After establishing relationships with business contacts, you must continue to develop and strengthen the connections to achieve your organisation’s objectives. Important contacts you need to keep in mind are suppliers, customers, and colleagues, as these people are involved in ensuring your business’s success.
However, issues may also arise while you try to maintain your professional relationships. These can be conflicts between you and your contacts, as well as barriers that prevent your organisation from achieving its goals. Identifying these issues and addressing them immediately through negotiation and problem-solving techniques is critical to prevent harm from coming to your relationships and the organisation’s situation. Seeking advice from consultants and other contacts can also help you develop your network even further.
The three main business contacts you will need to network with are the suppliers, the customers, and the colleagues. Establishing and maintaining good relationships with these contacts is essential because they will be able to help your organisation achieve its objectives.
Relationships with Suppliers
Suppliers are an important business contact since the quality of the products and services your organisation provides depends on the suppliers’ product quality and ability to deliver said products on time.
Establishing good business relationships with suppliers involves doing the following:
- Get to know the supplier. This can be achieved by meeting face-to-face with the supplier and seeing how their operations work. Understanding their processes gives you the additional information that can benefit the organisation. For example, knowing how long it takes for the supplier to manufacture the materials can help you figure out how to adjust your organisation’s schedule accordingly.
- Update the supplier about organisational changes. These can include changes in management and new products. Keeping suppliers informed about changes in staff, products, and services provided, and special promotions allows them to be aware of strategic changes within the organisation and give them time to prepare for large orders.
- Refer them to other contacts. As discussed before, networking can give you more opportunities when your contacts refer potential customers to you. You can do the same thing for your supplier. If applicable, you can recommend them to someone who needs their products.
Once a relationship between the organisation and the supplier has been established, you can use the following strategies to maintain and develop the relationship:
Rush orders can cause significant strain on the relationship. Sufficient time for manufacturing must be given to the supplier so that the products they provide are of high quality.
Late payments create bad impressions on the supplier. Timely payments and communicated delays help build trust and enable better deals to be negotiated with the supplier.
Meeting face-to-face with the supplier allows you to share information about organisational changes as well as find out about the supplier’s plans for development and expansion.
Relationships with Customers
Customers are how organisations get and increase their revenue, so effort should also be focused on building and maintaining relationships with them. Strategies for establishing good relationships with customers are (How to Manage Customer Relationships, 2020):
Creating social media channels establish customer relations by having the organisation actively interact with the customers and encourage them to try the products and services offered.
Timely responses to enquiries through emails and online chat services help develop a reputation for client care and foster customer loyalty. Customers will then be quicker to take advantage of services and reward programs.
Having loyal customers boosts revenue simply because they enjoy the products and services that your organisation provides. They also boost revenue because they may refer your organisation to others. That is why, once you have established a relationship with customers, you must strive to maintain it.
The following are a few strategies you can use to maintain good customer relations:
Polls and surveys allow customers to let the organisation know what they like and dislike about the products and services being offered. This provides the organisation with valuable insight to help them improve their operations and retain customers.
Loyalty programs keep customers happy and serve as encouragement for them to return to the business.
You may also refer to your organisation’s policies and procedures to guide your interactions with customers. No matter what their position is, each employee influences the customer. Examples of how employees must interact with customers are answering phone calls before three rings, transferring office calls correctly, and following through on promises. Ways employees can establish a relationship with a customer are:
Relationships with Colleagues
Establishing and maintaining relationships with your colleagues is a type of networking called ‘internal networking.’ Having a good relationship with the people you work with is essential. Being on good terms lets you support each other on your tasks, as well as open new opportunities for collaboration. Being friendly with co-workers who have more seniority may also turn into a mentorship. They can guide you through any challenges and offer you their knowledge and skills in the field.
To establish a relationship with your colleagues, you can try the following strategies:
Try to smile and be attentive to them. When you look welcoming, your colleagues will feel more inclined to talk to you and share information. Like all interactions, you should speak to your colleagues politely, but do not be too formal. Try to keep your tone relaxed and aim for a casual yet respectful interaction.
