Winning the Relationship Game

Lost opportunities, after all, are often the greatest regret of any leader or entrepreneur. Craig Danuloff, currently the CEO of the Pre-Commerce Group, an integrated Web-marketing company, is still sorry that he didn't take advantage of his situation when he ran iCat, an e-commerce software firm that he sold to Intel in 1998. During the mid-1990s in Seattle, his startup CEO peers were the likes of Jeff Bezos at Amazon, Rob Glaser at Real, and Naveen Jain at Infospace. "I'd see Pierre Omidyar (of eBay) at venture conferences where we would go on before or after each other, and we'd chat for two and a half minutes," he says. But Danuloff never went beyond those casual encounters. "I wasn't looking to collect friends," he says. "The relationships were there for the taking. With any effort at all, I could have been friends with them and that could have benefited iCat. But I didn't see any reason to do it. I'd speak to them that day, but then life would go on. We all had our heads down and just did what we did."

It's all about you

Developing good relationships that lead to good business isn't really that hard. It's a matter of mind-set, being open to the possibilities and being aware of your actions. You may be throwing up obstacles to developing the relationships you need. "Look at your behavior and work backward," says James W. Tamm, coauthor of Radical Collaboration (HarperBusiness, December 2004). "Identify defensive behavior that may be holding you back. Maybe when I'm getting fearful, I flood you with info or withdraw into silence. That can be an early warning system." Once you recognize the behavior, then you can take some action and slow down or do whatever you need to in order to counteract your normal actions.

This is your job

When Danuloff ran iCat, he made sure someone handled key relationships but preferred that it not be him. "I had a lot of guys around me who were more personable than me, and I would just make sure that someone was taking care of everybody. 'Oh good, you call him. You be his friend.' " Danuloff's attitude has since changed. "I make a little more effort. I don't just rush in and out quite so much," he says. "I occasionally tickle people with an email. Just little things to keep people in mind. It's subtle, but it's useful. Everyone's busy; it doesn't need to be dramatic."

Better than networking

If you haven't already, dissuade yourself from thinking that building effective relationships is the same as being a better networker. "Unfortunately, networking has become highly goal-oriented," says Whitman. "It's been driven by people being out of work who've never been out of work before. Everybody says you've got to network, so they're calling people they haven't talked to in forever and it's all me-me-me, 'I need your help.' It's smarmy and sleazy and not much of a relationship."

It's never too late

Business isn't high school, where snubs fester. As long as there was no reason that you didn't speak with someone over the years, you can restart the connection. "I recently traded emails with Fred Wilson, a VC I had pitched back in 1995, over some things we each had on our blogs," says Danuloff. "He remembered me from back then, and we've reestablished some contact. The maintenance requirements aren't that high."