Hello, welcome to another episode of Transformation Tuesday and tonight\’s episode is all about business success. But specifically how do we create more business success through understanding relationships. I am, have had a lot of experience with relationships. Obviously my coaching is built around relationships and I would like to share with you my learnings. What I believe are the most important considerations around business success and relationships are the key. Relationships are always the key. We always have a relationship with the person that we\’re doing business with and the strength of that relationship, to a large degree will determine the longevity and the success of that business partnership. So I\’m going to be sharing with you tonight how do you deepen your relationships? How do you cultivate relationships in business? How do we understand the nature of relationships so that business takes place far more easily and effortlessly which then translates to how do you earn more money? How do you have a greater level of trust? How do you have a greater sense of confidence in the, either the service or the product or the business that you are operating inside of? And relationships are incredibly important, not just in business but in every dimension of life but tonight I\’m going to be exploring business relationships and why they\’re important. Hello Monica, how are you? Good to have you back. So relationships in business are key because if we don\’t have a really, really strong relationship with the person that we are trusting to deliver a product or service, then that\’s going to undermine the whole service. Now what do I mean by that? Well if we are in a business relationship and you don\’t trust the person that is delivering the service. If you don\’t have a sense of trust, if you don\’t believe in their competency, if you don\’t believe in their willingness to serve you, to help you, to hold space for you, to answer questions, to hold space. To be ultimately someone who\’s going to have your highest interests at heart then it\’s very difficult to be in business with that person. So you\’ve only got to take a look at what\’s important for you when you look at buying a car or buying a house or purchasing any service. You look at the things that are important to you and you want to have a level of trust in the person who\’s delivering the service. So I would suggest that trust is a major pillar that is the key consideration of every relationship. It\’s, you want to trust the person that you\’re in business with and you want the people that you\’re doing business with to trust you. So really the question here becomes, well how do we develop a relationship where someone trusts us? Now first of all, I think we need to develop what is the definition of trust. Well I\’m going to suggest that the definition of trust in a business relationship is when your customers or your clients know or have a really significant degree of certainty that you are going to hold their highest interests in the highest regard. Another way of saying that is that they trust you to capitalise on their best interests. They trust you to put their interests ahead of your own and I think that is a great way to do business which is a philosophy of you are there to serve and if that means telling your client or telling your customer that they should shop elsewhere, they should go elsewhere to get a better product that\’s more suited to them, then that\’s what you do and when you have a willingness to serve your customers and serve your clients and give them the advice, the truth. This is what it\’s about. It\’s about sharing with them the truth that they need to hear. That\’s what it\’s about and when you\’re pursuing the principle of truth, what you\’re doing is you\’re standing up for your clients. You\’re standing up for your customers. You are standing up for the people you are serving and there is no higher principle in this reality than the principle of truth. So if you\’re pointing them to the truth, it\’s generally pretty easy. It\’s generally pretty easy. So if your service happens to be the most qualified, the most relevant, the most impactful and the most in alignment with what they\’re looking for, well it\’s pretty easy to point to that. You don\’t have to do a lot of convincing. You don\’t have to do a lot of persuasion. You just have to point to the truth and the truth will be witnessed and that\’s what business is about. It\’s about you pointing to the truth and being willing to confront the truth no matter where it leads and so there is plenty of clients that I have worked with or people that have come to me for example and wanted to work with me and I\’ve told them that I don\’t think we\’re a match. They\’re better off going somewhere else to get what they need because they\’re either going to be overpaying or what they\’re looking for is not quite what I\’m going to deliver and so my philosophy is I would rather point them to where they\’re going to get a greater quality of service rather than take someone on that I know that I\’m going to undeliver a quality product. Now when you trust yourself to be able to stand by that philosophy, to stand by that principle, business becomes really, really easy and what happens is you start developing relationships based upon trust because people will come to you and they will seek your advice and you will become like a trusted advisor and business will happen as a consequence of that relationship thriving. Business will happen as a consequence of that relationship thriving and so, sales, revenue, business deals, all of that happens as a consequence as a result of someone trusting you. So, that trust needs to be established. Otherwise the whole business relationship will be in jeopardy. It will be undermined and that\’s one thing I think is really, really important for every service provider is for them to be willing to pursue truth and willing to give, point to the truth and willing to recommend advice even when it means recommending that they go elsewhere, not buying their products and I think that is a really, I think that holds people in high regard and it develops a lot of trust to the point where I\’ve had an experience where I\’ve told