Relationships are the lifeblood of people and business. How can you go about building more strategic partnerships that can be mutually beneficial? How do we decide where to put our energy when we’re developing relationships? What are some of the mistakes we make? On this episode, NJ Rongner shares on the importance of building and maintaining solid relationships for our businesses. It’s important to have relationships that feed your soul and your life, but also help feed your business. -NJ Rongner   3 Things We Learned From This Episode   Build relationships with people who are ahead of you in business (6:10 - 6:27) While it’s important to have relationships with people who are at a similar point in their journey, you should also look for relationships with people who are ahead of you so you can learn from them. You can do it through collaboration, an introduction, a podcast guest spot, or other ways. Work outward from your inner circle (15:05 - 16:29) If you want a place to start looking to build new relationships, draw a circular diagram with a bull’s eye in the center. This center represents the people you are closest to. These are people you go to for advice, people you would trust to pick up your children in your absence or people you would give your passwords to. Work your way outward with a few rings, and start thinking of the people in the outer layers. These are people you could build stronger relationships with.   Be strategic about all your relationships (18:53 - 19:50) Whether it’s romantic, friendship or business, you should always think about why you’re in a certain relationship and what you’re getting from it. You should also be thinking about what you give to the relationship.   At the end of the day, business is people-- and people are relationships. You can know and be known by many people, but you can’t have relationships with everyone. Determining which relationships are good for you comes down to the value each person brings to your life. Whether they give advice, offer support, collaborate or partner with you, our relationships can be a powerful way to grow our business and increase our spheres of influence. Guest Bio NJ is a Western MA Mom Blogger and the founder of A Cookie Before Dinner. Go to http://www.acookiebeforedinner.com/ to check out her work.