Whether business is onboarding a vendor partnership, an entrepreneur is seeking financial investors or an account manager is engaging a new client, communication is the single most important factor in the success of every relationship. Strong partnerships rise and fall with trust, and earning that trust is rooted in honest communication. Partners who communicate and listen inquisitively, genuinely and consistently build the trust required to create a long-term partnership that will sustain inevitable ups and downs.
The most successful partnerships, the ones of the highest value, characteristically engage in an open flow of communication. The most effective business partnerships involve collaborative communication, which means going beyond the giving and receiving of direction, opinions, or information sharing. Even the best business seminars on growth, champion the importance of listening first to understand, then to be understood — credit to communication gurus Dale Carnegie and Stephen Covey. So often partnerships are launched with checklists, but the open flow of interpersonal communication is overlooked, or worse, communication is considered a soft skill only required when goals aren’t met. It is important to remember that open communication is the foundation for building a successful business partnership.