Most of the time when people talk about business you’ll hear things like, “business is cut throat,” and “business should never be personal.” Everyone runs their business differently, no one answer works for all but I don’t believe that a person must always separate their personal feelings from that of their business relationships.

Zig Ziglar had a great saying “You will get everything in life that you want if you just help enough other people get what they want.” I try to be generous to others in my private life but I also find it important to help out people in business too. There are a lot of opportunities to be helpful in business relationships; from making introductions between people to sharing resources like office space and equipment with others. Sometimes its just something as small as referring someone else for a job. I often pass on work to my friends and colleagues that I’m too busy for or if a project is beyond my skills. Most of the time people I refer for projects end up working out and both that client and the friend benefit. In return, these people thank me and sometimes refer me to someone else for another project. These referrals are on projects that I would have never got if I didn’t first think of someone else. Just by taking a few moments out of my day to refer someone else ended up getting me more work. This is just one example of how being courteous can improve your life and business. That good deed you do for someone else will usually come back to you twice over. It all begins with thinking of others first.

So, is there anything I can do to help you out?