Are you in the "Relationship Business"?

As Robert Scoble and Shel Israel mention in Naked Conversations, all great sales people are in the relationship business. When I hear this, naturally as a Political Science major, I automatically think political candidates and their campaigns. In order to become a viable candidate you need to know how to form and retain trusting relationships. Yes kissing hands and shaking babies (I mean shaking hands and kissing babies) is all well and good, but in this era of technology, it is not the candidate that shakes the most hands that wins the election. A candidate must be able to transfer that relationship he just created with a "potential" supporter in person and foster it through the internet.

Mitt Romney, in my eyes, understands this the most. Being in the private sector for 25+ years, he learned and mastered this. His campaign is one of the most effectively and efficiently organized operation I have ever seen. His ability to get out his message via a rigorous campaign schedule followed by a massive word of mouth operation through customer evangelists, such as bloggers, coalitions, steering committees, political heavy weights and most importantly his advertising strategy that encompasses every single element a business needs to succeed, is why this once little known candidate has become one of the most viable people for the Republican nomination.

Bringing in the Calvary...

You always hear about companies bringing in new executives to turnaround a company. However, Rob Cross states in "Connecting to Collaborate",

"Experienced hires at the executive level aren't that successful in most organizations. They have to prove themselves at the new organization before they're listened to...[and] that takes one to two years. Many aren't willing to invest that much time, or simply quit when they can't crack the network."

To me, this claim seems rather false for most organizations when you look at the many turnarounds that have occurred throughout both the private and public sectors in America.

In cases such as the Salt Lake City Olympics, J.Crew, and even at my job at the Department of the Interior, outsiders that were brought in at the executive level where able to form the networks necessary to efficiently fulfill their jobs and became valuable assets to the companies. In my opinion, if this practice was actually hurting companies nationwide, it would not be as prevalent as it is today.

I don't want to say that I disagree with the quote completely, but I do believe if you are truly an "experienced hire," one of the skills that you must possess is the ability and the skills to invest the time in forming both informal and formal networks with your colleagues...if not, well you don't deserve the executive position in the first place.

My First Blog Post

My name is John Zevitas and I am a Student at American University majoring in Political Science with a minor in Marketing...

I am blogging for a class called Social Networking and Business.

On my honor, all posts on this blog are my own.

- John Zevitas