The first piece of advice came from the father of one of our team members...
1. People You Have Met
Consider your life as a bucket and the goal is filling that bucket with as many relationships as you can. Always be working to meet new people and take the time to get to know them. In other words, build your network of family, friends, community, and business.
In other words, build your network! From a personal standpoint and building "True Wealth" a robust network of healthy relationships correlates to both increased mental health and longevity.
Building relationships is the beginning of all business development activities and form the foundation of "The Early Game" when it comes to winning projects.
Building a project or a construction business is really just a network of promises between people to achieve something bigger than what any one individual can do on their own.
Meet as many people as you can. You won’t always see how they will all connect, but they will.
Set the expectations, conditions, and processes for your team to meet as many people as they can and build their network of relationships.
A sustainably scaling construction business is one giant network of networks working together toward one vision.
The other two buckets were advice received by another team member many years ago by a mentor...
2. Favors Done For Others
Do as many favors for others as you can. Make sure bucket #2 is at least twice as full as bucket #3.
Extend this throughout all aspects of your life, career, community, and business. Don't keep score on a person for person level. Focus on doing favors for others that meaningfully impact them. Some of those may be very large while others will be incredibly small.
3. Favors From Others (Requested and Received)
You will need things from others. The size of buckets #1 and #2 ensure success in #3.
Asking for help builds trust just like doing favors for others does.
Be specific in your request.
Always say thank you and be specific in your recognition of the favor.
Reflection Questions
- What do your three buckets look like?
- What do the three buckets of your closest friends look like?
- What do the three buckets of your closest team members look like?
- What can you do to help improve your “Bucket Ratio” and the ratios of those closest to you?
