I’ve been thinking about the action verb, “to cultivate”.  The Cambridge Business English Dictionary has an interesting take on it.

The first definition is “to prepare the land and grow crops on it…”.

The second definition is “to try to develop and improve something.”

The example given for #2 is “If you cultivate a relationship, you make a special effort to develop it, because it might be useful to you”

In both definitions, it is implied that growing food and building relationships will be useful to you, but I would add,” and also to others”.

Let’s take a look at cultivating your business relationships.

Connect and Re-connect

Choose a few people you would like to cultivate for your business. One key to authentic connection is to tailor your efforts to the person you’d like to cultivate.

Think about THEM.

Next, behave like a human. You’re getting this email through automation, but I know almost everyone on my list.

True cultivation goes beyond a bland "Happy Holidays" message to honor the individual. Put yourself out a little—find out what’s going on with them, how you might include them, how you might help them. Because great teachers tell us that what goes around comes around.

 Think about what this time of year is like for your connections.  Is it

• Welcome home time?  Or missing a loved one time?
• Celebration time? Alone time? Too much or too little of either?
• Gift-giving time? Gift-getting time? Bah-humbug time?

My Recent Connection Story

This past week, a former client invited me to a fancy lunch, just the two of us. She lives in Manhattan for part of the year, and lunch would be at her club during the holidays.

I also had an opportunity to attend a business cocktail party and scheduled both on the same day. Then I took myself off to mid-town, alone, for the first time since long before the pandemic.

I was anxious, I admit—is it reckless to go alone, it will be such a long day, what if I trip or something? Plus, I forgot it was the day of my Common Sense Chat call. What to do?

I put myself out a little. Here's what happened.

We pushed lunch back to 1 pm.

I Zoomed my Common Sense Chat about Small Business from outdoors in Bryant Park.

Lunch with Barbara Bellin was nearby, at a club of Arts and Letters that’s over 200 years old. Barbara was recognized for her accomplishments with her membership and I saw her art displayed in the gallery there. We talked for hours, and shifted into a friendship.

The Gotham City Networking holiday party included a surprise in honor of Corey Bearak, a person who has helped untold numbers of people his whole life, including me, my son, and one of my clients.  I would have never gone in for just 90 minutes of a cocktail party.

NYC at holiday time is a wonderland! Between lunch and the party, I played tourist in front of Saks Fifth Avenue’s stunning holiday windows, rested in the NY Public Library, and did it all on foot (11,001 steps are a lot for me).

And I got home safe and sound on the new bus with seat belts and good shock absorbers.  

This particular day of cultivation brought many gifts:

• Overcoming that anxiety challenge,
• A fun outdoor call with other colleagues,
• A business relationship is taken to another level,
• A celebration of two Lifetime Achievement awards.
• Several new people to cultivate.

In the midst of the digital age and automated interactions, genuine human connections remain essential for personal and professional well-being. My cultivation plan is already in action! 

We’re in business now, and the season ahead is an opportunity– to find new business, to close the danglers we’ve been nurturing for months, to take advantage of “back to school” enthusiasm to accelerate growth and profits.

In Common Sense Chats about Small Business, for the next few sessions, we’ll be talking about the big challenge all business owners face:

Finding the right prospects.

Making strategic choices about prospecting at this time can determine the success of 2022 for you.

Who do you want to work with? Where are your potential clients? Where do they network? Can you go there too? What is your budget for networking? (Hint—it’s not $0).

And what is your follow-up process? It’s in your Trapper Keeper, right? How much money do you leave on the table from losing track of warm (worse yet, hot) leads?

And there’s always room to improve your sales skills.

Listen up…you can’t get better at sales if you don’t have enough people to practice on.

Lorette Pruden, Ph.D. coaches, consults, speaks, and writes on the transition from working for others to building a successful business. After nearly 30 years with Mobil, Lorette entered the world of the Formerly Corporate™. To navigate your own options contact Lorette.

Lorette has helped hundreds of small business owners, sales professionals, entrepreneurs, and community leaders grow their businesses and manage that growth since 2000. She specializes in the Formerly Corporate—so many small business owners who’ve worked with her come from a corporate background that she finally wrote the book on it. Formerly Corporate: Mindset Shifts for Success in Your Own Business.