Relationship Economics: Transform Your Most Valuable Business Contacts Into Personal and Professional Success

By Lin Wilson and David Nour

Fuel your growth through some of your most valuable and strategic contacts

Building sustainable relationships, both professionally and personally, is the biggest competitive advantage in a world where automation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are eliminating the human experience, which is what creates emotional connections. In the newly revised and completely re-written third edition of Relationship Economics: Transform Your Most Valuable Business Contacts into Personal and Professional Success, renowned growth strategist, innovation consultant, and international speaker David Nour delivers an eye-opening discussion of how to prioritize and maximize your return on strategic relationships to fuel unprecedented professional and personal growth.

Drawing on the author's extensive experience consulting with leaders of Fortune 500 clients, the book demonstrates how to invest in people for extraordinary returns. You'll gain a deeper understanding of how the global pandemic and its onslaught of disruptive forces are impacting every facet of digital, in-person, and global relationships. You'll also find:

• Actionable tactics to employ in relationship management, like Relationship Currency® and Relationship Capital®
• Deep discussion of the fundamental measures of business relationships
• Impactful strategies for turning your contacts into better executions, performance, and results

A must-read for executives, managers, and other business leaders, the third edition of Relationship Economics will also earn a place in the libraries of professionals seeking to improve their ability to attract, retain, and convert clients.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Feb 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9781119855903

Book preview

RELATIONSHIP ECONOMICS

3rd EDITION

Transform Your Most Valuable Business Contacts into Personal and Professional Success

DAVID NOUR

Bestselling Author of Co-Create and Curve Benders

Illustrations by Lin Wilson

Logo: Wiley

Copyright © 2023 by David Nour. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Revised and Updated edition published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey, 2011.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Names: Nour, David, 1968- author. | John Wiley & Sons, publisher.

Title: Relationship economics : transform your most valuable business contacts into personal and professional success / David Nour.

Description: Third edition. | Hoboken, New Jersey : Wiley, [2023] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022046785 (print) | LCCN 2022046786 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119855897 (hardback) | ISBN 9781119855910 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119855903 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Social networks–Economic aspects. | Social capital (Sociology)–Economic aspects. | Business networks.

Classification: LCC HM741 .N68 2023 (print) | LCC HM741 (ebook) | DDC 650.1/3–dc23/eng/20220928

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022046785

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022046786

Cover Design and Images: Lin Wilson

To Wendy, Grayson, and Justus. Thank you for your love and support of my work.

To Mom who sadly passed away in Istanbul, Turkey on Thanksgiving morning in 2021 from viral pneumonia due to Covid-19. She was an amazing relationship builder, collector of great stories, and spent her entire life caring for others.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A book is always a journey, one that you seldom take alone.

I'm grateful to long-time friend Shannon Vargo at John Wiley & Sons for her grace and patience as I struggled with Mom's passing, hectic work demands, and some personal time away to get this book written. Huge thanks to Shannon for investing in me and my ideas over the years and, more recently, Sally Baker for marshaling this work through the publishing process.

The incomparable Lin Wilson, who designed both the cover of this third edition and all the illustrations in this book, has been working with me since 2015. In our strategy visualization and agile alignment work, he consistently demonstrates incredible talent, patience, and resolve to help global leaders visually clarify, communicate, and cascade their ideas. I'm proud to call him a colleague, a friend, and a 2 AMer! Elaine Devine, our director of operations, is world-class in her organizational skills and diligent stewardship of every facet of our business. Jenn Cordz, my business partner who runs our RevOps practice and leads our Learning Expeditions, is brilliant in her work and great fun to be around.

This book and all my advisory, speaking, and coaching work wouldn't be possible without an incredible group of global clients. I'm indebted for their trust, vote of confidence in our work together, and friendship. I admire their steadfast leadership in the post-pandemic world and how they build incredible relationships within, and external to, their organizations and model the right brand and cultural norms daily. I'm grateful for their willingness to listen, push back healthily and respectfully, internalize our discussions, and explore ideas to create enterprise value. You are the constant source of my learning, growth, and aspirations. Thank you.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention Mom and Dad back in Iran. As you read in the dedication, Mom, unfortunately, passed away on Thanksgiving Day 2021 from complications caused by COVID-19 during our visit to Istanbul, Turkey. She was an amazing source of strength, resolve, and love for God, family, and friends. So much of what I share about relationships, I learned by observing her willingness to help complete strangers, embrace anyone in need, and work relentlessly to ensure our family's safety, security, and happiness. Dad and I miss her every day. I'm grateful to Tug for his tireless help during that tough month abroad.

