What role does building relationships play in your business?

Traditional business is based in transactions, a values based business is built on and around relationships.

In today’s episode I’m talking all about the importance of relationships for your business - with the humans you want to work with, your collaborators, your support crew and, most important and often most overlooked, yourself.

Let’s dive in.

Links, resources & mentions:

Redefining Success Episode 11

Whose values? Episode 9

Episode Transcript

Laura Jean 0:06

Hello Hello and welcome to another episode of The dietitian values Podcast. Today I want to talk about relationships and why I think relationships are key in a values based business. So let's dive in. In business, a traditional business is often viewed or built on or based around a transactional nature between humans so businesses, of course, I mentioned, maybe there are some businesses out there that aren't human to human. But businesses are generally a human to human. And a traditional business takes a very transactional view of that relationship like it's not even looked at a relationship but it's an opportunity for a transaction so you know, you provide the service, somebody pays you money. When you're working with a coach, they provide the service you pay the money when you're working with staff, they provide the service you provide them money. When you're working with, you know, other people in your business. Collaborate, referring agents you know so you, you provide, they provide the referral you provide the service, you know, and then you may be sent back a letter or whatever it might be, so it's very transactional it's like this is I do this and you do this and there's all these steps and a dance and all these things. But yeah it's really transactional and it really does take the relationship out of that human to human interaction. And so I really think that relationships, I think that a values based business and the business of a culture and a society, a way of being that is actually rooted in our humanity on re humanising on on maintaining and respecting and honouring and bringing to the table, your full version of you as a human, and the other person at the other side of the table, their full version of themselves, their full humaneness, creates, needs to be held in relationship, and in a relational kind of interaction, not a transactional interaction. So to me, businesses, and values based business, particularly, but I really think any business that I want to be involved in or interacting with, is a one that is based on relationships, that is relational.

So let's talk about how that comes into play, and some ways you can think about that, about getting started around that. So the first and most obvious relationship, in business, in your business is with the humans that you want to support the humans you want to work with the people, maybe you call them clients, customers, patients, depending on where you're at, I call them humans, and it's around building a relationship with those people, with the humans you want to work with so that they actually have, erm there's something to actually base your work together on. So rather than your work together even being transactional it's actually relational, it's relationship based. And that starts way back before you even meet people, it starts with the messaging that you put out on social media. If you have a podcast or a blog or other kind of content creation, and it's actually like in a reverse engineer. One of the ways you can think about how to create content or what should you be sharing is thinking about what is the, what are the ways that you can build relationship, and not in a way of like let's build relationship so that we can get clients to work with us, but how can you build relationships, how you, can you offer value, how can you solve problems for people. How can you answer their questions, to just like if you had a human being a client sitting opposite you in a clinic room. How would you build your relationship within that, and we know like you know if you think back to our, our uni training, establishing rapport, it's more than lip service though it's not just the old 'Oh, how's the weather' or that real like you know trite kind of trope around building rapport, it's true, it's building rapport, And it's true building like that true building of relationships. so what is what are the ways that you interact like, how do you build that relationship? so it starts in that very early days and then of course it starts when you actually are engaging with people when you're talking to people. Now, I suppose something also to keep in mind, particularly when we're interacting with other people in relationships in relational it's really important to get clear on your boundaries around that. So building relationships with people doesn't mean that you have to, you know, compromise your own boundaries and your own well being, and we'll talk a little bit, bit about your relationship to yourself because that's an important one as well. So, the humans you want to work with how do you build relationships that starts when you start signalling to them that you have this service that you do this thing that you have the answer to this question or that you can provide a perspective on that on that question or on that issue on that problem, it can continue into your DMs or into email conversation and of course it comes out in your relationship with how you work with those humans. and building relationships, one of the most you know powerful ways you can create an experience and value for the humans you work with, is based in embedded in that relational aspects of verse, rather than, and you know, I know that this is something pretty obvious for dietitians and other health care and helping professionals because we can't provide our services without building a relationship, it can't be purely transactional you know we're not just providing a goods, like you know a physical good we're providing a service and without relationship and without that relational aspect, you won't get it. And that's why models like, you know that the private practice that really the short sessions bulk billing things, you know 30 minute 20 minute sessions can never really be, can never actually meet the goals that we want around providing value and care, because you can't build a relationship with somebody in 20 minute blocks, you know, you can't build that relationship and to anchor your services in and to anchor your support in, you can't hold space, well you can, I mean you can do your best. Of course you can. if and if you're tied and if that's the space you're in, you know, you do your best within that but it's it's pretty hard to build that relationship and to build a relational interaction with your clients in those kind of situations. We wont go on a tangent on my rant against that kind of system that dietitians are pushed into if you find yourself in that system, then you do your best with what you've got. But I'd absolutely encourage you to look at other ways of working that support you as a human and the humans who work with as whole humans too.

