When it comes to a few different kinds of essential business relationships, the more you know, the better. It’s imperative if you plan on being successful that you understand the language of financial interactions between various types of companies and brands. Without this knowledge, you can end up in a situation where you lose out to a competitor who has done the research ahead of time.
Specifically, there are three sets of business relationships that you should pay attention to right away. The first is business to business. Especially if you plan on creating a niche for yourself as a middleman, business-to-business interaction etiquette is essential. Second, there is business-to-consumer functionality. If you plan on selling directly to an individual or if you plan on giving services on a personal level, these are the most important interactions for you to understand.
And third, and a relative newcomer to the business spectrum, is the idea of a social relationship – these are the ones that come from social media platforms.
B2B
Business-to-business distributions come in a lot of different formats. They make up the majority of e-commerce these days. And before e-commerce was significant, they made up a massive percentage of sales otherwise. Whenever goods and services have to move between warehousing locations and major hubs of sales, it’s the business-to-business format that makes it happen.
If you’re looking to find a consistent and stable business plan, working in this category tends to make the most sense.
B2C
Business-to-consumer interactions are an entirely different matter. If you are selling a piece of art to an individual, you have to put psychology behind you. You have to understand the personalized interactions that come with face-to-face communications. You need to know how body language works. You need to know how to make people move through your sales funnel. Without genuinely believing in your product and understanding the techniques that go along with it, you’ll be at an unfortunate disadvantage.
Social Relationships
A final type of business interaction that is particularly valuable these days is the social interaction that comes through social media platforms. It is not a matter of going out and shaking someone’s hand. It is a matter of understanding how to use social media for business in a way that presents genuine value to you and your potential clients. Your social media reach can be exponentially larger than your physical reach, and everything that you can do to leverage these connections is a benefit to you.
You’ll often find these days that businesses who have most embraced the concept of social relationships are the ones who do the best visibly, and their financial bottom line probably further promotes the idea that they have done the right thing.
