High-Value Relationships ™

by Jim Cathcart

Every relationship has a value. Some low, some high. Some financial, some emotional, some social, etc.
When you operate with a high level of “Relationship Intelligence” ™, you look at all of your relationships as assets and treat them as valuable items.

The value of a relationship is defined by your Desired Outcomes. Once you determine what you want to achieve then your relationships take on new meaning. Some relate to the Desired Outcome and some do not. Those that contribute to your cause need to be nurtured and managed in the ways that optimize their value. The others can be addressed based upon their importance in other areas.

Step one in creating and growing High-Value Relationships ™ is: Become Conscious of your existing relationships and re-examine them with respect to your Desired Outcomes (Goals.)
Step two is: Be more intentional in how you cultivate each relationship. Keep your goals in mind and guide the relationships toward that Desired Outcome.
Step three is: Be relentless in staying the course toward your goals. Keep cultivating more and better connections with everyone in your circle of acquaintances.
Finally, Step four is: Be yourself. Don’t try to make your life a series of manipulations of others. Instead build genuine, trust filled connections with people you enjoy and respect.

The payoff from all of this will be an amazing matrix of powerful friendships that increase your success potential in unexpected ways.

For more on this read the earlier posts here on Relationship Intelligence ™.
Jim Cathcart www.cathcart.com

Living Fully – on and off the job

by Jim Cathcart

This morning I was invited to speak on the subject of “working hard and still having a balanced life.”
Now there’s a subject I could speak and write about all day long!

Consider for a moment this question: How Fully Are You Living?

Speaker Hall of Fame Banquet presentation

On Decker Canyon Road above Malibu

What happens at Grandma’s stays at Grandma’s

You and I have the capacity to live in many ways: mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially, socially, professionally and with our family. Each of these areas requires its own time and attention.

When we neglect or ignore any aspect of our life, after a while it will interrupt the rest of our life to get its needed attention. For example: if you don’t take care of your body, it will break down in injury or illness until it gets the attention required. The same applies to your relationships, your finances and even your intellectual development. When you don’t live fully in that part of your life, it tends to interfere with the other parts of your life.

So our “job” in life is to live as fully as we are reasonably capable of in all life areas.
A way that I’m fond of keeping this on my radar screen is by doing an occasional review of each area and measuring how fully I’ve been living in that area lately. I ask “how fully have I been living in this part of my life lately?” I look at each area and then reflect on recent weeks to determine the appropriate rating. I use a 1 to 10 scale with 10 being highest.

Here’s how it looks:
Mental- 7, I’ve been reading, viewing historical and philosophical shows on TV, discussing important ideas and concepts with respected friends, and journaling my ideas plus reviewing former notes.
Physical- 9, I work out six days a week and two of the workouts are trail running uphill in the mountains near my home with a group of competitive hiker friends. I eat healthy food and don’t smoke.
Family- 8, I’ve spent quality time with my wife each week and with my son’s family and grandchildren. I’ve called Mom every few days and communicated with all of them regularly.
Social- 8, We have been active in community events, spent quality time with friends and entertained in our home often.
Spiritual- 4, I have not attended church recently nor read scriptures or had faith related discussions with many others. (Needs work now.)
Financial- 6, Though I keep good records and manage my money carefully, I have not done any active planning and research in recent weeks. (Plan for a comprehensive review and take action.)
Career- 10, I’ve attended seminars and speeches, collaborated with colleagues, written many articles, done new research, delivered speeches and seminars in several states and explored new opportunities almost daily.
Emotional- 9, I’ve played guitar and sang for 1/2 hour daily, learned a dozen new songs, been to movies and concerts, lectures and plays, told jokes and laughed with friends, relaxed and savored the beauty of Spring all around me and attended my grandson’s ball game. There is much joy in my life.

Now it may be obvious to you that I have much room for improvement but I hope it is also obvious that I’m conscious and intentional in the way that I live my life. I don’t let much time pass before I address each area of life to assure that I’m living with balance and variety. How about you? What numbers would you place in each area and why?

