After a nice holiday getaway I was ready to return to the office last week, batteries fully changed. Unfortunately, my car batteries did not feel the same. They were dead. Feeling slightly panicked (and extremely grateful that we didn’t drive my car to the airport) I called my husband. Although he works an hour away, I figured it best to start with a mechanical engineer. He advised me to call a tow truck. Of course!

As I hope all our readers do, whenever I’m in need of a service like a tow truck I turn to the pages of my local paper to find the most reliable provider. I did just that and within 10 minutes a tow truck team member arrived with a battery pack. Sadly, the pack was drained within five minutes, and my car was still very dead. A second tow truck team member was called. He discovered the dead battery was actually a second battery located under my driver’s seat, not the hood. He tried to charge that battery to no avail. A third tow truck team member arrived. And another battery pack was drained.
It was clear my car batteries were not interested in returning to the office and instead needed to be returned to the dealer. Panic returned. My dealer is 40 minutes from my house. How would that work?
Needing time to work out a solution, I thanked the tow experts at my doorstep, paid them for their time and sent them on their way.
The person I know best at my dealership (also an advertiser) is the general sales manager. Calling him for a dead battery felt like calling the newspaper publisher because you didn’t get this week’s edition. Then it occurred to me that that happens at View Newspaper Group and Publisher Wes Smith never minds. He simply gets the paper where it’s needed.
Turns out my friend didn’t mind either. Within an hour he had a different tow company (also an advertiser!) at my doorstep, a loaner ready for me and two days later my car was back home, new batteries in place.
I am so thankful for his quick response and for him taking on a problem that wasn’t his to solve.
The entire experience got me thinking about the importance of professional relationships. I’ve worked with the general sales manager at this dealership for over a decade now. While I know that great customer service is a hallmark of their business and no matter who I talked to there I would have had a positive experience, the fact that I could contact him directly for a dead battery is thanks to the professional relationship we’ve built.
When you have a problem, having an expert you can contact is incredibly valuable. Like personal relationships, professional relationships — including those within your own team — take work.
With that in mind here are some tips to build and maintain professional relationships, which in turn will build your brand:
1. Network: Whether through your local chamber or across a lunch table, it’s important to interact with people in a semi-formal environment so you can get to know each other better. Networking is a great way to meet professional contacts and stay-in-touch.
2. Be authentic: This tip comes from a forbes.com article on the topic, and I couldn’t agree more. From the article, “Don’t try to be someone you’re not, and don’t try to impress others by pretending to know more than you do … Research shows that authenticity is important in building trust in relationships.”
3. Show interest in others: From the same forbes.com article, “Make an effort to show interest in the other person’s work, goals and experiences … According to a study by Harvard Business Review, showing interest in others can increase feelings of positive regard and trust by 50%.”
4. Be a resource: Professional relationships aren’t a one-way street, it’s important to be a resource for others, just as they are for you. An article from the team at Harvard Professional & Executive Development says, “Strong business relationships are about being mutually beneficial to one another. Make yourself invaluable by offering assistance, advice, and support to your connections. This creates authenticity and shows that you are invested in the success of others.”
5. Say “Thank you!”: A text, an email, a phone call or better yet a hand-written note goes a long way to thank your professional contacts when they come through for you. As soon as the last tow truck left my driveway I sent a text to my friend that said “Thank you so much! I know helping with my dead battery is so not your job, and I really appreciate the help.”
How do you build and maintain professional rela-tionships? Email me at ecaswell@mihomepaper.com.
Emily Caswell is the Brand Manager for
VIEW Group, the branding division of View Newspaper Group.