multiple people that I recommend that they do another training or they go somewhere else or they hire another coach or they do something else just because it wasn\’t a fit. And then they\’ve later come back and they\’ve recommended clients to work with me. Now they haven\’t necessarily personally worked me but they\’ve recommended me, why? Because they trusted me because I stood up for their highest interest and I was willing to share with them what they needed to know even though it wasn\’t necessarily in my favour. But ultimately it is in your favour and it is in my favour because whenever we\’re abiding by the principles of integrity and truth, well that\’s always the best way to do business. So it\’s all about relationships. Now in addition to trust what is also required is actually creating a sense of, in your client or your customers that you care about them. Now this is related to trust but this is also going above and beyond. This is actually putting yourself in their shoes and saying well, imagine that you\’ve already started working with them, imagine that they\’ve already, imagine that you already are a customer. Imagine then they\’ve already started to become a paying client. How would you treat them if they were already a paying client? And that\’s the philosophy that I adopt is before anyone\’s even interacted with me I just assume that they\’re a paying client. Not from the perspective, I don\’t expect them to work with me but that\’s how I treat them in terms of I\’m already going to be serving them to highest capacity. I\’m already going to be sharing with me what they need to know regardless of whether they\’re paying me. Why, because I don\’t need someone to be paying me in order for me to be caring about them, in order for me to share what they need to hear. So I\’m going to suggest caring about everyone like they\’re already a paying client is a great way to establish really, really strong relationships. So the care factor which is a deep attitude of wanting to contribute to someone else for no other reason than because it\’s a good thing and I\’m a firm believer that what goes around comes around. What that means is if you constantly care enough about people and constantly share enough value with them, well eventually you\’re going to get rewarded for that. Well we live in a universe where if you constantly add value if you add so much value, well people are going to reward you for that. People are going to come back and they are going to want to do business with you. So there\’s a function of trust and caring about people. That\’s fundamentally what it comes down to. If you care about people, well they sense that, they feel it and in today\’s age when things are getting faster, when technology is going a bit crazy, in a world where we\’re moving to a lot of online virtual realities, the world of having someone actually care for you and actually take the time to notice you and pay attention to you, that is really, really valuable. So to actually take the time to care for someone, that\’s a thing that gets really, really, gets noticed incredibly in the space of the business relationship. Now in addition to trust and care, what you\’re also want to build is you want to build rapport. You want to build a deep sense of connection with someone. Now rapport is probably a, more of a surface-level description. What we\’re talking about here is a deep connection with someone. A connection that goes beyond the physical. A connection where you have a sense of, that you\’re in this person\’s life for a reason and that there\’s a reason why you\’re interacting with this person to actually serve them to a higher capacity. So I\’m going to suggest connection and service are one of the highest virtues, one of the highest, another one of the highest principles that you can strive for in business is actually wanting to be of service. Now I think it\’s important for us to create the distinction here of not being of service at the expense of ourselves or sacrificing ourselves. But being of service through ourselves. Serving ourselves to a higher capacity so that we can be of service to others, once we have connected to the reason why that\’s important to us. So it\’s not being subservient to others, it\’s not being wanting to please others, it\’s us caring about what we do and us being so aligned with the service that we\’re providing that by us being of service, well that\’s just an extension of what we are. That\’s just an extension of who we are. And we\’re simply allowing our authentic expression to pour through us. Now if you\’re in a business or if you\’re in a career where you feel like you\’re out of alignment, if you feel like you\’re in a relationship that\’s out of alignment well I think that\’s a major clue \’cause a lot of people are in jobs or businesses or in business partnerships where they probably don\’t resonate with it. Now let me know if you\’ve ever been in a business relationship or a relationship or a career or a job, or anything to do with business and you\’ve been in a relationship where it just wasn\’t in alignment. It just wasn\’t in alignment. Now there\’s a number of reasons for that. Now it\’s not to say that that\’s right or wrong but there\’s a major clue there. If a relationship feels like it\’s out of alignment or something has shifted in the relationship, something has happened in that relationship that needs to be attended to before the business continues because if your business relationship continues beyond that space where nothing changes, well you can\’t deliver service to the highest capacity because the relationship is fractured. If there\’s an element of trust that\’s been fractured or that is missing, well that\’s going to diminish the relationship, that\’s going to diminish the amount of value that can be exchanged and it\’s not going to be of service to the people inside the relationship. So the business that\’s going to get expressed or the business results themselves are going to suffer. So good to know. The relationship is the most important thing. Now I\’ve had experiences before where client relationships start to maybe deteriorate a little bit. Maybe a client starts maybe not quite turning up to sessions on time or a client