Early in my career, I had an irrational overreliance on myself. I needed to be the one who did everything, solved every problem, and knew everything.
Looking back, that mindset definitely held me back, and if I’m being completely honest, it was probably an issue of ego. I grew up poor, and despite having a fairly supportive family, others generally didn’t expect much from me because of my upbringing. I took that personally, and as a result, I felt like I had something to prove, so I was reluctant to lean on anyone. I was afraid people would attribute my success to the people in my circle rather than to me.
It took me a long time to identify this problem, but when I did, everything changed.
I had managed to build a small printing firm from the ground up to over $800,000 in annual revenue, but I was working myself into the ground because of my “lone wolf” mindset. Then, I eventually sold that company and took on the role of VP of Sales and Marketing for one of my former clients. That was where everything got worse.
I stepped in right before a crisis erupted that had been quietly brewing for years. Once that happened, my world was instantly flipped upside down. Now, instead of my role as the new VP of Sales and Marketing, I was forced to step up as the CEO, but since I hadn’t yet invested any time into building the right relationships, I was completely alone.
Our franchisees saw me as an outsider. Not only had I never run a drug testing business before—I didn’t even have any experience in the industry. And without any real relationships within the company, I hadn’t yet earned any trust. I also had the same problem outside of my company with industry peers.
This created an uphill battle.
So I went all in on building the relationships I would need to overcome my newest challenge. I knew that if I was going to turn this crisis around, I would first need the support of my franchises first. I immediately started calling a few each day, getting to know them better, learning about their challenges, fears, and goals. I looked for opportunities to better support them. I demonstrated that I was more qualified than they had assumed, and more importantly, that I cared about them.
But this effort would require a long term commitment, partially because words alone don’t mean much, and partially because I still had to prove I was truly qualified to run the company.
I started running a few of my own locations on top of running headquarters. The learning curve was steep and I definitely made plenty of mistakes along the way, but I set my ego aside and even sought advice from a few of my franchisees.
*Note: Seeking advice from the people under your leadership can be tricky. If you become overly dependent or ask for advice on things you really should know, it can undermine your position and damage the relationships. I had a little more leeway here because running a franchise location is very different from running the parent company, much like how the CEO of McDonalds doesn’t know everything about running a local McDonalds. But it was still a delicate balancing act.
This accomplished two things.
First, it established a track record. As I began growing these locations and outperforming many of our most successful franchisees, my qualifications became unquestionable. Not only had I now run several locations, I had done so at a level others thought was impossible. And second, by setting my ego aside and seeking advice from franchisees in the trenches, I demonstrated that I trusted and valued their input and was open to change.
Both elements helped me to build trust, and over time, I began winning over my franchisees.
I was now building consensus and I had a small but growing number of supporters who believed in me and were willing to fight on my behalf. Those relationships became a gamechanger because they helped me to lead more effectively within my company, but I didn’t stop there. I also started building relationships with peers in the industry, regulators and legislators, and even C-suite executives at other companies. If I was going to scale my company to its potential, I was going to need a wider pool of valuable relationships to provide insight, open doors, and even become referral partners or clients.
I began getting more involved in the professional associations in my industry and nurturing relationships with my peers. It was a lot easier now because I now had plenty of evidence to demonstrate my competence and expertise. But building relationships here required a very different approach because the goals and challenges of my peers were completely different than my franchisees. I focused on providing value that benefited them. In some cases, that was operational or marketing insight because I happened to be very effective in those areas while most entrepreneurs struggle. In other cases, it might be mindset, finance, or some other area of business.
I also invested time, resources, and energy into lobbying legislators on behalf of our industry. Of course this benefited me, but it also benefited every single one of my peers and they appreciated that. And in addition to the direct benefit, they now saw me as an industry leader because I had developed powerful relationships with legislators, and they wanted proximity to that.
That opened countless doors. I was appointed to several board positions within industry associations, I was frequently featured in the media, getting meetings with prospects became easier, and in many cases, prospects even sought me out.
As a result of focusing on building, nurturing, and leveraging the right relationships, I was able to take a company mired in crisis and facing plummeting revenue, and turn it around into a massive success. I took my company from just under $300,000 in annual revenue at the lowest point of our crisis, to over $8 million in annual revenue in just a few years.
That’s something I could never have done on my own—it was only possible through the power of the right relationships. And it’s why I believe every entrepreneur should make building, nurturing, and leveraging the right relationships one of their top priorities.