Interacting with your colleagues should not be limited to professional settings only. Try asking them out to eat lunch with you every now and then so you can chat about topics that are not strictly work-related. If you have any common hobbies, you can also invite them to events that cater to both of your interests.
Greet newcomers and offer them help if they need it. Colleagues who are new to the organisation, to the department, or even to the job typically need guidance not only on their work tasks but also the company culture in general. You can give them useful tips about the workplace to ease their nerves.
Maintaining a good relationship with colleagues is not that difficult if you are already friendly with them. To further develop your relationships, you can try:
Utilise your network by asking for help on tasks you find too challenging to complete on your own. Your colleagues can give you their insight and experience, which will make your workload easier to handle. However, remember that networking is for mutual benefit. Assess your skills and experience and, if a colleague seems to be having trouble with their tasks, you can offer your help.
If permitted by organisational policies, you can chat with your colleagues outside of work hours through social networking sites. This means your interactions are not limited to just inside the workplace, and you can develop genuine friendships with them by updating them and getting updates about your personal lives.
Communication Techniques
There are general communication techniques you can apply to build rapport when networking. Rapport refers to establishing a connection or emotional bond. Doing this allows you to improve your professional relationships. Remembering these techniques when building rapport with your business contacts:
Similar to when you first contacted them, you should listen actively to the other person. Paying attention to them during conversations allows you to be fully aware of what they are saying. If your focus is somewhere else, you may be missing important updates from your supplier, valuable feedback from the customer, or good advice from a colleague. Maintain eye contact with the other person and ask them to clarify their statements when necessary. Asking relevant questions and summarising what they have said lets them know that you care about what they say and want to understand them more clearly.
Laughing with someone can make you feel closer to that person, so adding humour into your interactions is one of the fastest ways to build rapport. Before doing so, assess the situation to check if using humour is appropriate. Is it okay to make a joke based on the context? For example, if a customer has a complaint about a product, humour must be avoided. Humour also varies depending on people’s cultural backgrounds. You may find certain jokes funny, but a colleague from a different country may find it offensive. As a general rule, do not make jokes at other people’s expense. You can also wait and see what type of jokes the other person makes before you include humour into your conversation.
Nonverbal communication is a major part of any conversation. It conveys emotions and provides people with cues to reinforce what you are saying. Nonverbal communication can be unconscious, so without realising it, you may be giving cues that portray the opposite of what you mean. Therefore, you must be aware of how to convey the appropriate body language. Remember to control your body movements like hand gestures and nodding, posture, eye contact, and facial expressions. Generally, you should keep your posture open to convey your interest and attentiveness. You can also use body language to emphasise certain points. If you are saying something you want the other person to remember or agree with, you can have them associate you nodding your head or gesturing your hand with your message. Later, when they remember your movements, they can also easily recall what you said. As discussed previously, you may also try mirroring to establish rapport. This is when you subtly copy some of your contact’s gestures while talking to them. Make sure to remember not to replicate any gestures or traits that are unique to them, as copying them obviously can be misinterpreted as mocking them.
You also need to be aware of personal space. Everyone has a personal space ‘bubble’ around them, and if you enter this bubble, the person can feel uncomfortable. The sizes of these bubbles vary on a cultural basis, and even on an individual basis, but there are four zones you should be aware of (Hall, 1966):
| Intimate distance | This zone ranges 15-45 centimetres away from you or even closer. It includes physical touching and is reserved for persons who are very close. |
|---|---|
| Personal distance | This zone ranges 45-120 centimetres away from you. This is the space in which you interact with your closest friends and family. |
| Social distance | This zone ranges 1.20-3.50 metres away from you. This is the space in which you have conversations with friends and acquaintances. |
| Public distance | This zone ranges 3.50-7.50 metres away from you. This is the distance strangers maintain between each other. |
If you have colleagues you are close to, you can stay within their personal distance. However, when interacting with your business contacts, maintaining social distance is the best option to prevent making anyone feel uncomfortable.
