It’s All About Relationships

I was talking to my hubby last night about my experience at this year’s BlogHer conference. While I had dozens of anecdotes to tell him, I started by sharing the primary lesson I learned . . .

It’s all about relationships.

While I knew the importance of relationships when it came to my personal well being, and believe it’s not just the thought but the effort that counts in friendships, I didn’t fully understand the extent to which my professional success depended on relationship building. Since I’ve been hammered with the message that “content is king” I’ve been spending most of my time cranking out posts and articles. I considered hanging out on Twitter or reading my favorite blogs a luxury I couldn’t afford when I was pressed for time. Which is always.

Now I understand that whether you’re trying to succeed in blogging or any other business, it’s the quality of your relationships that will significantly impact your success. And while we all hope to have tons of readers, clients, customers or whatever other metric you use to measure success, that “quantity” will only come by having quality relationships.

And quality relationships can’t be rushed. Thus the rub. There’s no shortcut to relationship building and no substitute for face to face contact. That’s why BlogHer is such a worthwhile experience. Once I’ve met someone at BlogHer and had a chance to spend some time with them, I become a loyal reader. However, I don’t consider the perfunctory exchange of business cards in an elevator spending time with someone. So while I came home with a slew of business cards, I will focus my energy on people I had the privilege of meeting for the first time, rooming with again, reuniting with from last year’s conference, hanging out on the leather couches at Macy’s, bonding over dinner, sharing our views over brunch, laughing hysterically with, and whose work I admire and respect. A missed opportunity? Maybe. But my interest in them is genuine and not rooted in self-promotion. I can live with that.