Episode 002 – 5 Keys to Building Genuine Relationships

Wherever you are in your business journey, relationships are an invaluable resource. Relationships can shift, grow or be for a season.Then there are those who become our growth friends and partners, people who you do life with. cover 5 ways that help me build business relationships, and invite you to see how you can add these to your life, or improve on them!

  1. Be you. Be the true you. Show up exactly as who you are in the moment, the good, the bad, the flawed. This is key to building genuine relationships. We want people to know us, not the facade.
  1. Show up for others just because you can. No ulterior motives, just support and serve.
  1. Be vulnerable and allow people to help. When they show up, be willing to listen and receive.
  1. People are people. The relationship is with the person, the humans at that brand, not the corporate tax entities. Remember the little things: birthdays, things they like, things they might want to do for themselves, but aren’t.
  1. Have fun with the people you want to do business with. Travel together. Coffee. Happy hour. Be creative. Set aside time to just have fun.

Need more examples to prime the pump? Listen to the podcast.

Learn More about Roberto at: RobertoCandelaria.com

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Hey y’all, I’m recording today’s episode from Las Vegas. I flew out here for a quick, oh, you know, 36-hour-ish trip to be with one of my friends and one of my business besties April Franks. And we were recording content talking about reels. I’ll get into more of that here in the episode, but I wanted to start with this wherever you are in your business, relationships are such a valuable resource, and we’ll be talking about that today. So welcome to episode two of the show.

Welcome to the Relationships Make Money podcast where it’s all about the people, partners and profits. Each week we’ll explore conversations around partnerships, leadership, our thoughts and profits. And now your host Roberto Candelaria.

Well, hey, y’all. So as I started the episode saying, you know, relationships in our business are such a valuable resource. They are so key to, I believe my success as a business owner, and so many of the businesses that we’re able to work with, and I think that another part of that is even recognizing that relationships can change, right? Like, there are people that start the journey with you, there are people that in the journey with you, and then there’s people that come and go along the way for their specific reason. And then there’s those relationships, those friends, the people that become our growth friends, our growth partners, the friends that we really get the opportunity to be able to do life with.

And so today, I want to share with you five keys that have really helped us with relationships in life and in business, and hope that this information can guide you as you begin to think about creating more relationships in your business and in your life. And so the very first one here today is to be you and to be the true you. Now, I know that sounds silly, it sounds extremely simple like, “Roberto, why would you say to be the true you?”

And I say this because I find that sometimes people don’t show up in spaces as who they are. They don’t show up with where they are today snd in the moment they show up with this persona, sometimes of who they want people to see them as. And when we’re able to show up where we are exactly who we are in the moment, the good, the bad, the flawed, the whatever people want to call it. This is so key to building genuine relationships, because we want people to know us not to know a facade. And so one of the biggest compliments I’ve got years ago, and I continue to get to this day that sticks with me is I love it when I meet people that have become either online friends or students in our online programs that I hadn’t met before. And they’re like, “Oh, you’re the same person. You say the exact same stuff, like, and you act the same.”

And I’m like, “Yeah, of course, like why? Why wouldn’t I be?” And so begin to ask yourself, how do I show up and spaces exactly as I am? And knowing that as I am is enough that I am worthy, that I am whole, that I am loved, and that I’m exactly where I am supposed to be on this journey.

Now, number two here is show up for others, just because you can. And a great example of this is my now, like I said, good growth friend, one of my best besties, April Franks. And so when we first met, several years ago, it was probably about 2015, I think it was and there was a mutual client that we both had that was a former client and kept emailing us back and forth. Like, “Y’all need to meet each other. Y’all need to meet each other, y’all need to meet each other.”