Communication Styles
Communication styles are the ways people interact with each other. It is important to learn about these to be able to identify your business contacts’ communication styles. Knowing their communication styles allow you to adjust your own style and interact with them more effectively.
The following are the main communication styles (4 Types of Communication Styles, 2018):
| Communication Style | Characteristics |
|---|---|
| Passive |
|
| Agressive |
|
| Passive-agressive |
|
| Assertive |
|
People do not necessarily fit into just one communication style. A person’s communication style can also change depending on the situation they are in or who they are talking to. The most effective communication style is assertive, but other communication styles can be useful in certain contexts, too.
Being passive can be useful in tense situations. For example, if a customer is getting angry, being sympathetic and just acknowledging their feelings can help defuse the situation. Being aggressive also has its merits, too. In workplace crises, being aggressive and taking charge can help your colleagues come to a decision as quickly as possible. Regardless of the communication style you choose, remember to speak clearly and politely without unnecessarily criticising other people.
Watch
How miscommunication happens (and how to avoid it) - Katherine Hampsten
To identify barriers, look at the data available. Review important information such as sales and customer satisfaction and check how the competitors are doing compared to your organisation. If competitors are struggling to achieve their business objectives, too, then the barrier may be based on the market, not the organisation’s strategy.
Speaking with the people involved is also important to identify barriers. Talk to people within the organisation, such as management and employees. Managers can point out any issues in the big picture, while employees can spot problems in the day-to-day operations. You can also gather information by asking for feedback from customers. You can ask them questions about specific products and services, and how satisfied they are with the way the organisation provides these.
The barriers to business development opportunities can be either internal or external. Internal barriers are factors within the organisation. These can sometimes be connected to external barriers as well.
Types of internal barriers
Some types of internal barriers are:
Managers who lack leadership skills do not effectively motivate employees. This can lead to employees lacking direction or having a vague understanding of the organisation’s objectives.
The organisation may not have enough financial resources to market their products and services effectively or expand the business. They may also not have the facilities and equipment that the employees need.
Managers may be too busy thinking about the day-to-day operations instead of looking at the big picture. They might forget to plan for long-term growth and fail to prevent problems. The objectives and targets set might also not be reasonable or realistic enough.
Employees do not feel motivated to be efficient during work. They may also lack the necessary knowledge, skills, and resources to work properly. The established systems, procedures, and processes may also be inefficient and counterproductive.
The organisation’s marketing strategy might not be working. Marketing efforts may not be reaching the intended audience or are not compelling enough to convince them.
Meanwhile, external barriers are factors that limit your business but are outside the scope of your organisation. Some types of external barriers are:
There may already be too many competitors offering the same products and services in the market. This prevents you from gaining new customers and is especially difficult to overcome if your organisation is newly established.
News outlets and social media may be harming your organisation or the industry the organisation is part of. Negative press will make customers wary of your organisation and hesitant to buy your products or services.
The organisation may struggle to pay taxes and contributions if revenue from sales is not enough.
Competitors may be expanding their business or increasing their marketing efforts in order to drive more customers towards them.
Recessions can slow down the business’s growth. Investors may become uncertain, and customers may lack the resources to buy your organisation’s products and services.
Addressing Barriers to Networking
You can deal with internal barriers without having to turn to drastic measures, as many of the internal barriers have to do with the strength and effectiveness of business relationships. Focus on the people relevant to your organisation to overcome the stagnation of the organisation’s business development.
Employees
Poor staff retention can be a major obstacle to the organisation’s growth. Having job vacancies means there are important tasks not being met within the organisation. Unfortunately, recruiting new members can take a long time, so you need to ensure that employees are satisfied for them to stick around.
Talk to employees and ask about any changes they want to see in the organisation. You may provide a way for them to give their feedback anonymously so you can get honest insights. Some sample issues they may bring up are lack of opportunities, competitive wages, or flexible working hours. They may also not fully understand the organisation’s objectives or have goals that are contradictory to what the organisation wants to achieve.
