Invest In Your Relationships

Invest In Your Relationships

Let me ask you a question. Let's say you want to buy a bag. Now, there are two people selling you the same bag. One is a friend of yours. The other is a stranger.

Would you buy from the stranger or from your friend? Of course, you will buy from the strange IF you hate your friend.

But most often than not, you would prefer to buy from your friend instead. Am I right? After all, your friend only wants the best for you.

Great Relationships = Great Business

If you're running a business, what does this tell you? It means, in order to sell something to your customer, you must first be his friend. 

Are you treating your customers like friends? Do you take the effort to get to know them better? Do you spend some time just listening to their dreams? Do you try to find out what they really want and go out of your way to give it to them?

Unless you treat your customers like friends, they will never stay as your customers very long. They will go to your competitors in the blink of an eye, with the slightest mistake you make. 

The good news is, if you treat your customers as friends, not only will they be more patient with you, they will also be more accommodating to give you another chance to prove yourself again.

Take the time to get to know your customers better. Understand your customer's wants and needs like a good friend will do. Go out of your way to give it to him. And soon, your customer will consider you his friend, and be a customer for life. 

Great Relationships = Great Workplace

During my early years in the IT industry working as a programmer, I mostly keep everything to myself. In my mind, if I am really that good at my job, there's no need for me to relate with other people. After all, wouldn't I just be getting into office politics? I hate politics!

I used to be an introvert --- and part of me still am. But now I understand that in order to get things done, you have to work well with other people. 

You need to be able to communicate what you need so your co-workers can help you out. You need to be able to listen to your boss --- really listen, so you can deliver what your work demands.

It's not about being overly eager to please everybody. It's about caring and showing appreciation just because you are first and foremost a friend, not a co-worker. The greatest human need is the need to be appreciated. 

So, show your friend a little bit of appreciation today. See what happens. It might just surprise you. 

When you start to open up, you will feel like everybody is a little bit easier to work with. Your colleagues don't seem to be as bad you thought they would be. It would seem like everyone is doing a great job. 

Great Relationships=Great Life

There's no denying that the best gift you can give to your loved ones is time. You can have all the money in the world, but if you can't give your daughter or son time, it's not worth it.

It is no wonder that families with one parent working as an OFW need to work doubly hard to keep their family together. I don't want to sound pessimistic but some people do sacrifice a lot just to be able to make a living. Unfortunately, one of those sacrifices is taking away the parents' valuable time supposed to be spent loving and guiding their kids growing up.

This is one of the reasons why my wife and I came home to the Philippines after 2 and half years working as an OFW in Malaysia. We wanted to spend more time with our families and friends back home. 

We wanted to be able to celebrate good things together, face adversities together and just be happy that we are blessed to have the opportunity to share our lives together.

That's why I want to learn to manage and invest my money well so that I don't have to choose between spending time with my family and earning a living. My dream is to have both at the same time. And my wish is that this article helps you in your financial journey so you can have them both as well.

Cheers to great relationships and financial success!

Source:

Rich Money Habits