Why relationships are so vital in business
Part 1 – The Human Paradox
by John Counsel
The definition of business we prefer to use here at The Profit Clinic is very simple, but it can be applied to any kind of business or business activity…
“Business is the exchange of resources for profit.”
It’s a statement of cause and effect — of process and result. The exchange of resources is the process (or cause), and profit is the result (or effect).
Profit is the ONLY result in business, because it’s what keeps us in business. If you’re not making a profit, you’re not in business – by definition!
The exchange of resources is the whole purpose of relationships of any kind. Human beings only enter into relationships because they lack the resources that the other party or parties bring to that particular relationship. This applies as much to marriage and raising a family as it does to business, politics or religion. (Think about it, carefully.)
Yet the irony (contrariness?) of human behaviour is that NONE of us wants to be valued only for what we can give or have. We want to be valued for ourselves, regardless of our resources.
If we can get the correct perspective in our businesses — that the relationship is NOT a means to an end… it IS the end, in itself — we’ll discover that people will give us almost anything we want, willingly.
If we try to control them in order to gain control of their resources, whether that resource is their money, their contacts, their time, etc, we prove by our actions that we can’t be trusted. They’ll NEVER give us control over their resources.
On the other hand, if we demonstrate clearly that we value the relationship as the first priority, and that any result (access to their resources) they grant us is a BONUS, we’ll be staggered by their willingness to give us whatever they think we’d like.
On the following pages we’re going to explore the principles behind this paradox, see why and how it works, and how to approach our business relationships in a whole new light… one that will produce results like we’ve never seen or experienced before, with less stress, less fear and less rejection.
This is the secret of achieving high self-esteem, impeccable integrity, high customer retention and extraordinarily high public acceptance.
Overview | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Comparison | Links
