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You may have read or heard about the importance of a network in building a business.  The network is simply a group of people that you know, or who know you, and enjoy what you are doing.  There are people in your network who are champions for you; there are certainly fans and customers who can all support you.

Also in your network are mentors, coaches, investors, and your team of people who are actively involved with the development of your business.

How do you get them all to rally around you and your business?  How do you keep fans and, in fact, make them raving fans of your product or service?

There are a few key skills that we learn—though very few people learn them intentionally and even fewer people practice them.  Those who become masters at these skills, however, kick butt in business, create raving fans, and enjoy positive relationships in every aspect of their lives.  I call this the Relationship Building System.

In one fell swoop these skills are:

• Listening
• Speaking
• Feeling Empathy
• Acting with Sympathy

Listening

Listening is, perhaps, the most important skill in life.  Listening allows you to learn what another person’s true needs are, and this allows you to create solutions to their problems.  We can increase the use of listening if we do two things.  First, we must stop thinking when someone is speaking to us.  Suspend your judgment and do not allow your brain to begin generating your response before the person speaking to you is finished with their thoughts.  This allows you to be present and opens you up for watching the person—which is the second step!  Watch a person’s non-verbal communication.  Go to the mall and watch people walk by.  Can you tell what emotion they are carrying with them?  Most often, you will be right on because our non-verbal communication carries so much weight with our message.  A Zen quote that I like reads, “Listen with the eyes and see with the ears.”

Speaking

Speaking is when you share your message with someone else.  To increase our skills in speaking we must know that we only come from our own perspective.  What is true for you may not be true for me.  We break this skill into two practices.  First, always use “I” statements and stay away from generalizations when sharing your thoughts.  For example, “we all feel” is a generalization—use “I feel” to convene your truth.  Then, be sure to become aware of your non-verbal communication.  Dress appropriately and use your body mannerisms (hand movements, eye contact) in ways that emphasize and support your message.

Feeling Empathy

Feeling empathy is simply “walking in someone else’s shoes.”  Most of us learn empathy when we are around two years old.  When we listen well and understand our truth, empathy comes naturally.  We can increase our skills of empathy with practice.  Again, by watching people, even in movies, we can practice relating to others’ feelings.  As you watch people in the mall and determine their emotional state, ask yourself “Why might they feel this way?”  As your life experiences grow, you will have more resources to draw from in determining why people feel as they do.  You can also ask people if you know them well enough.  Answering the “why” to someone’s current emotional state offers you insights which may allow you to feel what they are going through.

Sympathy

Lastly, though not least by any means, is the skill of sympathy.  There are many definitions for sympathy, and I take this meaning:

Sympathy is the ability to feel empathy for another person and also to have a desire to bring the person into a better place.

Read: sell!  In order to be successful entrepreneurs we have to listen to our potential customers, be able to speak with them from our own perspectives, understand why they feel what they feel, and then we must care!  This provides our creativity for problem solving.  Every one of us wants to help people.  To practice sympathy, we simply need to ask for feedback and know that we care about other people.  When we receive feedback, the fact that we care and want to help allows us to accept any and all feedback.  It is not about us.  It is about them.

Incorporate these skills into your business and daily life, and you will find ways of working with people that you never thought possible.  Your fans will rave about you and people will step forward to help you move forward.  It really is not about you—listen first and business will boom!

Matthew Kuehlhorn is America’s Mentor for Teens.  He teaches the “Rules of the Road, Business, Finance, Life” and you can find him online at www.TeensRuleToday.com

He invites you to stop by, grab his free mentoring newsletter, and an 8-Step Online Relationship Guide.