3×3 …

Building solid relationships in business could be essential to lasting success for you and your organization.

Allow me to illustrate …

When I was a Regional Director for a company, I taught District Managers and Facility Managers the concept of “three wide, three deep,” otherwise known as “3×3.”

The idea is that with each client you have, you want to develop your professional relationships at least three wide and three deep. At the time, I was working with a company that provided services on an outsource basis. So, in the event that someone within a company you were providing services to got mad at you and wanted to cancel the contract, we had developed positive relationships wide and deep enough that others within that company would rally to support us and allow for a misdeed on our part instead of canceling the contract. Putting that concept into practice saved us from losing business on more than one occasion! There were times where perhaps an onsite manager had let something slip; that slip frustrated an administrator who was ready to give us our walking papers because of the offending manager. But because the District Manager and myself or my partner had developed such a positive rapport with the administrator, we were given the opportunity to rectify what the manager had slipped up on and keep the business. So we not only built relationships wide and deep, built at least three layers of leadership in our company built 3×3 relationships with each client. The result was great retention and expanded business among existing clientele.

This idea can be applied in various ways and settings. Building broad and deep relationships in your own organization can help you be more productive. Building relationships three wide and three deep with vendors can get you preferred customer status. And personally, enlarging your circle of friends can be a blessing and bring different kinds of opportunities.

Jesus counseled us that it is wise to make peace with adversaries before they can really cause you problems! Matthew 5:25 says, “When you are on the way to court with your adversary, settle your differences quickly. Otherwise, your accuser may hand you over to the judge, who will hand you over to an officer, and you will be thrown into prison.” It’s best to avoid situations from going even that far by building those professional relationships wide and deep among clients so that you can maintain peace when human error on the part of one of your employees could cost you (literally!) dearly with a customer.

How deep and wide are your professional relationships?

Scotty