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Trusting relationships will save you time and make you money. The question is, “How do you build this trust so you can build relationships?”

There’s a concept called equal consideration of interests – you place your interest equal to the other party. That sounds so simple, but we believe it deserves emphasis.

Win / lose. “I win, you lose” doesn’t work because it doesn’t build the trust that is necessary to have good relationships in tomorrow’s business world. Yet there are a lot of people who place their interest above everybody else’s.

Lose / win. “I lose, you win” ultimately fails because fulfilling relationships can’t be one-sided. Eventually frustration leads to anger and the relationship (if that’s what you call it) dissolves. Yet there are a lot of people who place everybody else’s interest above their own.

Neither one is the best path to building fulfilling relationships. There is a better way …

Win / win. This is the perfect combination in today’s business world. Win / win is equal consideration of interests. Even if it benefits me, I won’t do it if it hurts you. We’ll work together to find a better way that is mutually beneficial. That’s the key to innovation – another 21st century necessity. What works today won’t be good enough tomorrow. By working together, we can find a better way than either of us could find on our own.

Moving quickly on a new venture

We just launched a new offline venture. We had an idea for a product. We talked it over with people in our network. Based on their recommendation, we revised it … a lot! But it was much better. We reached out to potential strategic partners and got them in place. Last week, one of those strategic partners began selling our product across the nation.

It probably would have taken us six to twelve months to do this if we didn’t have the right relationships in place. Instead, this all happened in about two months. That’s another 21st century mindset – once you spot an opportunity, you have to move very quickly.

It’s hard to do that if you have to develop the concept from scratch. You need to reach out to people and firms who have the infrastructure in place to help you capitalize on it. If they aren’t already in your network, it will take longer. So building trusting relationships is essential. But there are (at least) two points to consider …

Relationship building is a long-term investment.

It takes time to build your network. We have years of goodwill built up with some of our strategic partners. This helps get revenue-generation going quickly once you have the right idea. Don’t wait to build your network until you need it. It will probably be too late then. Make relationship building an everyday thing.

Trusting people solve problems quickly.

When you trust your partner and your partner trusts you, problems can be solved much more easily. As we’ve had issues, we’ve been able to deal with them very quickly. We can hear our partners considering our interests along with their own; they can hear us doing the same thing.

The best way we know to capitalize on an opportunity quickly is when two or more people, with trust already in place, consider their interests equally and seek mutually beneficial solutions. It’s the way to create wealth in the 21st century!

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Join us next time as we celebrate our one year anniversary! Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

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For example, Jay Leno has always been the host of The Tonight Show for this group. Bring up Johnny Carson only if you’re prepared to explain who he was!

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Putting it into con-text

We have a friend who thinks they lack social skills. He believes they’re so busy texting that they’ve never developed the ability to communication personally.

We disagree – we think they’re very social. A generation before, we e-mailed or called someone on their cell phone instead of texting. In our mind, the only difference is the medium used.

We wanted to dig a little deeper to fully understand the perceptions of young people in their late teens and early twenties. After all, they’re the ones who will be coming to us for employment in the near future.

The Media Center at the American Press Institute calls this group of people the “Content Generation” – they use text, videos, and photos (often generated from their cell phones) to connect and inform.

Understanding the paradigm

They have witnessed September 11, corporate scandals, mass layoffs, sweat shops, the burst of the dot.com bubble, and now the subprime mortgage crisis.

When they think of the future, they realize that they will have to fund their own retirement while they start and raise a family. Since their parents are older than previous generations, they will also likely have to care for them at some point in their lives.

The workplace for the next generation

All of these things impact the jobs they will choose. They don’t expect to stay at the same company for their entire career. They won’t necessarily take the job that pays the most either – they’re looking for more than money.

This generation grew up with Tom Peters and the idea of Me, Inc. They understand personal branding and seek lifelong employability. So two of the most important components of a good job are:

• Personal and professional growth – They want a job that helps them develop skills that will be valuable in their career and at home.

• Work – life balance – They want a job that allows them to enjoy their lives now. They’re not willing to wait until they retire to “live”.

They want to work for people in a company that truly values its employees. These people live the values they talk about. They follow through on what they say. They’re authentic.

For example, if you say you’re “green”, you better be green. You recycle. You use energy-efficient light bulbs. You work to reduce paper use. And that’s just the start!

We admire them because they’ve figured out some important things already that we didn’t have worked out at their age. They have a lot of potential. Time will tell if they live up to it.

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Next time, with the Democratic Convention wrapping up, we’ll talk about donkeys. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

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