4 Powerful Tactics for Building Business Relationships with Real ROI

There are lots of useful articles out there about building external relationships in business. There’s this one about building strong customer relationships by being authentic. And this one about how you’ve got to give to get. And this one reminding us that mutual trust is key to building business relationships.  

This is all to the good. Cultivating strong relationships outside of your organization is certainly part of a solid communications strategy. And don’t get me wrong—I love talking strategy over a cup of coffee with experienced professionals!

But with all of this focus on building business relationships outside of your organization, the importance of building strong internal relationships gets lost. So let’s talk about how building business relationships within your company can have real ROI and tactics for building these relationships across your organization.

Why Tactics for Building Internal Business Relationships?

At first glance, it might not be immediately obvious how building business relationships within your organization can contribute to developing messaging aimed at customers, investors, and other stakeholders. Isn’t communications the marketing department’s territory? But if we continue to think about external communications as belonging exclusively to marketing or PR departments, we miss out on a lot.

On a practical level, all employees are an important piece of your PR strategy. Strong, transparent internal communications tends to produce happier employees who are more likely to paint their employers in a positive light when talking to those outside of your organization.

How many times have you listened to a friend complain about not feeling heard at work? Or a family member express frustration about a supervisor not taking the time to ask for his team’s perspective on a project? How does it make you feel about the company he or she works for?

Not only can strong internal communication help keep employees satisfied and speaking positively about your brand, but it also supports short- and long-term crisis management. When you make a conscious effort to develop a culture of open communication, everyone, not just c-level executives, feel empowered and motivated to contribute to managing any crisis that could arise.

In addition, there is so much institutional knowledge within our own organizations that not promoting stronger internal relationships is like leaving money on the table. This really is one of the saddest aspects of the kind of siloing I see in many firms. The next time your department faces a seemingly intractable challenge, why not bring it up with others outside of your department. You might be surprised by the insights you gain from introducing a new perspective.

One word of caution though, if you pay lip service to the idea of building business relationships internally simply to make others “feel heard,” your employees will see right through to your true motives. Instead, you’ll want to develop an authentic internal communications strategy.

Here are 4 powerful tactics for authentically connecting across your organization:

1. Get out.

Get out of the office and get into the field. Yes, even if you are the VP of finance. Why? Building relationships across and down in the organization helps you better understand how your business works, key drivers, customer relationships, and competitive sensitivities from those who know it most closely.

Even if you feel that you have been doing well enough communicating with your immediate team and meeting benchmarks, there’s no substitute for getting your hands dirty. So plan to visit your main supplier and learn about their process. Sit in on a sales meeting. Schedule a tour of your top distribution facility and talk to the men and women who do the physical work to bring your product to market.

While you may be receiving feedback now from some of these individuals through other channels, how sure are you that the information isn’t distilled or even distorted by those serving as gatekeepers? Valuable information that can increase productivity and increase customer loyalty may be just a conversation away. So, get out into the field!

2. Bring gifts.

When you get out into the field, bring gifts. I’m not talking about corporate swag here. By gifts, I mean information and insight. Put yourself in the shoes of employees on the frontlines. Why should they care about what you do?

Remember that often those you need to connect with view the corporate office as the “ivory tower.” They see corporate as not being directly responsible for driving revenue and profit. Whether these perceptions are accurate or not, there is no doubt that the pressures they face are very different from the pressures you face. Showing sensitivity to these differences will be well received.

Here are some specific insights I’ve found useful:

• If you’re publicly traded, give a presentation about how the market views your firm and how what they (the field team) do makes a difference to that perception. Tell them about how the corporate financials come together, why it’s important to have accurate financial planning, and how each business unit can play a role in the planning process.
• If your firm is not publicly traded, bring competitive intelligence. Give a review of current corporate positioning and key market drivers. Often at the field level you have specialists and employees working shoulder to shoulder with the customer. They don’t see the forest. They are in the trees. So, bring the “forest” to them.

3. Tag Team/shadow.

In addition to sending executives out into the field, consider informally or formally bringing in others from across the organization to participate in traditional “corporate” activities. Pitch these as invitations to work on special projects and opportunities to learn a new side of the business.

For instance, either informally or formally, bring in someone different to shadow and participate in the development of your quarterly earnings process or the preparation for a large event. Ideally, they would be a part of the information gathering, materials development, executive prep, and final event (e.g., sitting in on an earnings call, traveling to an investor conference with you and your executive team, or attending the corporate event/trade show/etc.).

4. Widen the circle.

Develop relationships across the organization, for example, in other offices, sites, and functional areas. By the way, this tactic applies to all sizes of businesses in any industry. Open lines of internal communication by reaching out and offering to speak with their teams about your role or share what you see from the investor relations side.

To be a valued advisor in your role, no matter where you sit in the organization, it’s critical to understand how your organization works. This means having a sense for how the numbers come together; how services and products are delivered; how you, as an organization, engage with potential and current customers; how you manage the external view of the company, etc.

If you approach the above tactics with the goal of better understanding your organization and how the various moving parts come together to deliver high-quality results, you will come across as genuine. Your employees will respond to you in kind and your brand identity will come across as more cohesive.

At Audacia Strategies, we love the art and science of building business relationships. We know how to build a comprehensive communications strategy that combines external communications, such as grassroots social media efforts, with internal communications that lay the foundation for long lasting customer and employee loyalty. Our philosophy is that companies shouldn’t let any valuable resources go to waste.

Let our team help your organization with a strategy for building winning relationships that reward your time and effort. Schedule a mutually beneficial consultation today and let’s start building this relationship!

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