“Sending out brochures and thousands of e-mail blasts to people who have no idea who you are, it fosters awareness, but it really isn’t the kind of relationship I’m looking for,” Donley says. “People lead to other people.”
Get out to networking events in your area if you’re looking to build new relationships. Be patient with them, but understand that the time you put in will pay off if you approach it with the right attitude.
“You can never know too many people,” Donley says. “You have to always be aware that you don’t know where the person you’re talking to is going to end up. We’ve done projects that were so small and people were like, ‘Are you sure it’s not too small?’ And those small projects have led to some of my largest projects and longest standing accounts. You never look at a person and say, ‘They are not worthy of my friendship.’”
When you approach people with a sense of authenticity, it can make all the difference.
“When clients genuinely like you, they will help you and will refer you to other clients and that’s really how it’s worked for us,” Donley says. “The diversification comes from that.”
HOW TO REACH: Vocon, (216) 588-0800 or www.vocon.com
Show the way
Debbie Donley is not a one-woman show when it comes to building relationships with clients of Vocon. She takes steps each day to bring her 65 employees along for the ride.
She begins with the way she carries herself in the office.
“If you tell people to be kind and be genuine and go overboard on service, and then you turn around and you don’t exemplify that in your own behavior, that’s really sort of a disconnect,” says Donley, the principal who founded the architecture and interior design firm in 1987. “If I’m not being kind and being genuine in the way I approach clients, how can I expect my people to do it? If you want to convert to an open environment, but you’re not willing to stand up as a leader and explain why, it’s a hard message to permeate the organization.”
But it takes more than just being friendly and having a lunch for employees. You have to get out there and take an interest in what your people are working on to encourage them to exude passion toward their jobs.
“You have to include other people or you lose perspective,” Donley says. “If you don’t walk in the back and you don’t talk to the people who are creating your work product, you lose touch and they lose touch of you, and that’s not a good thing. There’s not a time I don’t walk in the back and sit down at someone’s desk and say, ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ that I don’t learn something. If you go into your bubble and you don’t come out, you’re missing the world around you. That world is what makes you profitable and successful. You have to engage.”
