By Lois Frankel, Ph.D., author of Nice Girls Just Don’t Get It, a book that examines the differences between nice girls and successful women in business. Based on an interview with Suzi Dafnis for the herBusiness podcast. When it comes to business relationships, women often make two mistakes: Number one, we don’t differentiate transactional relationships from personal relationships. Transactional relationships revolve around some kind of transaction for a short period of time. For example, I may go to a street fair and bargain with a street vendor. Well, if you think you always have to be polite and kind because you may somehow damage the relationship or cause the other person to think less of you, then you’re not getting that this is a transactional relationship. In other words, it’s one that you can walk away from. Yes, you have to treat the other person with respect, but you have nothing to lose by trying to bargain. And that’s opposed to a personal relationship where you say, “You know what – I need to put a little more time and energy into this relationship than I would a transactional one.”
Many women spend too much time on transactional relationships.
They try to make everybody their friends. But, guess what – you don’t need to have everybody be your friend! So, that’s number one. The second mistake that we make is not leveraging our relationships. We’re good at building the relationships, but we’re not good at leveraging them. We’re not good at asking for what we want once we are in a relationship.
Things get done through relationships.
Through networking, we get information, assistance and support. We get the things that we need through our relationships and our network and you really can’t ignore that because life is too hard otherwise. On the television show The Apprentice, Donald Trump brings in these celebrities and he usually divides them into two groups: men and women. He then gives them a challenge. Well, he did this once with the challenge of selling cupcakes.
The women put together a marketing plan. They tried their hardest to sell a lot of cupcakes, at something like $10 each, on the corner of a New York street. The guys just picked up the phone and called their friends and said, “Would you be willing to buy a dozen cupcakes for $5,000? The money will go to charity.” And the friends said, “Sure, I’ll take a dozen for $5,000.”
Now, what’s interesting about this is that I told the story in a workshop here in Australia, and a couple of the women said, “So the guys cheated?” “That’s not cheating,” I said. “That’s using your relationships in a very smart way.” Suzi: That’s interesting to me, because if the rules were laid down, where did we get the idea that it was cheating? Lois: Yeah, exactly! Because the only rule was whoever made the most money would win the challenge. It didn’t say you couldn’t charge $5,000 for a dozen cupcakes, or you couldn’t call your friends and ask them to come and buy cupcakes.
Women fall short because…
they feel like they can’t go against established expectations. And as a result, they miss out on opportunities Sometimes it’s about asking for a job. I’ve had women tell me that they knew that their best friend’s husband knew about a job opportunity.
“Well, did you ask him to put in a good word for you?” I asked. “No, I don’t want to take advantage of an relationship.” It’s not taking advantage. People can always say, “No.” Or they may say, “Yes.”
As women, we need to understand people will take care of themselves. We don’t always have to play the caretaker role. If people don’t want to support you, then they will tell you – and it won’t be the end of the world. But we must have the courage to ask for support and leverage our relationships.
Click the image to listen to the podcast interview with Lois Frankel by Suzi Dafnis on the Australian Businesswomen’s Network website.