And then for whatever reason, it didn’t happen for a bit. And when we finally connected, I was like, “Man, I really love this person.” And I’m going to assume that she thought the same thing because we still hanging out seven years later. But here’s the thing, right? We just showed up. I had a great conversation, she introduced me to some other people, some of the coaches she was with and one of the things that she shared with me is that she was doing an event the next week, and April used to run an event called Epic. In this case, it was Epic in Dallas. And I just was like, “Man, I just really love her. I love her energy.” I’m just going to go to Dallas, I’m going to surprise her like I didn’t tell her I was coming and just showed up in Dallas because I wanted to see the amazingness that was April, the person that I got to meet one on one, I wanted to see her at a live event and serve her community.

So, I just showed up to serve. And when I did that, they were just like, “Well, no, wait, who are you? Your name is not on the list.” Like, “Why are you here?” And then I finally saw her prehung she was like, “Man, like, what are you doing here?” Like, “Yes, it’s my event this weekend but do you not realize that your event is next weekend and you should be getting ready for your event. You shouldn’t be here at my event.” And once we got past all that I just had the most amazing time supporting her that weekend. The following weekend, very similar situation. I’m in Houston, Texas, we’re getting ready for one of our live events. And people are coming in with like, there’s this woman at the door that says she needs to talk to you. And I know you said you don’t want to talk to anybody but she is insistent that she see you like now. And I was just like, “Well who the heck would this be?” And they’re like, “It’s some woman named April.” And y’all, I chuckle about it to this day, because I had zero intention that by going to April’s event that she was going to come to mine.

There was no ulterior motive. I just wanted to see her in action. And very similarly she showed up and was just like, “Hey, I just wanted to see what you do. Like I’ve heard about sponsorship, I’ve heard about partnership, but I really wanted to see what you’re doing. And like, if I can do anything here, let me know how I can serve.”

And so, you show up for other people, just because you can, not with an intention of what you’re going to receive back. And I tell you, this has been all over the place and how we show up for each other now. You know, I think one of the ones that sticks with me the most to this day is, you know, we literally probably about seven months apart, buried our fathers together. And I went to Mobile, Alabama to be with April and her family and spend a week there with her family while they got ready to honor her father’s life. And very similarly, I— April and I were on vacation together, when we got the call about my father’s health, and that didn’t look like he was going to make it and I flew out the next morning, rushed back home to be there with my father and be at his side. And then the next day, you know, April flew to Austin, and we just spent that time supporting each other being there for each other, planning our father’s funerals honoring their lives, you know, being there for the rest of the family. And so, the second one here is show up for others just because you can.

Now, number three, which is a great example, I guess continuing the conversation from the previous part here is just to be vulnerable, and allow people to help. And I should also say that there’s a difference between vulnerability and victimhood. And I feel like that’s a whole conversation for a whole nother day that I need to make a note of. So when you ask for support y’all be willing to listen, when you show up from a place of vulnerability, make sure that it’s not a place of victimhood. And like I said, that’s a whole nother conversation, we’re going to have another day. And since I’m here in Vegas recording this at April’s place, I’ll actually use an example of my life and my business, I— right now.

And so I am a trainer by heart. I love to train, I love to teach. And while I’m an awesome business coach and a life coach, I love to train. And where social media is headed right now everything’s moving to short-form content. And I had this thought, and notice I say a thought, right? That reels are hard. TikTok is hard, short-form content is hard. And as a result of it, I found myself consistently resisting doing any type of short-form content, because I was thinking about, it’s got to be hard, I’m going to have to dance, they’re going to want me to put 75 million words across the stream, and I’m going to have to learn transitions. And because I thought it was hard, I made up every excuse not to do this.

And as I saw more and more of the business world, and especially online content shifting to short-form content, I was just like, look, I picked up the phone, I called April and I was like, “Hey, I need some help.” And she’s like, “Okay, what do you need?” And I was like, “I’m finally ready to do short-form content. I don’t know how to do it, I still think that it’s hard. I still think that social media is kind of crazy. But I’ve helped a lot of people make a lot of money on social media, we found a lot of money gaps for coaches and their social media, their collaborations and their partnerships. And I don’t know why believe it’s hard when I help everybody else make money with it every single day. So I’m open to learning a new way. Can you support me in this?” And she said, “Yes!”