Additionally, developing employees’ skills is also important for reaching the organisation’s objectives. Providing sufficient training can take extra time and resources, but it will be beneficial for the organisation in the long run. Providing them with the equipment and resources they need is also something that should be prioritised.
Customers
Sales may not be reaching goals due to inadequate marketing. Your organisation’s target demographic may not even be aware that your products and services exist. Remember to review the marketing strategy to ensure that it is effective.
Poor customer service might also be the reason for the lack of customer loyalty. If customers do not feel that their needs are being met, they will take their business elsewhere. Ensure that you know what the customers want by asking for feedback through surveys. Review the responses and see if there are any comments or suggestions that are re-occurring across different customers. Implement the most common suggestions if these are reasonable and practical.
When customers see that the organisation listens to them and values their input, they are more likely to continue buying products and services from them and even refer them to other people.
Competitors
You cannot directly influence other organisations that are competing against yours in the same market, but you need to be aware of their strategies. Conduct research about your industry and the organisations under it to gain an idea of where your organisation stands compared to them.
Identify what your competitors do better than you. You can compare your products and services that are similar to theirs and see if their prices are lower or if their quality is higher. You should also evaluate their marketing strategies. Do they have more advertisements and higher engagement on their social media sites?
To gain a better understanding of how your organisation compares to others, you can do a SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis helps you assess your organisation’s situation before making any decisions. It involves identifying the following:
| Strengths | Identify what the organisation is good at and what makes it different from other organisations. |
|---|---|
| Weaknesses | Identify areas that need improvement or prevent the organisation from achieving its objectives. |
| Opportunities | identify factors that could give your organisation an advantage. |
| Threats | Identify factors that could harm your organisation. |
Conducting a SWOT analysis allows you to see which of opportunities and areas in your organisation you can use to your advantage, which areas you need to improve, and which potential threats you need to avoid or address before they appear. When doing this analysis, it helps to have different members in the organisation to give their input so you can get accurate information.
Further Reading
You can access the link below for a chart to guide you in researching competitors.
When you work on your relationships with your business contacts, conflict is inevitable. Conflict refers to situations where there are differences in opinion about what needs to be done or about what has occurred.
In order to hone your networking skills, you need to know how to manage the conflict before it escalates. Delaying its resolution or simply ignoring it may make the conflict worse or even lead to major problems that would affect the organisation. It is important to resolve these conflicts as quickly as possible.
Conflict resolution is all about negotiation – finding out what both parties want and trying to come to a solution that makes both sides happy. To do this, you need to be able to do the following:
- Communicate effectively. Clearly state your own demands while also paying attention to what the other party wants.
- Be assertive. Be confident without being aggressive.
- Practice empathy. Be mindful of the other party’s needs and wants without passively agreeing to everything.
- Manage emotions. Calm yourself down to prevent your emotions from influencing the results.
Techniques in Negotiation
The following are techniques you must keep in mind during negotiations:
Plan the negotiation by identifying what your position is, which must be in line with organisational objectives. Based on your position, compile all relevant information. From the information you have, list the points you will bring up during the negotiation to support your position. You must also anticipate the other party’s points and arguments. Predicting what the other party wants will help you organise your points in a way that will be compelling to them. Focus on your strengths but expect that you will have to compromise and settle for other outcomes.
During this stage, you and the other party will discuss the issue and propose solutions. Both of you will present the outcomes you desire while bringing up information that supports your positions. You might find it helpful to take down notes so you can keep track of the points brought up. You and the other party should be given time to present your positions without interruptions, but you may clarify afterwards if there are any vague points. If there are any claims that one of you disagrees with, you can discuss them until you reach an agreement.
After presenting your positions, either you or the other party can propose an initial offer. If one of you does not agree with the offer, a counteroffer can be proposed. Your goal is to get the other party to agree with your desired outcome, but do not expect that they will always see things from your perspective. If you and the other party are both firm in your original offers and refuse to make any concessions, negotiations will go nowhere. Be prepared to consider compromises and alternative outcomes that can satisfy both parties’ needs.
