Jul 13 2008
Leveraging Your Relationships To Become Successful
The key to success is leverage. As one person you can only do so much, but if you leverage other people’s time, other people’s money and other people’s relationships then you can make a lot of money and become a lot more successful than if you did it all by your lonesome.
Let me give you an example. I went for a job interview the other day at Freedom Furniture to apply for a sales position in the furniture department. I got this interview because my girlfriend is the visual merchandiser manager at the store. Thankfully I got some work (though not a job YET, just doing stock take) and I am next in line when a casual position becomes vacant. This is all because I leveraged my girlfriends relationships to get a really incredible job. In this job you earn commissions of whatever you sell over budget. One guy works 3 days/week and earns $3,000/month. That is a pretty good deal.
Another example of leveraging your relationships in on the internet. People will always want to buy off someone who they trust. If you have a relationship with someone who has a list of people who they email a newsletter to each week then they have a list of people who trust him. If you were to advertise your product to them you could make some sales. However, if he was to advertise your product for you and say how good it was, then your sales would go through the roof. Why? Because he has a relationship with these people and they trust him (or her) even if they don’t know him personally.
When working online you should always try to leverage relationships you already have to create new relationships and to create business opportunities. I have not done this personally as I do not have a product of my own significant enough to market and make enough money from. But you can use other people’s relationships as leverage to create your own relationships with customers.
The old saying “It is not about what you know but who you know” is so true when it comes to business. You can know 1 million things about business but if you don’t know anyone to sell your products to or help you out then you will find it much harder than a person who has relationships.
So how do you leverage other people’s relationships?
1. Look for job opportunities
Like I did with my girlfriend and the staff at her work. I used her relationships at her work play to create for myself a job opportunity. You can do the same thing. If someone you know works in an industry you wish to work in then use their relationships to get you an internship, or a job interview, or even better a real job.
2. Look for sales opportunities
Maybe you know someone who has a lot of customers or relationships where the people will benefit from your product. It would be best if your product is not in competition with their product, but compliments their product. Then get them to pitch the product to their customer base. Make sure there is something in it for them (like a healthy slice of the commissions) and then they will be more than happy to assist you.
3. Look to create your own relationships
Meet the other people that your friends are in relationship with and form your own relationships. I recently went on a trip to the Gold Coast for a Christian Youth Leaders Retreat. I used the relationships I was in (people from my church) to create relationships with people from other churches. Now I am continuing to build those relationships myself. My friend was great for the initial introduction, now I can work at creating relationships with these leaders.
So don’t go it completely alone. Leverage other people’s relationships and fastrack your success.
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