So that’s why I’m in Vegas right now. And yesterday, actually, we recorded y’all. Y’all, y’all, y’all. I don’t know when this episode is going to come out. But we recorded 23 reels that I can use, you know, on Instagram, on Facebook, on TikTok, wherever but 23 short-form content videos, and something that I was taking to be so hard and so difficult. My friend was able to, in her expertise, show up for me because I was vulnerable and say, “Hey, here’s how to do this. Here’s how you create a month’s worth of content in like an hour or an hour and a half.” And I ended our time together that you know, let’s say two hours-ish total that we spent working together on this. She was like, well now, when, like, “Now, what do you think about reels?” And I was like, “Oh my god, this is so easy.” Like why did I wait so long? This is so easy. I was making it difficult, I was this. And here’s the thing, if I would have just told her social media sucks, reels, you have to dance, like that. Like, “Oh my gosh, training is a dying art. Nobody wants to listen to speakers anymore. I don’t know how to take something that I would say in three hours and do it in three seconds.”

If I would have shown up from a place with every excuse, versus being open to support, we would not have had the same result that we did yesterday. So I guess this third one, which is be vulnerable and allow people to help. I could also call this like, share your expertise. Because when we finished, another member of April’s team was around and he was just like, “Hey, you know, would it be possible for you to spend some time with this person on my team and talk about our money gaps, talk about partnerships, talk about ways that you maybe you could support our business as well?”

And of course, the answer was, yes. So be vulnerable, y’all, and allow people to help.

Now, number four here is this— and it is that people are people. Y’all remember the humanness of it all. And I say the humanness of it all because I think that sometimes people think that we’re doing business with corporations. And while our business entities may be corporations, the relationship is not what the tax status. The relationship is with the person and the humans at that brand. And so remember things that are important to other people that you’re in these relationships with. So, things like birthdays, and anniversaries, other important dates to them and remember things that they like, or things that they’ve said that they may have wanted to experience before. Okay?

And when I say things they may have wanted to experience before I, gosh, during the pandemic, when you know, we were all locked down, I was talking about some wine that I wanted, and that it came in this gift set, but that I would never buy it for myself because I was like, “Oh, I just, I couldn’t see myself buying that for myself, because I don’t know if I would like it or not.” Now, again, that’s a thought. But, I was just I said it out loud, somewhere. And about a week later, somebody who’s a promotional and marketing partner of ours, somebody who promotes our digital online evergreen courses, like, sent this thing, and it just arrived at my house. And it was just like, “Hey, hope you enjoy this heard that you wanted to try it out.”

And it was one of those things of them just remembering the humanness of it all that I’m a person and that there was something that I was thinking about doing, but that I wouldn’t give myself permission to do for myself. And they were like, “Oh, I’ll take care of that.”

And the fifth one here is have fun, like, have fun with the people that you want to build genuine business relationships with. And you know, as much as we talk about that relationships make money. The reason relationships make money is because of that first word, relationships. And a big part of relationships to me is having fun. And whether that be online or in person or traveling together or vacations. If you live in the city, you know, having coffee or happy hour or maybe even just sending somebody a gift or a box, just because remember to have fun.

Some of the best relationships that I have today, in life and in business are people that we’ve had fun with. We have taken people to Disney for their first Disney trip because y’all know I love Disney. We’ve gone to Universal with people, we’ve traveled with another couple who have become dear friends in the industry. We went to the Dominican Republic with them. We’ve gone to London, and we’ve gone to Airbnbs and just people picked a city and we rented a three or four-bedroom Airbnb and everybody shows up and we just hang out with each other, just to have fun. And so along this journey as you’re building these relationships, set aside side fun, oh my gosh, that set aside side. So, set aside time to have fun with each other and in your own life every day. So, I hope that these five tips helped you and the ways that I look at relationships and just some of the ways that you can start to build genuine business relationships and we’ll see you next week.

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