Working Remote - Building Relationships

Over the past couple of year specifically I have had thousands of interactions with client, development, engineering, and management resources.  With so many interactions I have developed a wonderful communications strategy that I usually employ on all occasions.  In my line-of-business which is highly dependent on typing through a chat client one thing is a certainty: how you communicate is essential to production.

I think we can all say that we have typed a text message or two in our time.  Some of us go way beyond the reasonable (and I think you know who you are) and others just a tiny bit to get by.  Is your text about dinner or is it about the data flow in a telecom order?  It doesn't really matter per say what you are typing about but I can say it is important how you type and what you type.

If it were me and I was texting my wife (which I don't because she and I don't text back and forth much) I would keep is short and sweet (ie. going 2 str 2 get mlk).  While the aforementioned is great for the Mrs. and me it is obviously and grossly not professional.  So in a personal sense my wife knows me (wink wink) and I can get away with some bad shorthand it won't cut it in my professional life.

One thing I can say in my professional (chat) life is this: build relationships with your contacts.  At one point I would have balked at this. Why? I would think if you were professional you would see my inquiry and respond.  Much sometimes is the case however when one has 15 inquiries and there is not possibly enough time in the day to get to everyone.  So the relationships that have already been built over time will matter when it counts most.

How do I build relationships?  Here are a few tips that I use all the time:

1) Short and sweet - people are busy keep is short and professionally to the point.  Start off with "I know you're under pressure so when you have a moment provide "X" information"

2) Use positive and reinforcing words and phrases - people need to see and hear positive words and phrases.  There is enough negativity in the world and workplace already.

3) Maintain a data document - In my business it is imperative to maintain a worthy contact list.  You also need to maintain relevant notes on these contacts so you don't reach out to them constantly asking them to do things that they cannot do.

What do you think?  Post your thoughts, would love to hear from you.

Thanks G