The Relationship Edge in Business

HR Magazine, August, 2004 by Leigh Rivenbark

The Relationship Edge in Business

By Jerry Acuff with Wally Wood, John Wiley & Sons, 2004, 237 pages

List price: $24.95, ISBN: 0-471-47712-5

Listen. Be courteous. Be honest. Ask people about themselves because everyone loves to talk about that topic. These and other tips in The Relationship Edge in Business may seem "squishy and obvious," author Jerry Acuff readily admits. But Acuff says his book aims to make readers conscious of something they already do unconsciously--forming and deepening relationships. Acuff breaks down relationship-building into steps you can practice.

There's a business advantage to "consciously, systematically and routinely" building relationships with managers, customers, co-workers and others, says Acuff, president of Scottsdale, Ariz., consulting firm Delta Point-The Sales Agency. In a strong relationship, you can sell yourself, your ideas or your product better, as one salesman of packaging products found out.

He dropped in every month just to visit with an appliance repair shop owner who didn't have any real business for him but who bought tiny amounts of packaging occasionally. One day, the shop owner took the salesman on a mysterious drive--to the site of a major appliance firm's new headquarters. The shop owner told everyone there how great the salesman was and asked them to throw their packaging business to him. A casual relationship paid off in business terms, with the salesman selling literally a truckload of packaging goods to the headquarters every week.

Acuff relates many such anecdotes while emphasizing that you should build relationships because you take a genuine interest in people, not solely because you seek a specific business gain.

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Identify the people with whom you want to have relationships and learn about them, Acuff says, offering several ways to crack open a person's reserve. He lists 20 questions for getting conversations going (from "Where is your favorite place to vacation?" to "What is the most frustrating thing about being in your business these days?"). For those who don't want to remember a list of questions, he suggests using the acronym FORM--family, occupation, recreation and motivation--as a way to recall conversational topics.

Actions help cement relationships, and those actions can be small, inexpensive ones, Acuff says. Use your knowledge about a person to be truly thoughtful, by sending a newspaper clipping about a topic you know they are interested in, or remembering a special date like a birthday with a cake you deliver yourself. He outlines how to identify, record and acknowledge people's special dates.

Acuff concludes with ideas for maintaining relationships, including developing a plan for making routine contact.