Blog · The Craft
Building Valuable Relationships
The seven practices below really work, and that isn't the problem. The problem is that everyone knows them, and almost no one keeps them up for more than six months. What's missing isn't the list: it's whoever has the job of applying it.
Published 26 November 2024 · rewritten 16 August 2026
The list, in brief
Seven practices that hold up
None of these are ours, and none are new. They serve as foundations, and foundations get cited once, and then you build on top of them.
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1 · Start from what you stand for
"We offer business consulting" attracts no one. A clear position does — and above all it repels whoever isn't aligned with it, which is half the job.
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2 · Really listen
Three questions, always the same ones: what are their goals, how can you help them reach those goals, what can you offer that goes beyond business.
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3 · Give before you receive
It isn't generosity: it's how you open a position the other person will feel the need to close. It has a name, and it's further down.
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4 · Be authentic
It doesn't mean being perfect. It means being consistent: consistency is the only thing a person can verify from a distance.
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5 · Plan the follow-up
A relationship isn't born from a meeting, it's born from the second one. It's the point where almost every network dies, for a trivial reason: no one remembers who to call back.
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6 · Be reliable over time
If you promise, deliver. Trust isn't an instant judgement: it's a track record (Fifth law).
7 · Look for synergies, not favours. The relationships that last are the ones where both parties grow. It's the only one of the seven that doesn't depend on your personal discipline but on the structure of what you're building — and that's why it's the hardest.
Why it isn't enough
A list of best practices is a promise made to yourself
Anyone who's read an article like this has promised themselves they'll apply it. Then Monday arrives.
What happens inside a business
The seven practices compete with urgent work, and they lose every time. Not out of laziness: because none of them has a deadline, someone responsible, or a number that flags their absence. What isn't measured doesn't get defended when time runs short.
What it takes
The same practices, with three things attached: a time slot — the routine belongs inside the day, not after it; someone responsible — the Referral Director, for whom this is the job, not an extra; and a measure, because a relationship with no record is just a memory.
Good intentions don't have a deadline. That's exactly their flaw.
One word at a time
The third practice has a name
"Give before you receive" is networking's most repeated piece of advice, and it stays just advice until someone says what happens next.
When you introduce someone valuable, you're not performing a kind gesture: you're opening a position. The other party notices, and the system records it instead of trusting it to memory. This is the Reciprocity Engine, and the difference from plain generosity is that a position gets closed.
The objection always shows up here: "what do I reciprocate with?" No one gives their best client away to a stranger — and that's exactly why reciprocity stays shut in the drawer out of cost, not stinginess. Delegating it to someone whose job is to deliver it is what gets it out: delegated reciprocity, which materialises as Match Credit.
The first step
Where your company stands, in one number
AIRA-SCAN© measures the Relational Capital your company already has: ten questions, three minutes, no registration. Your browser calculates the score and shows it immediately, with the dimensions where you lose the most points.
The extended report then arrives by email, and within one working day someone calls you: you look at the result together and assess whether the Stoic Analysis AIRA-DX© makes sense for your company. It is free and limited to twelve a week, so it is not owed to whoever takes the check-up: it is decided together.
Prefer just to talk? The number is 0549 888808.