Let me close with one of my favorite quotes:

Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly—sometimes they come together in a single encounter.

The late Thurgood Marshall, Supreme Court Justice, who was one of the young lawyers and argued the Brown v. Board of Education case, which ended the injustice of legal school segregation, once said,

People are people

Strike them, and they will cry out;

Cut them, and they will bleed;

Starve them, and they wither away and die.

But treat them with respect and decency,

Give them equal access to the levers of power,

Attend to their aspirations and grievances,

And they will flourish and grow and . ..

Join together to form a more perfect union.

Here is to all of us doing our part—in work and life—to form a more perfect union.

—Nour

INTRODUCTION: WELCOME TO THE AGE OF HYBRID RELATIONSHIPS

When I began my advisory practice back in 2002, in search of a viable market-fit opportunity, I went on a listening tour, asking 30+ business relationships a single question: What do you believe I do exceptionally well? From Paul Young, a wealth manager at UBS whom I had known through a men's prayer group, to Dale Jones, who during the 1996 Olympics had a business next door to my office and later became vice-chair and partner in charge of the CEO and board practice at Heidrick & Struggles, the response was, You network better than anyone else we've ever met; if you can teach others how to do that, you'll succeed!

Networking? As in meeting and engaging others? I thought, Isn't that taught in undergrad or grad schools as part of understanding how the world works? How about every company's new hire training program to set up employees for success out of the gate, management training to help them transition from an individual contributor to managing a team, or leadership development programs to get anything done as a leader? Sadly, I found very little evidence to support my assumptions.

I knew most business professionals could benefit from networking, but how could I package it as a repeatable, predictable process focusing on one's desired outcomes?

Two events led me to many insights you'll read in this book.

I gathered a handful of business relationships around a table in my home and asked for their help in subconsciously capturing what I had done for years. If I was going to teach others how to network with more consistent and remarkable outcomes, I needed a process and a set of practices that could be taught.

I reached out to Alumni Relations at Goizueta Business School at Emory University. They had the website/shopping cart and the facilities, and I offered to put on a half-day class—any revenues, we'd split 50/50. They agreed, and I emailed roughly 100 contacts. Business relationships from Sony, Chick-fil-A, Goldman Sachs, KPMG, and several other marquee companies showed up! I couldn't believe these friends from highly respected organizations hadn't been exposed to these ideas in formal learning and development opportunities in their illustrious careers.

Shortly after these two incidents, I began proactively sharing my ideas in article submissions, videos, speaking engagements, training sessions, and early advisory work. As a result, I have become a crusader for the view that business relationships should be more intentional, strategic, and quantifiable.

Several crises later, such as the Internet bubble burst of the early 2000s, the housing crisis and subsequent great recession of 2008, and the pandemic, have proven ideas such as Relationship Economics®, Relationship Currency™, Reputation Capital™, and one's Professional Net Worth™ to be timeless and relevant.

In my advisory and coaching work, I observe business professionals engaging in bizarre relationship-centric (or lack thereof) behaviors. Regrettably, there is much misinformation, and everyone suddenly seems to be a relationship expert. For example, search for Business Relationship Expert and get 686 million references! Unfortunately, most you've never heard of, and you're likely to be highly disappointed by hacks sharing clickbait or lousy advice, overcomplicated tools/tech, or obvious motherhood and apple pie guidance with little value.

Let's start with several foundational, if not philosophical, wrong ideas about business relationships.

BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP MYTHS AND MISPERCEPTIONS

Over the years, I've heard ridiculous excuses by people to deflect responsibility, accountability, or otherwise simply doing their jobs, based on business relationship myths and misperceptions:

"Relationships are just a soft skill"—Today, building business relationships is still seen, spoken of, and considered a soft skill. For instance, a recent article in Business Insider lists the ability to form relationships as one of the top 20 soft skills that business leaders need for success.¹ But relationships are not soft skills! Throughout this book, I'll reference the quantifiable value of your business relationships, such as time-to-market of a new product, time-to-impact by a new employee, opportunity costs of investing in the wrong business relationships, and needs-based segmentation when implemented alongside a strategic relationship road map.

Networking is easy; anyone can do it—Many believe business relationship development is easy and straightforward. But, as you may have already experienced, it is not! At best, it's episodic and is carried out in organizational pockets by a few individuals. In many organizations, it's not institutionalized, consistently led, measured, celebrated, learned from, or seen as a valued asset.

She's just that way—Many believe relationship building is in one's natural DNA. Some people are born with the innate ability to strike up conversations, get others to act on their behalf, and connect the dots between that initial conversation and some fantastic outcome. Nonetheless, we've proven that it can be taught, and many introverts build incredibly valuable, authentic, and lifelong relationships.

Wo/men have it made—Some attribute women's networking success to their friendlier natures or fantastic storytelling tendencies. Others point to men's success in getting deals done on golf or fishing trips. Both perspectives may contain contributing factors, but there is more to the gender gap in how we identify, build, nurture, and sustain value-based business relationships.

I'm just here to get a deal done—Isn't networking just schmoozing, manipulating, or pulling fast ones over others? Sure. In the next chapter, I distinguish highly transactional networking from deep, meaningful, value-based business relationships.

Networking is just part of the job—One expects business professionals in sales, marketing, channel/distribution, investor relations, or other externally facing roles to be naturally relationship-centric. But why would I care about relationships if I'm in accounting or software development? The last time I checked, none of us is an island. Even the accountant and the software developer must work with others to get things done.

Watch Sam; he's a fantastic networker—Most organizations believe that their employees should pick up relationship development best practices through osmosis! In reality, most people learn relationship development skills from their parents or by modeling their managers' right (and wrong) behaviors. I wonder what relationships you and your leaders are modeling—more on this later.

4.0 GPA; can't get a job!—Our high schools and universities are doing every student a disservice by not teaching business relationship fundamentals to every student before graduating. Beyond their foundational education and whatever professional accolades they can acquire, their portfolio of business relationships will be their biggest life-long asset!

We focus on core competencies in our world-class L&D Organization—Every organization is handicapping its employees by not training and developing their interpersonal communication and interaction, influencing without authority, and engaging in productive conflict. These are relationship-based skills, knowledge, and behaviors. Instead, we train these employees on products, services, competitors, marketplace, processes, technologies, and NOTHING about how to succeed by developing a lifelong passion for authentic and value-based business relationships, both within and external to their organizations!

Relationships don't belong in our Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)—Every leader I've ever met wants their team to become more relationship-centric. They expect exceptional customer experiences, their teams to go above and beyond the minimum requirements of the role, to demonstrate that they care, to pay attention to details, and so on. Yet, none of these relationship skills, knowledge, and behaviors are part of the interview, onboarding, peer review, promotional consideration, or anyone's compensation or bonus structure! If we don't inspect what we expect, how can we believe relationship development will flourish in our organization?

"Coworkers from the Middle East, Asia, or Latin America—… are friendlier, warmer, more hospitable, and are natural huggers," a training participant once told me this. Born in the Middle East, I can attest that those attributes are a big part of our culture. But, beyond painting with a vast brush, keep in mind (a) not always, so don't make geographical judgments; and (b) I have worked with plenty of warm and friendly huggers from the Midwest, parts of Europe, and South Africa.

We can automate relationships!—I've been blessed by technology for most of my professional career. I, however, have yet to find a suitable technology that replaces you and me, meeting in person, shaking hands, or looking each other in the eye. Want proof? Have you noticed most organizations leave out the relationship in their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems?

We have a family culture here—There is a perception that small companies or family-owned businesses retain a family-like culture where employees genuinely love, look out for, and support each other. Undoubtedly, as every organization grows, expands its market scope, and scales, it infuses differing personality types, likes, dislikes, backgrounds, behavior styles (many healthy, a few not), and the potential for conflict. However, I've met several organizations that have maintained a fantastic culture as they've scaled.

