Relationships Are Currency

How can you deepen the relationships with people to get to the point where they will be be willing to help you out in the future? Here are four quick steps about relationship currency to get you moving in the right direction.

Social capital

Social capital is the international currency of networking, especially business networking. If you take as much care in raising and investing your social capital as you do your financial capital, you’ll find that the benefits that flow from these intangible investments will not only be rewarding in themselves, but they will multiply your material returns many times over.

How many times have you seen an entrepreneur, maybe even yourself, go to a networking event, meet a lot of good people, then leave and never talk to them again, right? It probably happens too often. Not because the entrepreneur doesn’t like them; it’s really because they haven’t had system to connect. New contacts are really where future business is often born. It’s meeting those new people and getting into visibility that leads to the rest of your business.

It’s not the number of contacts you make that’s important, but the ones that you turn into lasting relationships. You’ll always get better results trying to deepen relationships with people you already know than starting relationships with strangers.

Relationships are part of the fabric of the development of your social capital. You must keep investing in the relationship if you ever expect to make a withdrawal.