That was step one; the evaluation of your current reality. How you are living right now. For step two you will need to make plans and prepare to take actions. This begins with a new question:
What do you want?

Until you know what your Desired Outcomes are you won’t be ready to begin. Take some time right now and ask yourself what results you’d like to see in each of these life areas. What can you reasonably expect yourself to do to address each area more effectively? Describe in writing what you can do to expand your numbers for the better.

When you know what you want in each area the best way to begin is by selecting the first steps. Commit to step one and your journey is underway! I call these your “Minimum Daily Actions.”
You determine the least you could do to begin building momentum toward ideal actions and results.
For Mental improvement you might simply read one page of a book each day. That should get you started and you’ll likely read much more once you’ve begun.
For Physical, you might simply commit to putting on your workout clothes daily. Once dressed your chances of exercising will increase a hundredfold.
For Family, you could commit to asking each family member one question today and then fully listen to their answers.
You get the picture. Which ever area you are focusing on, focus fully and commit to begin action.
The reason most people live unbalanced lives is because they don’t manage their attention and then their actions intentionally.
Be more intentional in everything you do. Start by becoming more conscious of what you currently do or don’t do, then select your Desired Outcomes and commit to taking Minimum Daily Actions to get things rolling. What you will find is that your life becomes immensely more satisfying and your sense of control over your life will grow.
You were put here with a world of potential, please use all of it so that the rest of us can benefit from your contributions as you do from ours.
In the Spirit of Growth,
Jim

PS if you’d like more on this topic, check out my book The Acorn Principle in print or audio CD.

A very cool way to read my e-books “Yudu”

by Jim Cathcart

I’ve discovered a very innovative tool for displaying an e-book so that you can adjust the size of the page, turn pages by clicking the corner of the page and see the whole book easily. Two of my e-books have been converted to this format in the past fifteen minutes!
Here are the links so that you can see them.

Getting the Sale e-book

Introduction to Relationship Selling e-book by Jim Cathcart “>

Note: these sell for $9.95 on my website but you can view them here for free to see the value they hold. I’m very excited about this format and would love to hear your feedback on it.
I’ll also post the link to Yudu.com so that you can check it out for yourself. (Their service is free.)

Yudu.com website.

Social Networks and High Value Relationships

by Jim Cathcart
copyright 2008

Another day, another new social network.
It’s like the 1990s when the “dot com” businesses were being created by-the-hour, resulting in what we later called “the tech boom.” So, with all these options: LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, SynergyStreet, Plaxo, Naymz, etc., what’s a person to do? How do we know whether to sign up and fill out a profile? Will it just be a diversion and a waste of otherwise valuable time?

Personally, I’m signed up and “profiled” with several of them. I don’t know which one will truly pay off but I do know this; the online traffic is shifting right now from simple emails and traditional websites to Social Networks and Blogs.

Here’s why: Accessibility and Trustworthiness.
We want two main things from our online resources; 1. the ability to use them easily without extra cost or special training and 2. to be able to trust them not to spam us or infect our computers with viruses.
Social Networks offer both of these. So do Blogs. Let’s address them one at a time.

Social Networks
These wonderful communities allow us to choose who we connect with and at the same time they provide most of the capabilities we had through our websites and Outlook email. We can share photos, tell stories in our posts, communicate with our “base” of friends easily, monitor what’s up with those in our network and more. We can tell the whole family and extended family our news with only a few clicks. And we can do this via anyone’s computer or PDA. Many cell phones offer us the same ability.
No longer must we send lengthy letters or newsletters. Now we can simply post the news, add the links we want and attach the items we wish to share. What a miraculous invention!

But which network should you use?
I’d say use the one(s) that get the job done for you. Don’t worry about being exclusive for now. Just dive in, with appropriate caution, and start communicating. See and be seen. Get “out and about” so that others can easily connect with you.
If you are concerned about having to check multiple sources each day, don’t. Just sign up for the automatic notifications via email and watch your Outlook in-box. When someone posts a message to you , you’ll get an email.

