Here's a quick mental exercise. Think of two people. The first should be a good friend - someone who you get together with to watch football, or who you see on the weekends, or who you have a years-long social history with. The second should be an important business contact. Perhaps one of your top clients, or an executive that holds a key to your career.

Now ask yourself: which of these two people (friend, contact, or both) would you be more likely to:

• Introduce to a relative?
• Include on a mass-email?
• Connect with on a social network?
• Talk about on a blog or public forum?
• Ask to join a group going to happy hour?

If you are like most people, you are much more comfortable with friendships being presented in public forums, with people you don't trust, in environments you can't control, than with your business relationships. Partly because of the open, forgiving nature of a friendship... but partly because of the importance that a business relationship can have on your career and livelihood. That's why we protect our business relationships in such a different way than our social relationships.

While we've been building Ticklr I've been paying special attention to this difference. And it fascinates me that the most common web applications out there for managing business relationships are based on socially-oriented behavior.

But I am even more amazed by the trouble people will go through to guard and protect those business relationships - controlling every attribute of the interaction, spending hours in research mode, writing that email over and over and over again so it captures the message just right. If you are good at doing this - kudos to you. So many of us struggle.

At Ticklr we hold your relationships with your business contacts in the highest regard. We'll be rolling out our application in the coming months to more and more people and if there is one thing we want you to trust about us it is that. We respect the relationships you have and aim to do everything we can to improve them. We won't spam your contacts. We won't sell your personal information. We won't share anything you put in Ticklr with anyone. Ever.

I wish I could trust all online applications the same way. And I know that we as a company have to earn that trust from you. That's our goal.

Send a ticklr out on this one!

Chris Calnan wrote a great story about Ticklr in this week's issue of Mass High Tech. There was one quote I really enjoyed from a fellow named Len Couture, saying Ticklr is addressing the "social side of business." I think that's a great description of what we are after.

The article mentions that I previously led marketing teams at Relicore and RSA. I would like to point out that these teams were actually led by other highly skilled individuals. Relicore's VP of Marketing was Blair Wheeler, and RSA boasted a large multi-faceted marketing organization led by VPs John Worrall and Jason Lewis (among others). I was proud to be part of those organizations, and I hope people would say I had a strong influence in each, but credit should go to those who were at the helm.

Check out the story and leave a comment here or there! Tell us what you think!

We must be crazy.

The Dow is 10,000. Or is it under 9,000? Unemployment numbers are bad. Credit is frozen. Things seem like they are all but crumbling. Why would we go and start a company in such a bad economy?

Well truth be told, it didn’t start out that way. We began this journey well before the recent crisis. But as the economy got worse, people seemed to get more and more interested in Ticklr. Because in a tough economy, your network is your lifeline.

If you are in sales, you can’t afford to lose a customer in this economy – it’s going to be far more difficult to replace that revenue stream.

If you are in business development or you manage partnerships – this weak economy may be a good time to look for other ways of exchanging services. But that requires a lot of trust to pull off successfully.

If you have clients, you depend on them for your livelihood. Stay close to them and let them know you are working with them to get through these challenging times.

And if you reach an unfortunate point where you are looking for work, your best chances of finding a new job are probably through the network of people you’ve been cultivating for years.

We started Ticklr because we know how important relationships are to us and to every working professional. Hopefully we will be able to help people get the most out of their most important asset – their professional network.

“Do good things and good things will happen to you.” That’s from Early Hickey on My Name is Earl.

I like to think about relationship karma like a bank account. At some point you are going to need to withdraw some money. You don’t necessarily know when, and you may not know where you are going to be when you need it. So the best you can do is be sure you have been depositing money in the bank so it’ll be there when you need to withdraw it, and know where a nearby ATM is.

Relationships are the same way. You don’t know who is going to be in a position to help you a few months or even years (or decades!) from now. So you better be making your deposits on a regular basis. Put the relationship capital in the bank and then it’ll be available when you need to withdraw it.

This has been such an important concept in my life. I’ve always taken relationships very seriously and have spent a lot of time during my life “making deposits.”

Now, I am starting a company. And you can bet that I’ve been calling on those people for help today. And I’m surrounded by people that genuinely want to see this project succeed. Which is a lot of the reason why it will.

Do you have any interesting Relatioship Karma stories? Share them below.

