In episode 14 of Work Mom Says, “Coaches Give the Best Career Advice,” I share my top 10 pieces of advice that I’ve learned from business coaches over the years. A common thread throughout all this advice is the importance of putting people first. I break down some ways to prioritize people in multiple areas of business.
Kindness and compassion go a long way
First and foremost, you are doing business with people, not projects. Because of this, the people always need to come first. Being CONSISTENTLY kind and compassionate in your interactions with clients and coworkers can go a long way in building lasting relationships.
Prioritizing relationships over projects will allow you to be a better problem solver because you won’t be the person that gets in the way of getting things done. So, put the people first and everything else falls into place. Business gets so much better once you take that approach.
Beyond building interpersonal connections, people-first business cultures can make entire companies more successful. Employees won’t commit to companies that refuse to show compassion in their practices and policies. That lack of commitment can hurt productivity and innovation in the long run. Kindness and compassion are always great business practices.
Make friends with your competition
My next piece of advice is to make a lot of friends in your industry. One of the most important things you can do is get to know people that do what you do. Get to know your competitors: go out for coffee and spend half an hour getting to know each other. Make it a point to meet three or four people at every networking event.
It can be tempting to focus your attention on outdoing your competitors, but it’s much more important to collaborate with them instead. Making personal connections with them will lead to lasting friendships and collaborations. You never know when you may need them to refer you for a new job or opportunity.
If you’re relatively new to networking, push through the discomfort. It can be really hard to walk up to a group of people that are talking or send a cold LinkedIn outreach to someone that you think might not want to engage. Do it anyway. What if they do?
The only way it gets less uncomfortable with networking is by doing it more often. Practice makes perfection. You won’t die if someone don’t want to talk to you.
If you need more tips on how to build lasting relationships through networking, check out our conversation with networking coach Wendy Caverly.
Surround yourself with a success-oriented community
My final advice is to surround yourself with other people who want to be successful. I say this because you will rise to the level of the five people that you spend most of your time with. If you see somebody doing something that you want to do, make friends with that person because you want to follow in their footsteps.
I’ll give you an example. I have a small digital ad agency called PopSpeed Digital Marketing. We do social media, email marketing, websites, etc. I’m growing this company, I’ve done all these things, but I haven’t necessarily grown a company before. So, I found a couple of people that have been doing it a whole lot longer than me, and I asked if they wouldn’t mind chatting about their experiences.
I met one of them on LinkedIn and reached out with a cold outreach. I simply asked him “Hey, would you mind talking?”, and he agreed. His name is John Reed, and he is the founder of Rain BDM. He appeared on the Practice on a Harmless Idiot episode. I simply reached out to John and asked if he would talk to me about how he runs his agency, so that I can follow in his footsteps. It started with a cold outreach, and he has been so generous with his time. I didn’t know he was going to be generous, and I didn’t know he was going to be so fun and awesome to hang out with. But I took a risk by reaching out to him, and it paid off.
Don’t be afraid to reach out to people that you want to have in your circle. You will get successful by surrounding yourself with other successful people.