So, Here's My Story...

You probably don’t expect the story of a rabbit statue at a Shinto temple in Japan to be the inspiration for an episode about the importance of deepening your business relationships, but here we are. Relationships in business are often looked at as transactional. But what happens when we see relationships as valuable in their own right? Why is that important for business?  So many of the lessons we are taught about marketing, about networking and about business development in general have a basis in the idea that what goes around comes around. There is an essential expectation of reciprocity, or that the relationship is a means to an end. The relationship is not seen as valuable in and of itself. When someone joins a close-knit business group, where the focus is on relationship-building, and begins to immediately cold call all of the members, it’s a turn off. They are missing the relationship aspect of business relationships and jumping right into asking for help.  Focusing on the relationship instead of the