t be surprised when that happens.

And you can feel self-righteous saying, “see, I knew I shouldn’t have trusted that person.”

Making assumptions about the other person is probably the fastest way to destroy a relationship quickly, or even eliminate the possibility of having a relationship.

An assumption confirms that you don’t respect them, and they should never expect you to trust them.

Making assumptions about someone automatically keeps someone at arm’s length as if you were saying, “I’m better than you, I know more than you, I’m your boss, and you’ll never be better than my expectations – which are very low.”

Give and let give.

This is the opposite of assumptions.

With this attitude, the sky’s the limit for the relationship. You’re giving the other party carte blanche.

Even though this can be a great way to find highly motivated people, not every valuable relationship is with a person who is highly motivated.

If not, the other party in the relationship can be completely freaked out.

We recently hired a project manager to run the many MyNAMS projects. As a team, we were excited to be able to work with someone who had experience, time, and it seemed a great understanding of where we want to go. She also had the proven ability to drive those projects forward.

We questioned her thoroughly. We asked if she felt like this was a good fit for her. We told her of the growth potential in the company and the job. And we laid out the responsibilities that would come along with this opportunity. And finally we told her of the bonus structure based on performance.

Essentially, she could build the job anyway she wanted as long as we met our company goals. We even told her we were concerned that she would not get the kind of career growth that she wanted with us.

She was all in. Excited. Eager to get to work.

Two weeks later, she quit. She was completely overwhelmed by our business, she said.

I was stunned that she quit. And I learned that not everyone responds positively to too much freedom.

Relationships are an 80-20 proposition.

My dad told me this about marriage and it fits here too:

“Relationships are and 80-20 proposition, and both parties give 80.”

Ok, that doesn’t make any sense, right? How can both parties give 80%?

They can’t. But they can try.

If both parties in a business relationship are all about making sure the other party is getting more from the relationship, then they are in an 80-80 relationship.

It’s often represented by the question:

“How can I help today?”

When I was a consultant, I had two main clients, both VP’s at a huge Fortune 10 company. Both of those clients loved me.

The first loved “just knowing I was in the building…” because she knew that she could rely on me to dig into issues and bring back solutions and ALWAYS have her best interest at heart.

The second loved me because I always gave him a different and more simplified perspective on complex issues because he could get in the weeds pretty quickly. I stayed at the Big Picture level because that’s the perspective that served him best.

Those clients rewarded me with 17 years of consulting contracts that exploded my value to them and my family.

If that question (How can I help today?) comes from a person that you trust and respect, then you’re happy to tell them exactly how they can help you today. And tomorrow, you’ll ask them how you can help them.

Until that trust and respect is built, the question is often met with suspicion. And the answer is usually, “thanks, but I got this.”

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

This saying rules my life:

 “If I’m not the problem, there is no solution.”

This is a radical concept to a lot of people.

Even when somebody takes advantage of you, the only person you can blame is yourself.

I know this is a hard thing to wrap your head around, especially when you’ve been wronged.

Yet, at this point you, have two choices:

1. Get angry, blame the other party, and call your lawyer to figure out how to sue the person. That hijacks all your energy, or…
2. Take a look at your part in the problem, and vow that you will never make that mistake again.

You are the only one that you can change.

You can’t change anyone else, even though they may need to change.

You can’t right a wrong, no matter how justified. All you can do is learn from it and move on.

So, if someone fooled one time, you can easily say no thanks to a second dose of that same mistake.

Learning from your mistakes in relationships eventually clears a path for a much happier life.

Expect long-term relationships, otherwise what’s the point?

Every engagement, every project, every hire is an opportunity to build a long-term relationship.

Short-term relationships are expensive and frustrating.

People often say to hire for specific task, let them go, and never look back.

But the consequences of that are kind of severe.

First, you’re building a reputation. The result is that you will never ever get the benefit of the doubt or the benefit of the deal from a vendor or partner or even a customer when you are bouncing from relationship to relationship.

Second, consistency and continuity suffers when you’re always looking for the next person you can use. Your business will suffer, look disjointed and confusing.

Every relationship conversation, whether it’s with customers, vendors, or partners,  should begin with the phrase, “I’m looking for long term relationships…”

And you should mean it.

 

 

Did You Know That YOUR Business Is EXACTLY  Like AT&T?

How can that be, you asked? AT&T did $146 BILLION in revenue in 2015, and you did…much less!

I learned a valuable lesson many years ago when I was transitioning from my weekly newspaper in my hometown in Indiana to a major metro newspaper in New York.

Having just arrived at the newspaper with a little bit of fanfare because I had done such a nice job as the publisher of the weekly newspaper, I was expecting a little hazing and maybe even some resentment from the older editors at the paper.

After all I was just 29 years old.

So, at one of our first news meetings with a dozen of editors in the room, the city editor glared at me and asked, “What’s the biggest difference that you see coming from your tiny paper to this big paper?”

