Who is the captain in your relationship?

How many relationships do you have? Can you even count them down? Can you name the 10 most important business relationships you have?

Like every good ship, the relation-ship also needs a captain. If you let your relation-ship sail all by it self in the rough sea of the business world – you're most likely to find your ship resting on a sandbank.

So how can you take command and steer your relationship to your harbor?

1.     Understand that relationship need maintenance and as the captain – it's your responsibility to do it, by casual meeting, weekly newsletter, social connection and so on.

2.     Follow your relationships (like an admiral follows his fleet), be aware to weak relationships and make sure to strength them.

3.     Steer your relationships to the place you want them to sail, but never forget that the other side is also trying to steer to his "promised harbor" if you'll try to skip this stop – your ship will sink.

4.     Few relationships well maintenance and well steered are far more valuable than a lot of poor relationship that you can't steer.

5.     Always be on the lookout for more relationships, always define goal, find the right connection and use your existing relationships to build a new relationship.

Good salespeople build relationship and send it to sail by it self, excellent salespeople are the captain of their relationship and they steer it well through the roughest water to safe harbor.

Does doing like everybody else really help you?

Allow me to open with a question: if an expert would have told you that the best writers in the world are left-handed – would you start to write in your left hand tomorrow?

No, and why? Because it won't work for you! Your hand write will be unreadable and you'll achieve nothing – definitely not becoming a known author.




But hey! An expert told you…so what went wrong? The answer is this: the expert forgot that we – people are different one from the other.

The things that will work for someone won't work for the other.




The same can be told on sales. We try our best to do the same things like the others do. We try do act against our personality and against our character and we convince ourselves that this is the right thing for us! That we have to try harder!




It's like trying to jump to the moon and getting mad because we can't do it! So why do you keep on trying to use tools that don't work for us? Only because someone said so? Why do try over and over despite the fact that we don't see any fruit to our labor?




Some of us – sales people can sit for hours and make cold calls even if we hate it! Even if it doesn't work for us – because the expert said so!




This is not the way thing are working with people! We are not computers! If something is working for you – good! Stick with it; don't try to be something you aren't.




If you can sell more because you can establish relationship and friendship go for it! If you can get more meetings from referrals just do it! If you hate to cold call, send mail or walk from door to door – stop doing it!




I'm offering an alternative – try to focus on the things that you are good at. If you're good in cold call – do it, if you're good in d2d sale – good for you! But stick to it – even if everybody else doing the opposite.




Do what you're good at. That will make you happier, more successful, richer and a better salesman.