Why “Adding Value” is Key to Building Meaningful Relationships.

My strongest ability is my capability to surround myself with amazing people, whether they are friends, teammates, fellow founders, etc. I’ve been fortunate that my parents gave me the right level of emotional intelligence (EQ), so I do this fairly naturally. I don’t take this ability for granted, but to me, it’s always come down to one simple thing: Whenever I can, I try toadd/share something of value in all of my interactions. This isn’t something that only applies to founders, it applies to everyone. At my previous job as a business development officer (aka: business consulting), whenever I met someone who I knew would not qualify for our loan programs, I would always try and find a way for them to leave feeling they gained something of value in our interaction, and I continued to do the same thing when dealing with the more established companies I worked with.

While part of what I do is calculated, at the core of it is a real desire to build meaningful relationships that benefit all involved.

A few examples of how I do this:

Interacting with other founders: When I meet with them I avoid the“We’re killing it” and “Everything is Awesome”. I get why founders do this, but I save those conversations for investors or other stakeholders. There’s nothing helpful about making another founder feel inferior because they arenot killing it. Instead, I openly discuss some of the challenges we face. I also share anecdotes about certain situations we’ve encountered and how we overcame them. And “IF” there is an opportunity (and timing makes sense), I’ll offer them an intro to someone in my network that can help them, it’s not something I do in all my interactions, as I want to be respectful of others’ time.

Why? People talk. If I can share knowledge or connections that helps another founder grow or overcome a challenge. My expectations is that said founder will make mention of this in passing in other conversations they have, perhaps to their own investors, or even clients. This helps me level up my credibility and visibility as a CEO (All CEOs should work on their “personal brand” as they are building their companies).

Interacting with investors: During 500 Startups, Sanjay Singhal, CEO ofAudiobooks.com, investor in our company, and LP in 500 was in town. He reached out to grab dinner, and with his permission I decided to invite 8 CEOs from our batch that I felt he might be interested in?—?he ended up investing in two of them. During the same batch, I also sent 5 companies to another of our investors that would also have potential interest?—?they also made an investment. I even sent deal flow to investors who did not invest in us (sometimes there just ins’t a good fit), as long as they were professional in how they dealt with us.

Why? If an investor ends up getting in early on a great opportunity and a founder closes a deal, then it’s win/win. For investors who are not a good fit for us today, they could be down the road or for my next company. Additionally, the founder who just landed an investment will likely secure other investors along the way, some of them which I may want an intro to at some point?—?the math is pretty easy on this one. :)

Interacting with clients (or potential clients): When I get on a sales call , the first thing I do is try to understand the client’s situation. I never talk about our product out of the gate and I never get “sales-y”. Instead I qualify if they are a good fit for us, and vice-versa; if it checks all the right, then I close them. If there isn’t an obvious fit, I usually leave them with a tip on something they can do to get more great candidates or a “Did You Know?” fact that could be helpful regardless. This way both parties hang up not feeling like the call was a waste of time.

Why? Nothing is black and white in business, just because they are not a good fit now, doesn’t mean they won’t be in the future, and when they are in a position to use our product, hopefully we’ll have stood out from the conversations they’ve had with our competitors. However sometimes it’s obvious that a potential lead will NEVER be a great client, in those instances I refer them to our competitors. Just kidding… possibly.

In reality I shouldn’t need to explain the “Why” for any of these examples. I can easily count over a dozen of serendipitous moments that have come from this approach since we started Qimple.

One instance in particular, is when I first met John Philip Green, CEO atCareguide.com, I immediately knew he was someone I could learn a great deal from, but I wasn’t sure what I could offer him in return at the time. So I did what I could do at the time, and I started sharing his social media posts that were related to milestones that Careguide had achieved so he would notice my support. It is a great business for those not familiar.

Then one day, John (who I had only met once in person) went out of his way and put his reputation on the line, to provide a bold reference that helped us get into 500 Startups. Since then, we’ve continued to help our respective businesses grow and have become friends along the way.

Other things you can do (if it applies):

• If your founder friend built a product that you can be a user/customer of?—?do it!
• Don’t just share things that are specific to you, share other people’s success stories.
• Co-promote; mention them in a blog post for example ;)
• If you know someone that could help a fellow founder (who is doing something awesome), find a way to namedrop them in your next conversation.

There are countless other simple things you can do, but that’s all I can think of at the moment, since it’s a 2 am.

I do want to add a word of caution: One thing I’ve learned over time is that you need to qualify the potential relationships you plan on emotionally investing in. While not rampant, there have been times where the benefits are clearly one-sided, and when that happens it’s time to cut those ties and move on. As you get older you quickly realize that you only have so much energy to invest in people (even more so when starting a company), so don’t spend that energy in the wrong places.

None of this is rocket science, but it’s not a given. Next time you ask yourself“How can they help me?” also ask yourself “How can I help them?”. You’ll end up building stronger relationships?—?many of which will result in lifelong friends.