You never close a sale. You only begin a long-term relationship where both parties win.
Can you think of a successful relationship without mutual trust? Break that trust and you break the relationship. Subvert it and it’s almost impossible to put together again. Creating a long-term relationship takes two or more people – whether they’re executives, representatives of labor and management, or husband and wife – who are grounded in and operating on the same non-situational honesty.
The central secret of good communication is bringing the other person over to your side by satisfying one of every person’s most fundamental emotional needs: Make him or her feel valued. With rare exceptions, people who feel valued – who are allowed to feel important in the sense that they are recognized – answer with openness, cooperation and reciprocated respect. If you want respect, be respectable. If you want to be loved, be loveable. If you want to be trusted, be trustworthy. If you want a life-long relationship, listen openly to the other person’s needs. Much more than trying to accumulate money and power, leaders in the new era will acquire good will by helping their associates, customers, neighbors, and loved ones to win. Instead of what can you do for me, we need to embrace the new stewardship role of what can I do for you.