maybe starts to make excuses and those sorts of things need to get corrected, those sorts of things need to get addressed. They need to get spoken into and so this is where the next virtue I\’m going to suggest that strengthens relationships is courage and vulnerability which is having the courage to address and identify and acknowledge gaps in the relationship where things are not working. So if there have been promises that haven\’t been kept, if there\’s been obligations that have been neglected, if there have been things that have been said that have been egoic or judgemental or harsh or nasty, or dismissive or diminishing, well those are the types of things that need to get addressed because otherwise if you don\’t address those things inside the relationship well, how are we, how we get treated is ultimately how we\’re teaching someone else to treat us. So how the person in that relationship is treating you is going to be determined by how you\’re showing up and what you allow inside that space. So it comes down to the boundaries that you\’re expressing and that you\’re setting up in that relationship such that we become very, very clear on well what is this relationship? What is it based upon? What is it that we as service providers are going to give? And what is the expectation that the client or the customer is going to be responsible for? And this all needs to get clarified. This is very, very important to clarify these sorts of things up front at the beginning of a business relationship. Whether it be signing a contract or an agreement or at least just having some sort of conversation at the beginning before any relationship starts to identify what are the potential go-wrongs. What are the potential scenarios that might unfold that are going to cause conflict? What are the things that need to be prevented? What are the things that are important in the relationship on both sides that need to get sustained? So some really useful questions here to make this practical before a relationship begins. Asking your client things like, in the context of this business relationship what\’s important to you? So that I can serve you to a higher capacity please share with me what\’s important to you. What is it? Is it trust, is it communication? Is it, is it honesty, transparency? Is it generosity, caring? You\’re wanting to elicit the values. This is called a values elicitation question, when you\’re asking someone what\’s important to you you\’re actually listening what is, at the deepest unconscious level what is their core driver about what\’s important to them fundamentally and so these are the key questions that you want to ask. Other questions you want to ask are things like, what would you want to never happen in this relationship? What would you want to never happen? Which is another way of saying, what are the dealbreaker scenarios? What are the dealbreaker scenarios that could possibly happen inside this relationship that would cause this relationship to fracture? Now you\’re also going to find that the questions that you\’re asking here in a business relationship are exactly the same questions that you need to ask in a personal, intimate relationship and ideally in a friendship as well, in a social relationship. It\’s the same premise, it\’s the same construct. It\’s finding out what\’s important to the other person, what\’s important to you and finding a way so that both parties can honour what\’s important such that the needs of both are taken care of. Now that is going to create a healthy relationship and the question there that you want to ask is what would you want to never happen? What\’s the dealbreaker scenario? And this is a really powerful question because what you\’re going to find out when you ask this question is you\’re going to elicit maybe some of the smaller nuances, some of the really, maybe subtle but equally important things that you might have never picked up on or never predicted. For example you might ask someone in a business relationship, you might be working with a client or you might be working with your boss and you say, what would you want to never happen? And they might say, I want you to make sure that you never ever arrive at a session or arrive at work late. If you get to work late, the deal\’s off. It\’s like ooo, interesting. Good to know that that is really, really important to the person to the point where if that happens, well the relationship would be finished. Now in the context of an intimate relationship you might ask that and the answer might be never lie to me or if you look at a, if you look at another girl the relationship\’s over. Or if you cheat on me the relationship\’s over. If you lie to me, that sort of thing. So this is powerful information to have awareness of because it creates the structure and it creates the framework for longevity and trust and awareness and understanding inside a relationship. So, other questions you can ask are what are your preferences in terms of if we were to go into business together, you know what are the types of things that you would like to see from me? So again that\’s an extension of what\’s important, what are your preferences? So for example they\’re going to be things like if we\’re working together, what are your preferences? Would you prefer that I call you or you call me? Would you prefer that I contact you via email or via phone? Would you prefer that the invoice gets sent seven days in advance or 14 days in advance. These are the types of questions where you\’re actually honouring and acknowledging the preferences of the other person so that you can do as much as you can to accommodate them and to working with them. Now this is not about bending over backwards and saying that the customer\’s always right but what it is doing is it\’s finding out what are their preferences, what is important to them so that I know how I can best meet their expectations and importantly if I can\’t meet their expectations, I need to create, I need to create the awareness of that. So if they\’re telling me that they\’re expecting me to go above and beyond and they\’re expecting to have extra time or they\’re expecting to get answers from me after hours or something, and that\’s not covered in the