It's not personal, it's just business?

A CEO of a company I used to work for would often say "it's not personal, it's just business", all the time. For some reason, that statement never resonated with me. It's no wonder he was never revered by his employees, customers and/or his business partners. He never seemed to care much more about anything than his return-on-investment, and that tone filtrated itself through the organization, and even the industry.

I honestly have never known business NOT to be personal. When Ryan Tohill and I closed Staples on a very large recurring contract, Joanne Irwin (of Staples) said to us that most of the solutions were generally the same, it was us that she "liked the most" and wanted to do business with us because of our relationship.

It was personal to us that she and her team received a return on their investment with our solution, we fought for that every day. It is that type of passion I've taught in many sales seminars, as people can truly feel whether or not you really CARE for their needs. In personal relationships AND yes, in business relationships.

Some of my dearest friends were business associates, first. I can name dozens of them, and I genuinely believe they became great friends because I cared very much about the solutions we provided and wanted them to succeed with them. Many of my sales team members are friends-for-life and I even had to fire some of them! I teach sellers to live, eat and breathe the mantra of being genuine in their sales efforts; because being genuine is the most important factor in becoming an enterprise-level salesperson. Buyers just know when it's about you, and not about them.

The card attached here from Jerry Ross is most certainly the nicest thing I've ever received, in business. But it is personal. Jerry has been a wonderful business associate and friend for nearly two decades now. When we first acquired his web site business at The NEC, we threw everything we had at it to make it successful. And over the years, I cannot tell you how many business referrals we received back from Jerry for more and more work.

So in receiving this card in January, I've never been so touched and grateful by someone I first new in business, but now consider one of my best friends.

So, is it not personal, it's just business? I'm thinking otherwise.