Building Relationships

Photo by Duy Pham on Unsplash

This is the most undervalued skill I’ve seen in many engineers. We get so caught up in solving a problem or needing a simple change made that we forget about the people around us. As I worked with more salespeople and observed their interactions with the customers I started to learn that sales are more often made based upon a relationship rather than so much a technical capability.

When I first started consulting I had a mindset that I just needed to get through this engagement, I’ll never see these people again so I don’t always have to do my best or give 100% effort. Especially for a short week-long engagement, I didn’t really need to even try to remember anyone's name.

I was so wrong with this mindset. What a realized, later on, was that even if I didn’t go back to the same client, I might end up in the same city. if I could call up past customers or people I worked with to go explore the city for the night or have some beers the travel would be much more fun. In fact, if I kept building those relationships there might be a time when they reach out to me to give away free tickets or something of the like.

One of the most memorable lessons I learned during this time came when I actually had got beat up at a customer site. I got kicked off a project (ultimately not my fault and ended up back on it) and felt so bad about how poorly I had done, I wasn’t sure how I could go to another customer site again! A colleague whom I had never worked with before, only a few passing IM’s, reached out and CALLED me to ask how I was doing. They gave me words of encouragement and really lifted my spirits.

It was that simple gesture that really started a friendship. Ultimately, that person got me my next two jobs!

Amazing how a simple phone call, from someone who was mostly a stranger, ended up furthering my career so much!

Point is: You never know when someone might be in a position to help you, building relationships with the people you meet along the way can be very valuable even if you don’t see it right away.