He meant to intimidate me, but instead I said,  “Zeros. That’s all. The process is the same: We gather news. We meet deadlines. We sell advertising. And we do it with a lot more zeros.”

Of course, I was being a smartass, and expected to be chastised as an arrogant little jerk who pushed back against the established authority.

But as I glanced at the managing editor sitting at the end of table, his smile confirmed that I had spoken some truth to the crusty city editor.

I always like that managing editor.

Business is all about the zeros.

More zeros on the revenue than you have in expenses equals positive profit.

That’s our goal no matter what business you are in. More zeros equals more money!

After nearly 20 successful years in the newspaper business, I stumbled into a new world as a consultant. And I became fairly accomplished there as well.

As an independent consultant with AT&T in its various incarnations for 17 years, I was successful because I can break down large processes into simple concepts.

While I was there, I started NAMS which quickly became the next phase of my life.

Something I recognized right away was that recurring income would be the difference between success and failure of my business.

I looked at AT&T as my model.

I was a middle-aged consultant with no additional business of my own yet I was modeling my business after one of the top five companies in the world. When I told people that, they said that I had lost my mind. I would never have a business as big as AT&T.

They were right. I didn’t want a business as big as AT&T. But I understood the concepts behind that business and how they could be applied to my business.

Think about it.

There is one essential element of every successful business, even businesses that become huge institutions and touch the lives of every person in America.

That is recurring revenue.

One day, I was sitting in a strategy meeting at AT&T when I realized that I was participating both as a consultant and a customer in the world’s largest membership site.

What is a membership site?

It’s a recurring income machine that delivers consistent revenue in a timely fashion, and if done correctly, with consistent growth.

Think about AT&T. Or Verizon. Or your cable company like Comcast. Or your satellite radio like Sirius XM. Or your pest control company that shows up every month to prevent insects from taking over your house. Or your security company like ADT.

All of those companies charge monthly recurring fees, and are sometimes bound by one, two, three or five year contracts.

As a consumer, we like to purchase services with a one time fee.

As a producer, you want to sell services with a recurring fee.

Why is that important?

Not only does recurring fee memberships give you the option of creating regular base income, but it also funds support and further development of additional products.

If you’ve got a business doing $150,000 a year, what’s the difference between your business and AT&T’s.

Its six zeros. That’s all.

The processes are the same. You create an offer, sell the service using a recurring revenue model, and provide the value and support.

In 2015, AT&T took in over $146 billion in revenue.

That’s one heck of a membership site. Of that $146 billion in revenue, about $131 billion of it was in the form of services – or think recurring monthly income.

The reason  I’m bringing up AT&T and other companies like it which live at the top of the Fortune 10 companies is that all of the processes and all of the revenue generation activities are the same as yours.

Study the large companies that are rolling in cash because you can build that kind of cash in your business as well if you focus on the successful recurring income models that day have employed.

Do not be intimidated by numbers.

What does it take to create $100,000 in recurring revenue?

That still seems like a lot of money each month to go from scratch to $8,333.33 a month.  So let’s break it down further.

To hit the monthly revenue goal, the two most important numbers become the price and number of units (or members).

If your price is $37 a month, you want 225 paying members per month.

That’s a lot of members. And if you have zero right now, it seems  impossible. But of course it’s not.

Or you can look at it differently and realized that it is just numbers.

If you’re focused on building your recurring income, with recurring members, then you have to focus on your prospect pipeline.

Always.

And that’s why at MyNAMS Insiders Club, we’re always focused on teaching tasks that help you fill your pipeline.

When you learn to fill the pipeline consistently, and on autopilot, then you are scaling the business.

Scaling the business is the very definition of adding zeros.

The NAMS business vision is to increase our paid membership to more than 15,000 members.  Doing that means that we’re adding zeros to our revenue, profit, expenses, and research and development.

Like AT&T, you and I have businesses that require continuous growth in revenue and a healthy pipeline of fresh prospects. If recurring revenue is not on your business plan, finding new customers every day to put food on the table is the most important thing you can do, and the most stressful.

You’ll be loaded with stress, always focused on the urgent rather than the important, and probably serving your members poorly, which, of course, reduces the number of members that you keep.

Recurring income in the form of memberships and other streams of income is the absolute key to growing your business and adding additional zeros.

On Tuesday October 18th join us for a free training called “12 Steps to a Better Business” and let’s make sure your business is set up for success!

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The Secret to Overcoming Overwhelm Is SO Simple. Unfortunately, It’s Not So Easy Unless…

You accept that multi-tasking never works. In fact, it slows everything down. People who are really successful master the art of doing just ONE  THING – at a time.

About five years ago, when I was strolling the halls at a NAMS workshop, I came across a woman who was planted on a couch by herself sobbing. Everyone else was in one of the 4 classrooms.

