
Your Greatest Asset Is Not Money
What is the prescription for business success today? Now, more than ever, our individual and shared success in business are being determined by the quality of our social relationships. Relationships have always mattered but with the new dimension of digital and social networks, how we connect, collaborate, engender trust, keep promises, and earn relationship capital is the source of competitive advantage and distinction. Today, your relationship capital is your greatest asset.
You need to have a competitive product/service at a competitive price. But this is only table stakes and keeps you in the conversation but does not assure long-term advantage.
Strategy no longer provides a sustainable advantage. The moment you execute your strategy, it is most likely already being challenged by new and possibly more nimble competitors with different strategies. Do not get me wrong, strategy is still important to your business success. It just doesn’t provide a long-term advantage. Information Technology no longer provides a long-term sustainable advantage. Rapid technology innovation pretty much assures that the technology you invest in and deploy to operate your business model is being leapfrogged by new businesses and/or entrants to the markets you serve.

The paradox to all this technology innovation (Social Media, Mobility, and Big Data, for example) is that it is reawakening the “Human” dimension and it’s importance to long-term sustainability and distinction in a world of rapid product/service commoditization.
Relationship Capital (RC) has always been important to success, but up to this point, entrepreneurs, independent workers, and enterprise organizations have not leveraged this intangible asset in this new hyper-connected and digital world of social business.

Relationship Capital is providing insight into what arguably is the greatest asset on the balance sheet: The quality of your connections and social relationships. Those stakeholders who buy from you; advocate on your behalf, and even defend you when you make mistakes. This RC asset needs to be nurtured and managed more effectively going forward. Why? Without capturing, measuring, and utilizing relationship capital, a business cannot sustain or defend it’s reason for existing if the digitally engaged stakeholders do not advocate and defend your products/services, people, and business ecosystem.
Conclusion
Building quality relationships with people from different organizations or within the same business involves a good amount of “reciprocity”. In today’s Peer-2-Peer business world, you must compete for attention, likability, respect, and commitment opportunities to display your talents, gifts, and ability to deliver results. Building your credibility by depositing your earned relationship capital into an account that you can track and share on social media is critical to distinguishing yourself and your business. This is the prescription for creating a long-term and sustainable business organization is Relationship Capital (RC).
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