So, the humans you work with are the first relationship. The other part of relationship is the humans that you collaborate with, other health professionals. maybe it's people who refer to you, maybe it's other dieticians that you refer on to because the humans that you're interacting with you. You know you don't have, they don't, they're not your, the people you help they don't, there may be people reaching out to you and they need somebody else to be referred on to so it could be that. it could just be people that you just really believe in what the services and the ways of working that they, that they offer. It could be people collaborating with people that offer services that you know would really support the humans that you want to work with and really support them where they are, and on their kind of with their goals. So, in the non diet space you know some really, as dietitians and really obvious collaborators might be, might be doctors, if you work particularly in ED, Eating Disorder territory and you want to be you probably want to have pretty good collaboration and relationships with a team, a doctor and a psych to create that safe best kind of the opportunity for the client so humans you're working with to be supported across all those areas. It could be, if you're working in the non diet space, it could be people could be creating relationships or with collaborators around body image. So people who work and support people to work on their body image or to you know to work around that. It could be around people like psychologists counsellors therapists that support people around their relationship to food, support people around trauma, because that can come up, of course, in our work with the humans we work with. It could be around people who work in the movement space so people who provide, you know, a non diet, non diet culture embedded movement options. people who use movement options that encouraging embodyment and awareness of interoceptive cues and things like that. it could be people who provide services that support your clients to manage their stress around mindfulness, it could be anything. It could be, could be anything so collaborators. Think wide think far and think about how you can build relationships with these humans doing cool things. And again, not doing it with a view of like well if I do this, then they'll give me extra referrals or that I'll get this out of it but literally just as a way of thinking, well hey these are the humans I want to work with as far as the clients. And then what do they need to support them, and going out and looking for other professionals and people providing those services and bringing them into your community. It supports the humans you want to work with you build a relationship there. It shows you as a resource, a space where they can have their, get the support they need, and it also, you know, it builds relationships with those people that you're collaborating with and will that lead to referrals might that lead to other things? Yeah, potentially it could. But it's doing it from that opportunity to build relationships or from that perspective, and building relationships is just so powerful, and building relationships, isn't so much about you know that getting something out of it but just because humans thrive in community and connection, and as a dietitian, you know, we as dietitians were trained, you've been trained probably to work in a multidisciplinary type team to work in those kind of collaborating spaces and when you're not, when you're in private practice or in your own business as an entrepreneur, particularly if you're working online or spaces like that it can feel a little bit isolating and it's easy to miss the team, to miss that support. and so you can create your own, you can build relationships and build your own support team for the humans you work with and for yourself. having other people, you know, even having peers, other dieticians, you can refer to. If people kind of come outside your wheelhouse, but also providing you know having networks and peers where you can debrief. And again, that's a relational based thing no dumping you know not a one sided transactional hey I just need to dump all this out on you but it's building those relationships to create that. And so you have those relationships to support you, but also to support the humans you want to work with. So building that with collaborators, and I really consider other dietitians in there, particularly I don't view other dietitians as competition. I think that we have so much more strength when we can collaborate. And, look, I think if you are building your relationships and your business through your values I think it's the only space that you get to really because people can't, people aren't competition. You're different. You're a unique individual with your values and their unique individual with their values and you're both showing up to support humans that resonate with you both, and there'll be different people. So, thinking about how you can build those relationships and also how you can add benefit to other people's community and go out there and offer to to talk in someone's community to talk on someone's podcast, or to have somebody come over onto your IG and do do a joint live together to talk to. maybe it's working like if you're a non dietitian, maybe it's working with a yoga instructor or a mindfulness, Mindfulness therapists around running joint workshops together but the benefit both your communities and you're building relationships, to add value to yours, and their community and also just to you, to build that interdisciplinary kind of team that you know we all thrive better in.

The other part, the other kind of people that might be in your team may not necessarily be kind of collaborators from that kind of point of view, people you collaborate with but your support crew so potentially that could be staff so if you employ other dietitians, or you employ a VA or you employ people to, you know, like a podcast editor or people like that. So how do you build relationships with them. It could be mentors or coaches peers could come in here to around, they could be your support, people that you work with that you debrief you know that you maybe you're in a mastermind or mentorship with. It's also any behind the scenes people that create and hold space for you to do your thing. And so creating that relationship there. It's, again, moving away from that transactional like what do you offer and I pay for this and that's kind of the extent of it but building those relationships, and it creates. It creates the space to act into your values to show up in your values because when we're looking at our values, there's, we have our values right we have the way we want to show up and then we have the spaces or the places the areas that we value in our life, the, the ways they're the places we show up in our values. So for example, you show up in your values in your family, in your relationships, and so in your business in those kind of like settings, They're the settings for whether values play out in your relationships to people across these area of your business but particularly with people who support you who hold your space, maybe it's somebody like you know I work at the moment, from home I've got my littlest Bubba, and I've actually got somebody now coming in to support me to hang out with him for a few hours in the mornings, a couple of times a week so I can get some work done and do other things. And so it's about building relationships with that person for me it's not that transactional right you come in here, one because of course they're interacting in my family and they're having a relationship with my kids, which is, you know, pretty important, but just because I want to run a business and interact with people in a non extractive way, in a way where we all you know one of my values is conservation and wise use of resources for myself and my community in the environment, and so people who I'm in relationship with, I consider part of my community. So I want to be looking at a conservation and wise use of resources for them, as well as for me, and so it's really being respectful of that and really building those relationships to have the space to live into that value, which is around that around, seeing the resources that people are, not looking at people as a resource, but knowing that all humans you know we have certain capacity and certain limited resources, respecting that. And supporting people to to use that in a way that benefits that support to them, as well as supporting me, and so that's where that relationships are important within your support crew.

