Are You Building Relational Wealth?

A friend recently forwarded an Andy Stanley podcast featuring special guest Glen Jackson, a brand strategy thought leader. Although Glen is technically a competitor, we serve different regions of the country. And excellence should always be shared whenever possible. Glen definitely shared excellence.

Andy covered quite a lot with Glen in this podcast. But what stood out for me was the concept of building relational wealth. In today's post, we'll expand on Glen's perspective on relational wealth, plus we'll walk through an action plan for building your own relational wealth. 

Why relational wealth? Pretty simple...you want to grow your brand in a healthy way. Relational wealth is the most valuable asset you can develop to support healthy growth. By definition it is an abundance of valuable, authentic relationships. It is not marketing. It is not selling. And it is not networking. It is not measured in related revenue. It is not measured in the quantity of your LinkedIn connections. It is best measured by how consistently active you are, daily, in the three steps in building relational wealth...

Research

Be thoughtful about who you want to connect with and why. Take the time to understand, through their lens, why developing a relationship on some level would be valuable for them. Your value in the potential relationship should already be obvious. Set a reasonable goal for developing new relationships...monthly total with a daily investment of 30 minutes specifically for this type of activity.

Connect

Connecting occurs through events, referral introductions, and yes LinkedIn. The key to connecting is relating to people of interest around "commons". Commons are interests, people, groups and the like. They must be authentic. It's unwise to try to connect with someone just because you targeted them as a prospect. In fact, most of your relational wealth does not represent prospects, rather access to them.

Invest

Investing is sharing value. Sharing information or access to something of value like an event is about giving. It occurs consistently over time. You can't force it and it's not about you or your brand. Whatever your investment, do the research so that whatever you share will be genuinely useful to them. It's great if it somehow related to your interests and work focus. But it can't be forced.

Building relational wealth is critical in preserving and growing the health of your brand. Be deliberate. Be committed. Invest daily.