agreement that\’s probably an important thing to express up front so that someone has awareness of that. Quite an important thing to express because you\’ve got to take into account someone\’s expectations. If they have expectations inside that relationship that don\’t get met, well it\’s going to be one of these, another one of these factors that it really diminishes the quality of the relationship and it\’s not because you\’ve necessarily done anything wrong. You might have been doing everything right, you might have been going above and beyond but because there\’s an unspoken expectation from the client or the customer\’s perspective, well you might have been the best customer, best service provider of all time but because there hasn\’t been a clarification of the expectations at the beginning, well they might be disappointed. They might feel like you\’re not actually pulling your weight. They might feel like you\’re actually letting them down and this is another thing, this is why the principle of radical honesty or transparency and openness and honesty is really important because we need to be willing and able to express and explore all parts of our relationship, all parts of the agreement to the point where we never are wanting to shy away from talking about anything. Now there might be some parts of the business relationship that are uncomfortable. There are plenty of times where things come up in a relationship where it doesn\’t necessarily feel comfortable because you might have to communicate something that doesn\’t necessarily feel good because you might have to point to some truth that it might be confronting for the other person. You might have to pull someone up on something, you might have to, you might have to acknowledge a shortcoming of your own. Might have to acknowledge something that you\’ve, where you\’ve dropped the ball. Now either way what we\’re talking about here is we\’re talking about the courageous pursuit of being truthful, of being self expressed. And when you are truthful, when you are self expressed, that creates the strongest conditions for creating trust in a relationship that you could ever imagine and I think as a fundamental business philosophy you are always far better off embracing truth than comfort. I will always move towards prioritising truth than comfort. Why is that? Well I would much rather be honest with a client and a customer and share with them the way that reality actually is than tell them a white lie or try and convince them of something to make them feel good because I don\’t believe that deceiving someone, I don\’t believe that making someone feel good at the expense of denying the truth is ever good business practise. I just don\’t think it\’s very good practise and so what\’s required in order to embrace truth is you\’ve got to create some really strong bonds, some really strong courage and be really, really good at holding space should that relationship go through a little bit of turbulence. Now as I said this doesn\’t matter whether we\’re talking about a business relationship or an intimate relationship. It\’s the same thing fundamentally. It\’s establishing such a strong relationship so you know that anything can be expressed. Anything that can be communicated between that relationship. Now yeah, sometimes that brings up a lot of stuff for people. You might think gee, how am I going to have a really deep and vulnerable communicative process between me and my client where I feel like I can talk about anything and everything? Now yeah, that\’s going to bring up your stuff. That\’s potentially going to need you to help them move through their stuff. That\’s perhaps going to need you to be able to hold space and be the example of vulnerability and courage and openness. That\’s an example of where however you showing up in a relationship is going to set the standard and set the pace for the relationship and for me that\’s what I do in every relationship. I\’m going to make sure that I am the one that\’s setting the standard for that relationship and that\’s really important to me because I know that if I\’m in a relationship with someone and that\’s what coaching is, that\’s what any service, any product is. Is, it is a relationship. When a client comes to me they are buying a relationship so I am going to commit to them to create the strongest possible relationship that I can envisage and it\’s the same with an intimate relationship. When I\’m with a partner I\’m going to commit to them the strongest possible relationship I can create with them. Now yes not all relationships are going to be as strong as others but I\’m going to suggest that in business if you value the business that\’s taking place inside that relationship or you want to strengthen the relationship, you want to strengthen, you want to do everything you can to cultivate the conditions inside that relationship which is the ability to relate, you want to create conditions where the bond is so strong, where there\’s so much transparency, there is so much trust that anything can be expressed inside that relationship openly and honestly. Now to get to that point as a business owner, whatever service or product you\’re providing, yeah you\’ve got to do some work on yourself. We all have to do some work on ourselves. We need to be the ones that are going to be the walking, talking example of vulnerability and courage and transparency and connection and a willingness to get radically honest so that we can confront anything in that relationship and when we set that standard incredibly high our clients and our customers look at us as the example. They see us as the example and they respect it and they go wow, okay this person that I\’m in business with, they\’ve got this. Like I get a sense that they can handle this. Not only can they handle this but they are showing up like it matters. So I\’m going to suggest that the stronger our relationships are in business, the more revenue we are going to attract, the more referrals we\’re going to get, the greater the success of our business because people actually want to be in our presence. People trust us. People hold us in such a high regard and they know that should there be any challenge that ever arises they know that