And finally, the place that I want to talk about relationship, which is often overlooked, possibly always overlooked potentially is your relationship with yourself. It's building a way of working in your business that supports you to strengthen your relationship with yourself inside your business but also outside your business, if you're not centering your relationship with yourself, in your business, then you might not have enough to offer outside your business then it might be burning you out. It's finding a way of working that allows you to meet your needs, your financial needs your physical needs your mental and your emotional needs. it's creating a space for you to flourish in relationship with yourself and in your business. And so your relationship with yourself, it's, it's creating it's basing how you operate your business in a way that respects you that respects you that allows you to flourish, that allows you to move towards your values and move towards your definition, your version of success, and if you haven't redefined your own version of success then don't forget to check out episode 11 where I've talked about redefining success, or how you define success. So finding that way of working that honours your relationship with yourself and doesn't actually extract from that doesn't actually extract from you as a, as a, as a resource, but actually, values and respects the resources that you have to offer for yourself in your own business. And so it's really important part of business and I've talked about it before but a human centred business has to centre the human who runs the business too, it's not just about the people outside of you that you're in relationship with. It's about you and possibly most importantly about your relationship to yourself and how you actually take care of that in your business, how you create a business where you can take care of yourself, and you make sure that you are centred in your business that you are not just the person you know that's the last on the list or the person that's the afterthought that you actually are your you, and if you are running a values based business, your values, don't just extend out from you they extend back to you, and sometimes even including you in your values and so you know, I was just saying before about one of my values being a wise use of resources for myself, my community and the environment. I've included myself particularly in that explicitly in there to remind myself that my value around a wise use of resource or conservation and wise use of resource has to extend to me too. I am valuable in that space and like i was saying before you know, your values, you acting to your values in the spaces that you value. You need to be valuing yourself, and you need to be valuing that relationship with others but also with yourself and creating the space for that to happen. As a starting point, not as an afterthought.

So that is where I think, or why I think relationships are important because humans flourish and thrive in community and connection, our culture, kind of has a narrative around this real individualistic independence, kind of space. And you know for myself personally, that was a really a value that I had to disentangle myself from. for a long time when I would do values exercises, one of the values that would come up would be independence and autonomy, and it took a lot of, I suppose, digging and scratching around to really realise that that was an external based value that was a cultural value that I was living in that was a case of like whose value, and if you haven't checked out the episode I did. I'll drop that in the show notes around whose values to how to kind of dig into that. And it's not that I don't, I don't think I do like to work autonomously I do like to set my own directions I do like to have that. I also like to then bring it back to connection to others and bring it back to community and as a minimum, bring it back to that connection to myself and so I think that's something that got lost for me in that striving for independence and autonomy was even being not independent of myself because that would be strange, but not actually embedding that independence and autonomy within my relationship to myself. And so for me, I personally moved away from that as a value and I'm not saying that you have to, but it's about just really questioning where that comes from humans are built to thrive in community in connection, that doesn't mean you can't have independence and autonomy as a value, I don't mean that at all. It's just an opportunity to really think about the relationships that you're building where they are and how, how your business, when it's based in relationships, when it's based on that relational aspect, how does that move you towards your values? And for me, and I know for many of the dietitians that I've worked with, and for most business owners, building values based business, based in relational, like in relationships based on that relational aspect actually will move you towards your values, nine times out of 10, unless your values are around, power, influence, like you know, exerting over, you know, that kind of power over model, you know, there are certain sets of values I suppose that would not foster will not move you towards, and would not see relationships as essential but if you have if you're listening along here, I'm guessing, I'm just going to take a hunch, and think that your values are not embedded in that very individualistic extractive power over definition of running a business.

So I want to leave you with that, I want to encourage you to think about that those relationships, if nothing else, as a minimum your relationship with yourself, in your business, and just encourage you to, to reflect like Where could you start building relationships? where could you build relationships more is, is it really helpful for you around creating and planning content to think about how can I build relationships with the humans I want to work with. Is it is it would it be helpful to start thinking about what kind of who you could build relationships with who you'd like to collaborate with to bring extra value to the humans you want to work with, Or to bring value to other people's communities. And what about the relationships with your support crew, your mentors, your peers, the people that hold space and create space for you. And of course like I said, even as a minimum, though I think it's the maximum, is building that relationship with yourself and creating a way of working, that, that allows you to meet your needs and allows you to flourish, or whatever your definition of success might be. So I'll leave you with that, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, and I'd love to build a relationship with you and in conversation back over @dietitianvalues on Instagram, come over to the podcast episode post and drop in there which did this resonate for you and which area do you feel like you want to start focusing on you're strengthening and growing your relationships with the humans you want to work with the collaborators your support crew, or with yourself, where which area do you know needs the most work or which area do you want to kick off on. Okay, I'll leave you with that, and until next time, bye for now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai