Hard & Soft Skills for Relationship Development

“It is important to possess technical (hard) skills to prove you can do a job. It is vitally important to possess relational (soft) skills to grow relationships based on likeability and trust” –Daryl Wizelman

There is great importance in mastering both soft skills and hard skills to build and grow deep relationships at work and at home.   For the purpose of this article I am going to focus more on soft skills because this is where I believe there is greater need to practice and perfect. I strongly believe people do business with people they like and trust regardless of that persons knowledge and experience in their field. Thus I strongly believe that soft skills are the basis for creating, building and maintaining relationships. Furthermore, I believe the mastering of soft skills will increase the depth of your relationships and bring additional referral partners and thus additional volume to your origination practice.

As I write below hard skills can be learned and perfected through repetition. Soft skills are learned through trial and error and take years to develop and master.

Definitions;

Hard Skills: Hard skills are tangible, can be taught and involve knowledge of how to complete a specific task. This can also be referred to as “technical” knowledge. Perfecting hard skills requires a higher level of intelligence quotient (IQ).

Soft Skills: Soft skills are often intangible and, therefore, not easily taught. They tend to be more a function of personality characteristics such as motivation, sociability and work ethic. Soft skills reflect how you succeed with people at work and at home. Perfecting soft skills requires a higher level of emotional intelligence (EQ).

Examples of each;

Hard Skills: Fact finding, CRM entry, database mining, scripting, name memory, developing high trust interview questions, creating and maintaining a CRM drip system, prep for meetings, coaching referral partners, proactive outbound calling, 

Soft Skills Examples & Tips;

1.  Level 3 Listening: When you are having a conversation, stop what you’re doing and focus all of your attention on that person. Turn to face them and show your interest. No email, no texting, no phone and no thinking about what you want to say next.

2.  Grace: When someone makes a mistake, for example if your assistant mistakenly scheduled an appointment during a time that you had other plans, instead of shaming him and creating a larger issue out of the situation, you can give him grace by accepting his apology and working together to find a solution.

3.  Empathy: When you feel yourself becoming frustrated, step back and think about the other person’s perspective. Why do they act as they do? What might they be reacting to from your attitude? How can you better approach and communicate with them?

4.  Warmth: The easiest was to start is smiling more and slowing down when you interact with others.

5.  Authenticity: Don’t say or do anything that you don’t believe in your heart. Think about your motivation for arriving at an outlook. Is it because you truly believe it or because you think it will get you what you want?

6.  Appreciation: Take the time to say thank you for the efforts of those around you. Say thank you to your team every day, send hand written notes to clients and referral partners. Thank the people who serve you every day at the coffee shop or the grocery store. Make an effort to make others feel appreciated.

7.  Interest: Show interest in those you are developing relationships with. If a person is telling you a story, ask questions and remain engaged in the conversation. When working with a client, find out what their goals are, get the story behind their needs.

8.  Discernment: The insight necessary for discernment can only be gained when you are willing to shift focus from yourself to others. You must focus on listening carefully to what they need and respond with specific words or actions that will move them forward. Often discernment is the ability to understand what is meant beyond the actual words that are spoken.

9.  Abundance: Always operate from the mindset that there is more than enough to go around. So when a first-time homebuyer or a nervous new recruit is in your office, have an abundant mindset with your time and spend as much as is needed to answer their questions and make them feel comfortable.

10.      Care: There is no action that can make you “care” about others. But doing small things for others can help you understand the incredible rewards you’ll find if you truly do care about people. Start by doing something small for someone in need. If a team member is sick offer to take something off their plate so they can go home to rest. If a client mentions they are overwhelmed by the idea of having to pack up their house, give them a gift set with moving boxes, packing tape and a gift certificate for a local massage or restaurant.

11.      Enthusiasm: Show more excitement for what other people are doing. Clients, team members and partners will be much more interested in working with you if they get more pumped up about doing when they’re around you.

12.      Conviction: You have to know what you will fight for in your business and life. Once you are clear in your convictions, don’t waiver from them. People are drawn to strength and wish to work with those who don’t change with the wind.

13.      Confidence: If you don’t believe that what you do is of value, no one else will. Educate yourself or create new disciplines that will allow you to have confidence in your ability, so you can share that with others.

14.      Persistence: Sometimes it’s the 8th try not the 3rd that’s a charm. People appreciate someone who is willing to hang tough with them until they reach their goals.

15.      Truthfulness: While it can be nice to always hear what you want to hear, with a deep relationship it is better to hear what is true. The basis of a deep relationship is trust, so you can only reach that level by being completely truthful.

16.      Risk: When you are deepening a relationship often you have to take risks. You have to say what is uncomfortable, but is necessary for the other person to grow. Like telling a business partner that when they approach perspective clients they come off as uncaring because they don’t ask good questions and show interest in the prospect’s needs. If you can take the risk and help them change, you will build an incredibly deep relationship.

17.      Transparency: Allow others to see who you really are and what you are doing. No secrets or facades.

18.      Vulnerability: One of the most difficult things you will ever do is allow yourself to be open to what others see in you. When you accept and even request feedback from others on how you can improve your soft and hard skills, you will have a huge advantage in your ability to grow in relationships.

19.      Humility: When you believe that you are better than all those around you, no one feels much of a reason to build a relationship with you. Why would they if they already know they’ll never be as important as you are? Humility is always knowing that you can do more and be better. When trying to recover a relationship humility is essential if you want to start with a clean slate.

20.      Courage: It takes guts to go back to someone who has broken your trust or whose trust you have broken. But the relationships you salvage may end up being some of the deepest relationships you build.

21.      Ownership Mindset: If every person on a team, from the receptionist to the CEO, feels that their actions and decisions impact the experience their co-workers, clients and referral partners will have and they take responsibility for that, you can guarantee that you will have raving fans.

Things to Work on;

Hard Skills

       -What relationship hard skill or discipline are you currently implementing in your business that has been most successful?

       -What hard skill disciplines could you implement today that would help you in this area?

Soft Skills

       -Which soft skill would you most like to improve on?

       -How would improvement in this area positively impact your business and life?

       -Discuss some specific actions you could take to improve that soft skill.