we will be the ones that will take responsibility for handling that responsibility of being nothing to do with blame. Being the ability to respond. If people know that we are the ones that are going to take full responsibility for everything that takes place inside that relationship then they\’re going to trust us. They\’re going to want to spend more money with us, they\’re going to want to create deeper, deeper solutions and there\’s going to be greater longevity and there\’s also going to be more referrals so the strength of your relationships in business is going to determine the amount of revenue that you\’re going to create. That fundamentally is why relationships in business are so important. Now this doesn\’t matter whether you\’re talking about customers, your clients. Whether you\’re talking about coworkers, your employees or potentially your boss or your managers or your superiors. This applies across the board. This is you developing such a level of self trust and confidence in who you are and your ability to be self expressed in each and every moment to the point where it doesn\’t matter who you come into contact with you can be a conduit of truth. You can hold space for someone in their darkest hour, in your darkest hour and you can rely on yourself to be confident, to be trustworthy, to be able to handle whatever that moment brings into your awareness. Yes, that requires effort. That requires work, that requires the deep inner journey to master ourselves, to be self expressed and to have the courage to be vulnerable in each and every moment. So that is my take on what\’s the most important factors in developing relationships. When we develop strong relationships in business, well I believe that\’s the key to unlocking deeper levels of success and people sense it. Energetically people will sense your confidence. People sense when you\’re telling the truth. People sense when you have their highest regard in mind. People sense when you care about them, they can feel it. They hear it in your tone of voice, they hear it in your body language. It might not be conscious. Most of the time it\’s unconscious. 93% of our communication takes place unconsciously. Most of it\’s via body language and our tonality. It\’s only 7% are through the actual words that people hear. So the vast majority of our communication is happening unconsciously and it\’s all energetic. People feel us, you feel me. You\’ll feel, you will feel the energy under the words that I\’m sharing with you. It\’s less about the words and it\’s more about the energy I\’m projecting from the place that I\’m projecting it from. So that\’s also a major clue or a major area of work to be done is if there\’s any incongruence in your confidence of the service or the work that you\’re delivering, that will also be communicated. That will also come out unconsciously. If you don\’t back yourself or you don\’t believe in what you\’re doing. If you don\’t place a value upon it, if you\’re afraid of what someone else thinks of you, these are all things that are going to get conveyed unconsciously and a client or a business partner or your boss, they might not tell you that they sense something unconsciously. They sense a lack of confidence, they sense something in you that\’s, that\’s wavery. That is, that is a lack of strength there. So we need to remind ourselves to build up the strength in ourselves about the value that we provide. The sense of confidence in who and what we are as a person, as a service provider and stand behind that. And really be congruent when we\’re communicating that. So that\’s another part of the trust is you\’ve got to believe in what you do in order to communicate that to someone else. If you don\’t believe in your value, if you don\’t believe in your competency, very difficult to communicate that and that\’s going to show in a relationship. So we\’ve got to make sure that we are competent, we are confident, we believe in ourselves, we back ourselves, we see the value in what we\’re doing, we\’re standing up for the person\’s best interest, we\’re willing to embrace vulnerability, we\’re willing to be courageous, we\’re willing to share our truth, we\’re willing to be fully self expressed. Now when all those factors come together, that is relationship success. Not only intimate relationship but also business relationship, no different and obviously there\’s a little bit of difference there in terms of the intimacy but you get my point. All these factors are contributing to developing trust. That\’s the core, that\’s the theme here. That\’s the glue that binds a relationship is a sense of trust. And again, the definition of trust or my definition of trust is the, your willingness to capitalise on someone else\’s best interests. So, which is another way of saying, you are going to be the one that\’s going to honour what\’s ever then in their highest good. Even when it\’s not in your highest good. Even when it goes against the balance sheet, so to say. Even when you could say it would be to your advantage to sell the product or sell the service to them. If you know it\’s not in their highest good, you just don\’t do it. And that\’s just good business and when you adopt that principle, well you\’ve got nothing to worry about. In fact, not only have you got nothing to worry about you\’ve got everything to gain because people will sense that. People will, people will refer you, people will come back again and again because they know you\’re a good operator. So that is what I believe are the keys to relationship success in business. And when we focus on these elements, well there\’s going to be more business, there\’s going to be more clients, there\’s going to be more customers, there\’s going to be more success, more revenue. There\’s going to be a greater alignment in the types of people that we\’re attracting and doing business with. So I trust that helps guide us. Thank you for tuning in. Hey Ian, hey Olivia good to have you guys here. Thanks for tuning in Monica. Thank you for being here and I trust that was helpful. I look forward to seeing you guys again next Tuesday for Transformation Tuesday. Wishing you a beautiful week guys. As always lots of love, I\’ll see you guys soon. Bye for now.
