Boosting your bottom line through strategic relationships

Business Room South Northants Member Asheligh Hayden, ACC, Self-Mastery and Leadership Coach, shares with us her thoughts on Boosting Your Bottom Line Profits.

Every connection, from the receptionist at the front desk to the person wielding the purse strings, has the power to unlock sales opportunities. How you choose and nurture those relationships is your secret weapon for business success. People buy from people.

Who am I?

I am honoured to share my insights in this guest post just as I was contributing to the South Northants Business Rooms’ Adding Value section of our meeting in September. I must, however, caveat my contribution – sales is not my area of expertise. I am a Behavioural Coach which means I help you to explore the way you think, how your thinking patterns inform your emotions, and how both inform how you behave at home, in your businesses and in your interactions with others. My practice is informed by neuroscience, which helps us to understand how our brains, bodies and nervous systems play a part in our behaviour and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy or ACT which gives us access to the psychological tools that help to declutter our thoughts, regulate our emotions, and behave more purposefully.

My aim is to show you how intentionally choosing and nurturing professional relationships and strategic alliances can be instrumental in connecting you with your clients and developing productive, lasting sales channels.

Which relationships, specifically?

It’s important to clarify the types of connections we’re exploring in this article:

Professional Relationships: These relationships are forged within the context of your career or business. They are purpose-driven and demand a level of professionalism and etiquette with an eye toward long-term sustainability.

Strategic Alliances: These alliances often take on a more collaborative and mutually beneficial nature. Their core objective is to share resources, knowledge, contacts, and expertise for tangible benefits such as financial gains and valuable introductions.

Put simply, professional relationships make up the broader circle of connections developed through your profession, while strategic alliances typically involve collaborative partnerships. Both are crucial to your bottom line.

Invest in your Professional Relationships

At the core of every successful relationship, regardless of the context, lie three fundamental factors: how well you know a person, how much you like them and whether or not you trust them. The professional relationships that recommend, refer, or buy from you share these same elements.

I encourage you to intentionally invest in the “KNOW-LIKE-TRUST” model in your professional relationships, the wider circle.

KNOW is the visibility stage where you put you, your brand, your products, or services in front of your professional contacts. This could be at a networking event in the form of a flyer, your 60 seconds or a quick message on LinkedIn following a meeting but you might also consider how many of your friends and family actually KNOW what it is you do?

LIKE is about building rapport and cultivating a positive perception – you could do this using consistent messaging on social media, or you might give away free opportunities to work with you. Maximise your one-to-one opportunities and get to genuinely, authentically get to know people in your network.

TRUST is built in the small moments of consistent quality, that reinforce reliability and credibility. Ultimately trust is what converts sales. How can you build trust in your professional relationships.

Be strategic about your Strategic Alliances

Your professional relationships form the wider circle, and I encourage you to carefully select which of these connections you’ll nurture into strategic alliances.

Intention & Purpose: We easily use the phrase “strategic alliances” but being strategic about choosing which of our professional relationships we invest in can feel deeply uncomfortable.

Intention is the meaning that underpins the partnership while purpose is the engine that drives the partnership. Take some time to consider your intention and the purpose of each partnership you choose to invest your time, effort, energy, and attention into.

You could explore your answers to these questions:

• What do I hope to achieve by investing in this specific relationship?
• How does this relationship support my long-term goals for my business?
• What unique insight, resources or expertise does this person have?
• What does a fair exchange look like to me?
• How do I see this exchange benefiting both of us?
• What do I need to do to authentically nurture this relationship?
• How can I meaningfully and sustainably build this relationship?

Expectations: Clarifying expectations in professional relationships is vital. I encourage you to explicitly share your expectations, define your roles, be specific and discuss your shared goals, and address any underlying assumptions to reduce misunderstandings and conflicts.

Part of your preparation for a meeting could be answering these questions:

• What are my expectations of this relationship?
• What are my expectations of the other person?
• What are my/their roles?
• What are my/their shared goals?
• What assumptions are you making?

Communication: Perhaps you might think of the “KNOW-LIKE-TRUST” model as three pillars that hold up a roof of communication. Without clear, concise, authentic communication, your professional relationships cannot be developed into strategic alliances.

Take time to consider how and what you are communicating. Communication includes the ideas, information, expectations, and feedback that you share but it is also present in your body language, your facial expressions and critically the action you do and do not take to nurture these relationships. Without it we’re like to have misunderstandings and missed opportunities.

Reciprocity: When you extend a helping hand or provide value to someone in your network, you create a sense of goodwill and mutual benefit. This act of giving often triggers a natural response—people are inclined to reciprocate. Reciprocity is the practice of equal giving and receiving.

Often it is easier to give than it is to receive. Reciprocity means to cultivate a two-way street of cooperation and trust. When you don’t receive as much as you give, you are likely to feel resentment while receiving more than you give can make you feel unease, both will ultimately erode the trust in any strategic relationship.

That doesn’t mean keeping a tally of everything you do but it does mean equally investing time, effort, energy, and attention in building sustainable and productive strategic relationships.

Boundaries: It can feel easy to prioritise the needs and goals of others over your own and ultimately this will lead to feelings of resentment, frustration and imbalance within your professional relationships and strategic relationships. I want you to think of boundaries as the line where you end and I begin and that they are necessary to protect and prioritise you.

It is important you do not invest in relationships that feel heavy with obligation, disproportionate or disingenuous. Consider this acronym when choosing the relationships you’ll invest your time, energy, effort, and attention into and try to:

Be aware
Of what is
Unacceptable and
Normalise saying no
Do what is best for you
And know it is not your
Responsibility to sacrifice
Yourself for others

Active Listening: Actively listening to another person means to be fully engaged, present, receptive, and empathic. It has a profound impact on the quality of your interactions with others – when people feel heard the experience a sense of validation and respect. Giving a person your full attention without interrupting and periodically reflecting to clarify your understanding without judgment builds a sense of trust, strengthens rapport and encourages others to communicate honestly and openly. Take time to listen.

Helpful People: Don’t overlook your relationships with the people who give you access to your ideal clients or strategic partners. The gatekeepers: receptionists, secretaries, and departments that control access to the decision-makers. How could you be intentional about nurturing these relationships?

Unsung Heroes: Think about the people in public-facing, information gathering roles that go unnoticed but have valuable connections: waitresses, cleaners and shop assistants, they can be your eyes and ears or even the person that helps you get an unlikely introduction!

These people also exist in your personal life – the people who already KNOW, LIKE, and TRUST you – who do they know and how could they help?

How you feel matters

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

Being strategic about your professional relationships and strategic alliances might feel uncomfortable, perhaps you feel like you’re tricking others into liking you for the benefit of your business. It is important to nurture these relationships with authenticity and integrity because people know when you have an ulterior motive, when you’re disinterested or when you’re using them as a stepping stone. From a neuroscience perspective, memories embed when emotions are engaged. If you can prioritise making a person feel valued, appreciated, and respected, you can live large in their memory.

Notice how you feel when you meet people and trust your instincts, do not cultivate disingenuous relationships that feel heavy with obligation, disproportionate or lack authenticity and respect.

Intentionally choosing and nurturing professional relationships and strategic alliances can be instrumental in connecting you with your clients, developing productive and lasting sales channels.