better business blog

Tips and stories to add value to you and your organisation

Find A Friend First

13 March 2011

Taking heed of my own advice from last week, to think about people, I invited a business contact out to lunch. Nothing unusual in that you may think, but this time I decided to have a ‘no agenda’ agenda, instead of going into it with a firm business related outcome in mind.

It’s tempting to think of a business lunch as ‘productive time’ and therefore we need to have some structure to it perhaps, or something businessy to discuss, or have an issue we need to resolve. These are all well and good, but can ignore the fact that because people-buy-people there are times when we need to remove our commercial hat and just be ‘a people’.

Heading into my lunch I decided that I would keep my notepad in my pocket, not have six questions that needed answering and instead just aim to make a friend.

Making a friend first is a good way to do business. As we build a friendship our levels of trust increase and we tend to share more information. Which of course can lead us to reveal new options for working together.

And given that business is based on trust, who would you rather do business with – a friend or a stranger?

So, next time you go for a business meeting how about having a ‘no agenda’ agenda and trust the process of interaction to deliver something interesting?

My lunch was great, I found a friend and it was useful to be reminded that we don’t need to force the pace all the time.

Lunch anyone?

…We can get a high-chair for Crow; he’s really quite well mannered in most restaurants.

Tags: Crow, lunch