As a small business owner, I learn new things every day. Some of them come from observation, some of them come from experience and some from my mistakes. The vast majority of the things I learn though, come from my relationships with other business owners. It’s when I connect with other businesses that I learn the most, grow the most, and take the significant steps forward in my work.
The realization I came to this morning is this:
The relationships we build together between our businesses are one of the keys to our success.
It sounds obvious, right? You may have read that line above and shook your head. Duh, right? But here’s the deal. We all know this is the truth, that relationships matter in business, but we’re all busy and it’s easy to get stuck in our bubbles. We have work to do, clients to serve, and widgets to make. There’s not enough time to get everything done, much less “connect” with other business leaders to build relationships. Time to catch up, touch base, or network with one another… It’s scarce at best.
That said, I’ve met a handful of power networkers in the last week that are diehards when it comes to developing relationships. Their goal, along with running their own businesses, is to connect the dots between businesses they have relationships with who can help one another. These diehard networkers love making the connection and thrive off of those moments where they can refer one business to another and make everyone successful. And isn’t that the goal at the end of the day, that we’re all successful?
The Takeaway
We are much stronger as businesses working together and building one another up than we are alone on an island. Get out of your bubble and look for ways today to connect the dots and build relationships where we can all help each other grow and succeed.