10 Questions to Help You Keep Track of Your Professional Relationships

If you are looking to maintain relationships with your professional contacts, there are some things you need to think about.

Most doctors firmly believe that certain types of regular screening tests and checkups are essential and help save lives. And most of us, no matter how much we despise devoting an hour or more to getting poked and prodded, dutifully go for an annual checkup each year. After all, our health is vital to our overall well-being and happiness. Andrew Sobel says that annual checkups can play a vital role in your professional health as well—especially with regard to client and customer relationships, which are the lifeblood of every business.

Andrew Sobel

“In fact, you should absolutely review the ‘health’ of your client relationships on a regular basis,” says Sobel, coauthor along with Jerold Panas of Power Questions: Build Relationships, Win New Business, and Influence Others. “Here’s why: Most clients vote with their feet. They don’t tell you they are unhappy—they simply start to give their business to your competitors. Client relationship checkups can help you gauge the health of these relationships, prescribe changes when necessary, and identify ways to further grow them.”

Sobel recommends infusing your client health checkups with power questions.

Here are ten questions you should ask yourself when you are considering the health of your client relationships: Continue Reading

Nine Ways Power Questions Help Build Better Business Relationships

The following post examines the benefits of asking questions when attempting to build business (and personal) relationships.

Just a few years ago, globalization was in full swing, and the world seemed to be bursting with an infinite supply of business. All this bounty lulled us into taking our customers for granted, maintains Andrew Sobel—until the economy tanked and shattered the illusion of endless prosperity. Suddenly, the old-fashioned “trusted relationship” started to look good again.

“In this post-Madoff era of unpredictability and suspicion, people are looking for deeper, more intimate, and more engaged relationships—the kind that reduce risk,” says Sobel, author (along with coauthor, Jerold Panas) of Power Questions: Build Relationships, Win New Business, and Influence Others and three other books on long-term business relationships. Continue Reading