The world of business tends to be a lot about generating money. A business has its values, it has its own character, it's aspirations and these days there is a lot more beneath the surface than just money. Money is the business's petrol, without it the business stops running.
Companies though are run by people. It is the people who sit behind the company that set the tone. That is the reason we see all kinds of companies.
After working with different kinds of people or companies, we formulated our ethos here at Under the coco tree.
We don't do business with you if we can't be friends
We know you might be thinking, I wish it was always that way... Or why do we need to be friends?
Building Relationships
In our view, doing business with other people is about building relationships. We have all had people, at some point in our life, which we felt they were not truly our friends. We felt we had to put up with them and we might still do. The solution is rather simple, stop seeing them. If they are clients stop doing business with them.
But we need the money!
Remember when I said that companies are run people and by the ethos of the people who sit behind them? What does that say about your ethos? Are you sticking around for the money? Then we become money driven. If money is your primary mark, there are many ways of getting it and the best ways are usually unethical and illegal.
When we meet with people we always make an effort to build rapport and connect. Connect with the people who actually run the show, connect with the people we will actually be working with. If that connection is not made at the beginning there all sort of issues that arise:
- You get to work with people that you are not 100% committed,
- You see an email coming from them and you choose to ignore it because you don't like them.
- It creates resistance into doing what your clients needs
- It makes you more emotional and less analytical
- It's Emotional draining
- There is arguing, fighting, blaming and the list goes on
In other words the broth gets spoiled. Once the broth is spoiled it is hard to make it good again. Leave toxic environments and stop creating them for yourself.
Working with people and having people's skills is fundamental in business. We feel that when relationships are built the results are limitless.
- People tend to go the extra mile
- We are more understanding
- More resilient
- more accepting in other people's mistakes, in delays
- Pleasure out of work
- Happy to see people
- Excited about their project
Building relationships is what builds referrals, what brings people together, what makes people tick, inspire, connect and network. Then the rest will come, after you have a solid relationships you can then go ahead and build or sell whatever you need.
The human need of connection
Connection is more fundamental than money because it is about building bridges, it is part of how we are wired as humans. Our human needs evolve about being part of others and relating to others.
If we meet and we can't get along, if we meet and we can't agree on basic things then what is the point of progressing into a deal. To built something? To make some extra cash?
In our view there is no point for you as a customer or for us to work with you. You shouldn't neither, you should not pick us or anyone else that you don't feel like working with.
Quality of life
We spend the majority of our day working. We talk about the quality of life. We think that we have work life balance but in reality most of us don't. When the majority of our day is spend at our work, the quality of our life is dependant by our work day. If the quality of us being at work sucks then it means the quality of our life affected.
In other words, if you get to work with people you don't like you suffer in life. Because we don't like to suffer, we don't do business with people we don't like!
Life is short
Life is short, make your life easier and more pleasant by making correct business choices. Work with partners you truly care about not because they are the cheapest, the most expensive the most famous and fit for the job. The benchmarks of business should be the judgement of character, our gut feeling and our day to day interactions. Then we will be happy and our customers will be happy.
That is why we toot our horn and serve the people we care about and love as friends. We build meaningful relationships first and then we develop the solutions needed.
Photo by Limor Zellermayer on Unsplash