Strategic Relationships Are Your Biggest Asset

The following is adapted from Don’t Be a Stranger by Lawrence Perkins.

The other day, my friend Todd told me that his email had gotten hacked. “Best thing that’s happened to me in years,” he said.

Todd is a private investor. He works for a company that invests billions of dollars in various projects. The entire business is relationship-based. Todd and I have been friends for years, and he’s built a huge network of relationships. He has more than 3,000 contacts in his address book.

When the email was hacked, the hackers sent out an email to everyone on Todd’s contact list. Three thousand copies of the email asked people to wire money to China in the most rudimentary language possible. Of course, no one in his entire list thought he’d sent it, so no one clicked. What’s amazing was how many people started writing back anyway.

“Todd! It’s been so long since I’ve heard from you. Looks like you were hacked, but we should absolutely catch up sometime. How are you doing?”

People he’d met in college twenty-five years ago were reaching out to do lunch. Suddenly Todd had a calendar full of activities with highly accomplished people who already thought of him fondly. Thirty of them had business opportunities perfect for his firm.

Todd filled up his pipeline with hundreds of millions of dollars of opportunities as a direct result of that day. When he told me the story, he laughed and said he wished his email would get hacked once a year.

Every now and then I’ll see someone like Todd who has a large network and a happy life. They always find a way to create relationships and follow up. People like this attract other people, almost like a force of gravity. One friend leads to another. One happiness builds on the next.

Whenever I see a person like this, I stop and pay attention. None of that is built by accident. It affirms the reason I work so hard on connections and helping. It reminds me why I practice strategic relationship building.

You can build that kind of life, too. It just takes deliberate effort, consistently executed over time.

Whatever your service or career is, there is someone else in the world that does it. We are all fungible. What really separates us from the long list of competitors and creates value is what I call your book of business. If you ever leave your current job, your relationships go with you.

Companies often worry that their employees will steal their customer relationship data. Whenever we have to let someone go, however, it’s the furthest thing from my mind. If the person we let go has a relationship with someone, I can follow up with that relationship, but if he doesn’t know me from Adam, it doesn’t matter. The relationship truly does belong to the person who made it.

When I’m interviewing people, on the other hand, of course, I look for excellent skills. Want to know what gets me excited about a candidate, though? That same book of business. When a person shows up with a big bundle of relationship assets around her neck, it’s a scarce commodity and intensely valuable.

No company exists without the group of people working within it. The brick and mortar don’t matter. How well the people within the company work together, in a professional services context, is literally the difference between the business living and dying. Strategic relationships strengthen the company and improve the work.

Relationships are everyone’s most important asset because, at the end of the day, people do business with people.

Take Care of Your Assets

I think people understand how important maintaining your health is. You take care of your body by going to the gym, eating well, and drinking water. Maintaining relationships is just that critical and should be approached with just as much care. Treat your network with the care those relationships deserve.

People don’t start at one company and end there fifty years later anymore. The world changes too often, and the economy moves too quickly. What will separate you as you move from company to company is the same thing I look for senior people for my firm — that beloved relationship network. If you have it, you will thrive. If you don’t, particularly in a service business, your skills alone may not be enough.

Why wouldn’t you reach out and build relationships, given everything at stake? You have the time in the day, and the ability to accomplish everything you need. The habit feels good and makes other people feel good. Not to mention its long-term potential to make you more money and grow your career. The investment is so small — and the long-term payoff so big.

I repeat: why not reach out?

For more advice on building strategic relationships, you can find Don’t Be a Stranger on Amazon.

Lawrence Perkins founded what is now SierraConstellation Partners at age twenty-nine with few connections and very little capital. Lawrence grew SCP into a nationwide management consulting group serving nearly 100 large companies in their times of most dire need. Today, Lawrence is a recognized industry leader who’s spoken at major industry conferences and has been cited by the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, CNN, CNBC, and the Washington Post. Outside of work, Lawrence has built a remarkable life with his wife and daughter that includes interests ranging from reading and writing, singing and dancing, to cooking and running.