Building Business Relationships

Business is an integral part of human life and it flows through networks of human relationships. Effective businessmen are always looking for promising people, even if they are not immediately useful from a business standpoint. I know one story. A man worked as an international sales manager, he arrived in an Asian country without a single contact. He prayed in his hotel room and felt led to call the commercial officer of a nearby embassy. That person recommended a local businessman with a small company in a closely related field. He met the man and was impressed him as an unusually bright and effective person. In the end, he signed him to be his company’s distributor even though his company was not exactly in the best position to help him. He had about twenty-five employees when he met that man, but the next time he visited him, he had two hundred and soon that figure was over two thousand. On day he heard on the news that he had been appointed to a cabinet level position by his nation’s president, without any previous government experience! His company is now one of the largest and more powerful in its field.

I have been asked if it makes sense to try to work with friends. Good friendships sometimes develop as a result of good business, but rarely does the reverse happen. In fact, trying to do business simply on the basis of friendship can be one way to destroy or badly damage long-standing and valuable relationships. But there are exceptions to every rule, but profitable business results from providing a consistent value to customers through legitimate and ethical means. Friendship is a great benefits but not necessary factor. Right relationships with the right people means success in business. God’s Word gives wisdom in choosing people and in building the kind of relationships that will lead us to success.