Distressed? You bet! I was petrified. Oh… and she was too.

She had chosen the wrong “track” at the workshop. The 4 tracks were:

1. NAMS100 – beginning business people
2. NAMS200 – still beginning, but at least they have a blog or niche
3. NAMS300 – they’re making some money in their niche – enough to supplement the family income (but working way too hard)
4. NAMS400 – full-time marketers making really good money, but looking for ways to create a sustainable business that works without them

Although she was clearly a NAMS100 person, (no website, no sales, no niche), she decided to attend the 400 track because she’d been studying online marketing a long time – and she knew things.

Big mistake. But it’s a common mistake.

She discovered that day that there’s a BIG, BIG difference between reading a book or taking a course, and actually implementing the programs or processes.

And of course, she discovered that she was completely lost in the higher track. She was mortified.

When I asked her why she was crying, she said, “I’m just so overwhelmed with everything I have do.”

There it is: Overwhelm

Overwhelm is the number one killer of all progress.

And our response is usually to do the exact wrong thing… More about that in a minute.

A couple of weeks ago, my daughter Jennifer (who is also the Director of Sales and Operations at NAMS) called me in a tearful panic. “I just don’t know how I’m going to get all this done,” she said. “I’m completely overwhelmed.”

It turns out I’m really good at helping people get through overwhelm. For a long time, I thought I just caused it. I’ll reveal the simple solution later and how it helped Jennifer become even more productive and less stressed, but right now, let’s just say that…

I’m a huge believer in the “One Thing” concept.

The coaching students that frustrate me the most are the ones who flit from project to project because they lose heart, or get distracted, or give up too quickly, or don’t follow through.

People mistakenly think that being busy is the same thing as being productive. Not true. Not even close.

There are two huge issues that we’re going to focus on today:

The first is a failure. And the second is a myth.

Failure. That seems a little harsh, right?

Not really.

The failure is a failure to prioritize.

Let’s talk about Miss Perfection. She’s going to do every task correctly. Always. It must be perfect.

The most organized person I know, her day starts with a long lists of things she’ll do that day. And her night ends with a long list of tasks with lines through them, on one sheet of paper and another list of what she’ll do tomorrow on a second sheet.

She knocks off each item on the list, often in the order on the list.

Miss Perfect gets a ton done today. And yesterday. And tomorrow.

And perfectly. That’s the way she works.

But occasionally, she questions why she’s not getting closer to her goal which always seems just out of reach.

Her list keeps getting longer and her progress shorter.

Her days are gone in a whirlwind of activity, with little to show for it.

Miss Perfect is a failure.

Daily priorities don’t exist. She doesn’t understand the concept of “One Thing.”

All of her tasks have the same weight. No task is the one task that MUST get done today to MOVE her toward her goals.

Then, there’s Mr. DuMoore!

He’s bought into the myth of multi-tasking hook, line and sinker.

He thinks he should be able to write a book while working on a project plan while taking the dog to the vet while cooking dinner for the kids.

And nothing gets done correctly. Everything is late. If it gets done at all.

And no one feels like they ever get his full attention.

This is the myth we’ve all been fed today because we’re never far from our phone, ipad or computer. We’re on information overload. We work all the time.

We get a text.

Some one wants us to do something as soon as possible. It takes us away from our task at hand. And bang, we never get back to it.

We’re on an electronic leash that yanks us back into the yard like a dog chained to a stake in the ground just as we beginning to run with the pack.

Multi-tasking inherently slows you down, yet we all think we need to be doing more to get more done… WRONG!

In fact, the opposite is true. Do LESS to get MORE done.

When you focus on the “ONE THING” you are in extreme execution mode.

Then, you get to prioritize. Here are the basic questions:

• What’s the one thing that gets me to my five year goal?
• What’s the one thing that has to be accomplished this year to make that happen?
• What’s the one thing that I need to make sure gets done this month to keep me on track?
• What’s the one things that must get done this week to make sure I moving in the right direction?
• And what’s the one thing that I must accomplish today that ensures my one thing for the week makes sure that the one thing for the month that is essential for the one thing of the year that crushes it for the one thing I want to get accomplished for my 5-year goal?

That’s what I have to do today – ONE THING!

Of course, you have to fight off distractions.

I’m going to prove to you that multi-tasking actually slows you down.

Click the video below to watch a 2 minute demonstration of a game you can play to show you exactly why multi-tasking is bad.

Get the 12 Steps to Building a Better Business with your 14-day $1 trial to MyNAMS Insiders Club.

 

Don’t be Miss Perfect or Mr. DuMoore.

Be like the One Thing lady. You already know who she is.

She’s uber successful and always smiling.

She gets more done than anyone you know and seems to have more free time than you and all your friends put together.

She has lots of friends, lots of time for family, and always seems to be taking another trip to the beach.

And guess what? When she goes to the beach, she’s doing one thing: being at the beach.