Articles
Explore over 350 articles that will help you grow your client relationships and improve your personal effectiveness.
The Power of Authentic Generosity to Strengthen Relationships
Grow your relationships with the high-octane fuel called Generosity Today, we are called to be generous in ways that are uncomfortable and stretch us. The current crisis is affecting everyone, although some are being impacted more than others. It raises many questions—for example: How can you be generous with your clients, even when they can’t […]
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Nine Ways to Improve Your Empathy
Empathy is the ability to understand and share another person’s feelings and emotions. It is essential to building good relationships, both at work and in your personal life. People who don’t exhibit empathy are viewed as cold and self-absorbed, and they often lead isolated lives. Sociopaths are famously lacking in empathy. Conversely, someone who is […]
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Helping Your Clients in Extreme Uncertainty
I woke up on the Friday morning, October 16, 1987 in my house in London, having been kept awake half the night by a brutal windstorm that resulted in the closing of all financial markets—and a throbbing headache on my part. I checked my voice mail (no email in those days!) and discovered that my […]
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Seeking Job Security? You Need Enthusiastic Clients
Legendary GE CEO Jack Welch recently passed away. He once said, “Only satisfied customers can give people job security. Not companies.” I’ve taken the liberty of paraphrasing and updating this for my own readers to “Only enthusiastic clients give you job security.” Today, I would argue that “satisfaction” alone is not enough to build your […]
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Six Valentine’s Day Lies—and Rules to Replace Them
Hello, and happy Valentine’s Day. Speaking of which: I usually write about professional relationships, but today, I want to share six Valentine’s Day lies—and the relationship rules to replace them Our contemporary culture promotes many trite, misleading, and self-absorbed ideas about what makes for successful romantic relationships. “Just be yourself”, “Find someone who won’t try […]
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The Three Proven Keys to Establish Rapid Rapport
How do you develop the relationships that truly matter to your career success? As I discussed in my last newsletter, the first step is to focus on the “critical few.” There are about 15-25 key individuals—not hundreds of superficial contacts—who will make a disproportionately large contribution to your success. Do you know who these are for you? […]
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You May Be Developing Too Many Relationships
In a major study I conducted of nearly 3000 professionals, 91% said that trusted professional relationships were extremely important to their success. Guess how many were “very satisfied” with those relationships? Only 30%. So, what’s going on, and how do we bridge this “relationship gap”? Read on. Welcome to Part I of my four-part series […]
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Ten Questions to Ask Your Clients Each Year
Clients generally don’t voice their concerns with you. Instead, they tend to vote with their feet, gradually and often invisibly shifting their business to a competitor. So you need to seek feedback on a regular basis. Some questions are not very fruitful. For example, asking if your client is “satisfied” with your work seems to […]
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