The reason I suggest you get involved so fully is this; connections lead to collections. You’ve got to circulate to percolate. If you ain’t in it, you can’t win it. Get my point?
High-Value Relationships usually start out as low value relationships. They only gain value as others begin to see more value to them by staying connected with you. We used to describe a person who knew lots of others as someone who was “well connected.” Today that is even more true.
Part of your Equity in the marketplace is determined by the number of people who trust you.

Knowledge is no longer Power
Knowledge is and will always be valuable, but Power has moved. It has moved from Knowledge to Trust. In any situation, the person who is most trusted by others is the person with the most power. In Social Networks you are able to build your connections, strengthen your reputation, and expand the number of people who feel comfortable communicating with you. You can begin by simply communicating and exploring, then when appropriate, contribute something you feel they will value. Before long you will be known and trusted. Soon after, you will find people seeking your advice, input and recommendations.

Build Trust before you need it
By cultivating these relationships you will be accumulating a relationship “bank account” from which you can make withdrawals (asking for something) later on. At first though, you will need to make plenty of “deposits” by seeking ways to share useful information, offer encouragement, and take an interest in others. Get known and liked in the “neighborhood” by being a good neighbor and friend.

Blogs are the new Websites
What makes a web-log (Blog) so desirable is its ease of use. We’ve always wanted our websites to do more than most of them do and with Blogs we have it. We can make edits on impulse, make changes and additions without relearning code, and get picked up by Search Engines easily. Blogs have become the non-techie’s website of preference. I find I’m even favoring my Blogs over my website when I want to communicate something to the marketplace.

The drawback is that far too many people are creating Blogs. There is much useless information on the web now and it is growing daily. But your friends and followers can avoid the “noise” by simply subscribing to your Blog via a RSS feed. Most Blog services offer this feature for free, and most Blogs are free as well. Blogger and WordPress plus many others offer you the ability to create a Blog at no cost and be up and running within an hour or less. Explore this Blog (the one you are reading right now) and see how much functionality it has. This is a WordPress Blog and its features are impressive. For free! Nice.

If I were starting my online presence today I’d skip the website and go straight to the Blog. Though my website (Cathcart.com) is highly capable and offers video clips, articles, links, and fancy formatting…so does my Blog. And on the Blog I don’t have to call my webmaster to get things edited. It is simple enough to do it myself.
For expertise in whether to Blog, how to Blog and what not to do, seek out Ted Demopoulos and read his books on Blogging for Business. Be sure to get a copy of his booklet titled “Secrets of Successful Blogging.” It’s a quick and easy read with loads of tips and insights.

The folks who subscribe to your Blog’s RSS feed are the base of your own network of High-Value Relationships. When you make it easy for them to communicate with you, learn from you and determine whether they can trust you, you also remove their barriers to buying. People do business with the people they like and the people they trust. Become one through Blogging and Social Networking.
And, please, stay in touch through your comments, recommendations and emails.
See you on the internet!
Jim

R.I. is the next generation in a generation of published works

Books by Jim Cathcart

Over the past 31 years I’ve written and published 14 books, two of which have become international bestsellers: The Acorn Principle and Relationship Selling. My next book will combine the concepts from these earlier 14 with many years of new research in order to explore “How to Grow High-Value Relationships tm”. The title of the book will be “Relationship Intelligence tm”. (I’ve trademarked the phrase “Relationship Intelligence”)

As you visit this Blog and read the various entries on this concept I’d really appreciate your input. Any views, questions, suggestions or observations would be welcomed. This will become a substantial new book in a few months and it deserves to have more minds contributing to it. Please share your input in the comments section of this Blog.
Thank you,
In the Spirit of Growth,
Jim

Number 2 National Bestseller E-Book

A Google Alert today notified me of an older piece of “news” that brought a smile to my face. It linked to an article in 2001 announcing the sales of my book The Acorn Principle in the (at that time very new) e-book format. Out of two thousand titles my book became the nation’s #2 bestseller right behind Stephen King. Not bad, not bad at all.
Here’s the link if you’d enjoy reading the article.
<a href=”FindArticles – The Acorn Principle is No. 2 Best Seller in E-Books Survey“>Acorn Principle hits #2 Bestseller Status!