She gets me!—Remember the high school lunchroom and the different cliques that would sit together, excluding those who didn't fit their requirements. Or the principal's daughter, who always seemed to get special treatment. Regrettably, that still goes on in many organizations. Yet, visionary leaders tend to gravitate toward meritocracy (the value and impact of your work) much more so than mediocracy (attributes such as tenure, or Just keep your head down, get along and go along!).

We don't do relationships—That's what one procurement leader once told me, trying to emphasize the importance of best value in their blind auction system where vendors blindly bid on a piece of business. I wonder what happens when that faceless transaction needs a relationship to bail it out of a jam, escalate a problem, or expedite a necessary shipment. Lack of a relationship is another reason many business professionals see functions such as procurement, HR, IT, or legal as business inhibitors rather than enablers!

I'm not a people person—What does that mean, exactly? You're the Unabomber?! If you want to read more or become a better person, God Bless You. You don't need anyone else to do that. But, conversely, if you want to get almost anything else done in business, you'll need relationships to help you. So stop with the negative self-talk. It's not helping you.

Who do you know that can …—Ever noticed people asking this vague question for an introduction or a referral to someone they need to meet? I always want to reply, I know a lot of people. Yet, the vague nature of your question leaves me baffled as to who exactly do you want/need to meet and why. Specificity conveys credibility.

By the end of the day …—Work with anyone who always demands that you prioritize their needs above and beyond everything else? Don't you want to say, You're right. I have nothing else on my plate, and I'd be happy to drop everything else I have going on to prioritize your needs! We'll discuss relationship Givers, Takers, and Investors later in the book.

Me, Myself, and I …— A professional acquaintance I've met at an industry association we both belong to is painful to be with because every story at every gathering is always about him. From how he has performed surgery (not a medical doctor, by the way), to how he's been in space (again, not an astronaut), to his 1,000-page book that hundreds of publishers couldn't wait to publish (it was self-published), to his global offices in eighteen different countries (no one I know has ever been to any), he's a complete bore. And an ass because he's socially inept for someone who seems intelligent!

"We're very focused on the what and the how at the moment!"—This is one of the worst excuses for ignoring the impact of business relationships. Whenever we're faced with a challenge or an opportunity, we often ask, What should we do, or How can I do it, but seldom who-questions! I believe there are no new challenges or opportunities, only those you haven't thought of yet. So, throughout this book, we'll talk about asking more who questions and a disciplined process for connecting the dots between what you seek and the relationships you already have!

Bonus: Kids today …—We tend to paint the next generation, Millennials or Gen-Z, with a vast brush. I'm often told that they don't know how to build relationships—that's not true. They simply build relationships very differently than the generations before them.² Not right or wrong; just different, perhaps more digital-led, often transactional based on their immediate needs, yet it's a mistake to assume they're incapable or that they're doing it wrong.

PHYSICAL, DIGITAL, GLOBAL

As I wrote in my most recent book, Curve Benders, the COVID-19 pandemic illustrated how woefully underprepared we were. Entrepreneurs and leaders alike were no strangers to a crisis, as it's a fundamental part of every role—often an accelerator of real and lasting change, technology adoption, and market innovation. After the dot-com crash of 2000, e-commerce, social media, and highly interactive web experiences accelerated their proliferation. After the 2008 global financial crisis, Uber and Airbnb emerged as gig economy giants. Similarly, the pandemic has dramatically elevated the role of telehealth, remote working, online education, and micromobility (transportation for fewer individuals over shorter distances).³

Beyond the initial supply shock, subsequent demand shock, and lack of resilience quotient in many leadership teams, it became abundantly clear that many organizations were not video cultures. Because most of the workforce came into a physical office every day and traveled to meet customers, partners, and different teams, we were much more comfortable initiating and nurturing our business relationships physically and in person.

The minute the global economy shut down and we were forced to meet online, day after day, week after week, the business community's inability to engage and influence each other digitally became obvious. Most hunkered down to focus on fewer, already established relationships rather than casting new nets, far and wide, as the