Set short-term benchmarks and deadlines to prevent the negotiation from dragging on for too long. When you and the other party have explored all possible solutions, agree on the one that both of you are satisfied with. Write a summary of the points discussed and the solution agreed to document both parties’ commitment. After the negotiation, all the parties involved must implement the steps from the solution that was agreed upon. You must follow through on any promises you made, as this will establish you as someone dependable and help strengthen your professional relationship with the other party.
Principles of Negotiation
To negotiate effectively, you must keep the following principles in mind (Fisher et al., 1991):
1. Separate people from the conflict.
You might be tempted to assign blame to someone. However, conflict resolution should not be about blaming people. If you accuse someone of being responsible for causing the issue, you make them feel threatened, and they may act out of defensive anger and refuse to cooperate with you.
Ignore the personalities involved and focus on what the disagreement is about so you can resolve the conflict without damaging your professional relationships.
2. Focus on interests, not positions.
Identify interests and goals you have in common with the other person. Even if you have fundamentally different ideas, you may be able to find common ground on to base the negotiation. Communicate your interests clearly and ask them open-ended questions to identify what theirs are.
3.Think of mutually beneficial options.
Discuss the common interests you share to brainstorm options that will benefit both of you. The best type of conflict resolution attempts to end in a ‘win-win’ situation, where both parties can agree on a solution that suits them.
A ‘lose-lose’ situation is what you want to avoid. Here, the solution resolves the problem, but neither of the parties is happy. This will simply lead to further resentment among those concerned, which is not something you want in any of your professional relationships.
Through negotiation and compromise, you can generate various options to resolve conflict in a way that at least satisfies both parties.
4. Use objective criteria to base agreement on.
You and the other person should develop objective criteria from which you will decide which solution to choose. Criteria should be practical, and both of you must agree on them.
You can base these criteria on legitimate documents such as professional standards, legislation, scientific studies, and other data. Doing this creates a procedure that does not favour one side over the other.
Problem-Solving Techniques
Collaborative problem-solving involves both parties working together to come up with a solution. Both parties share their perspectives, generate options, decide on objectives for choosing a solution, and agree on a solution. Working together generates more ideas from different angles, so it is an effective technique to use during negotiations.
Other strategies you can use to work through problems are:
Brainstorming involves generating different ideas with other people. This is where everyone suggests solutions before deciding on the best one. This strategy facilitates everyone’s creativity as they are given the freedom to suggest their ideas spontaneously.
The trial-and-error method involves solving problems by trying various solutions until one of them works. This strategy is effective if you only have a few solutions available to try, as it can be time-consuming otherwise. It should also only be used if you can fail safely or without any consequences.
Lateral thinking involves thinking of unconventional solutions. This method approaches problems in a creative and indirect way, resulting in solutions that are not obvious. You must question the ‘rules’ you assume from the problem to think of solutions without any limits.
Watch
Clarifying the '5 Whys' Problem-Solving Method
Networking can be difficult, particularly if you are new to the industry or new to business in general. It can be intimidating to go out there and build contacts. Fortunately, you can tap into your existing contacts for help. Your managers and supervisors are still the best people to seek advice from. They have experience in networking and can guide you through the process.
You can also seek help from external sources, such as consultants. They can find the individuals that you need to develop your business and introduce you to them. If you decide to seek advice from a consultant, ask them specific questions and give details about the type of individuals you want to contact. If you only give vague information, they will only be able to introduce you to ‘generic’ contacts who may not even be relevant to your organisation and its objectives.
Additionally, you can also ask for help from your existing business contacts. Each contact you have can lead you to other new contacts. Ask if they can recommend any individuals or organisations that would be helpful to know and if they can introduce you to them.
If you need help developing your interpersonal skills for better networking, you can attend seminars and workshops that can teach you how to communicate more effectively. Your organisation may be able to provide you with training for this, so ask if there are any upcoming opportunities you can participate in.
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