In starting Ticklr I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the difference between a contact and a relationship. I’ve got lots of contacts. There are over 1200 of them in my address book, plus hundreds on my various social networks. Not to mention random lists of email addresses and phone numbers I’ve collected through various events and organizations.

But a relationship is different than that. I can’t say I have a relationship with most of the people in those address books. Even my social networking “friends” are mostly made up of people I haven’t talked to in ages (except for the obligatory “how have you been? It’s been so long!” exchange that follows that initial friend request.) No, relationships have a completely distinct set of properties that make them special.

For many it’s easy to tell the difference. Obviously – I have a relationship with my brother. An old classmate is nothing more than a contact.

But where is the line between them exactly? How do you categorize an old college buddy (we used to talk all the time… but not so much anymore). What about my plumber? (By now he kind of knows me). What makes a contact become a relationship?

Here’s what I think. A relationship has to have these elements:

• A purpose or foundation – There is a shared reason that people come together to start a relationship. And while it may change, both people must have that initial need upon which the other aspects of the relationship are built.
• A personal connection – I’m not talking about sharing intimate secrets. In fact a personal connection doesn’t even require that you know personal stuff about the other person. In this case, the connection you need is something beyond the strict business at hand. It may be deeply emotional, or as light as knowledge of a common interest. But the relationship can’t start until both parties are humanized to each other, and that happens through a personal connection.
• A sense of value – each party must be getting something out of the relationship, whether it is money or knowledge or even just friendship. It can be highly asymmetrical, but it must exist on both sides. Relationships obviously take time. This represents the “ROI” or “return on investment” each individual receives.
• Trust over time – each person needs to know that they will continue to get value out of this relationship over time. This is what keeps the relationship going, a solid expectation that more benefits will come down the road.

What am I missing? Comment below and share your thoughts on the definition of a relationship.

One thing I like to do when I get a briefer-than-desired answer to a question is to just stay quiet. At first it seems a little awkward, because the person you are talking to expects you to continue… but you don’t.

As it turns out, people don’t like silent voids – it makes them uncomfortable. They have to fill the emptiness. So they keep talking, they elaborate. They add all sorts of color. It’s amazing how much you can learn by just keeping your mouth shut.

I do this for two reasons:

1. I learn more about the person and can therefore have a more meaningful conversation.
2. I prevent myself from dominating the conversation and talking “at” the other person.

Try it some time. Just stop talking. You may be surprised at the result.

I was reading Andrew Sobel's article on winning new clients with incumbents are already there, and struck by a theme. Sobel has a fantastic summary of things you can do to wedge yourself in and ultimately - hopefully - displace an existing supplier.

What I noticed about this list is how many of these activities revolve around creating a strong relationship with the individual - one that over time can have the desired effect.

Here are the activities from Sobel's list, with those that deal with forming a relationship in bold:

1. Look for trigger events
2. Try to identify something small or non-threatening that you can work on.
3. Focus on an area where you are clearly differentiated or have a tangible strengths vis-à-vis your competitor
4. Invest to earn their trust and respect.
5. Identify executives in the client organization who are not so loyal to the other provider.
6. Emphasize innovation and new ideas.
7. Be patient and persistent.
8. Stay in touch so you are there when your number comes up.
9. Pick your shots.

Easily, 4 out of 9 of these recommendations center on building a relationship with your prospect and demonstrating to them that you place them in high regard and are conscious of their concerns. That you, in fact, are looking out for them.

People buy from people. So many products today are just too difficult for a customer to wrap their heads completely around. Instead, they buy on a network of trust that starts with you - the salesperson - and extends to your sales team, your company, your reference customers, and even further.

What things have you found help make people remember you?

Need I say more?

Well I will say a little more. I have gotten so many excessively long emails over the years. Here are some pointers when composing email:

1. Summarize the entire email in the first sentence or two, right up top.
2. Use lists or bullet points; people skim emails.
3. Be clear about what you need or want them to do.
4. If you really have to convey a lot of information, break it up. Use headings.
5. Remember – it’s a Blackberry world. Your email should be easy to read on a portable device.
6. Assume that people don’t open attachments. Cut & paste the important section directly into the email. Then highlight the key phrase. And put it at the top of the email.

I received my undergraduate degree in computer science and spent the first 5 years or so of my career as a coder and a technologist. But I fell in love with the idea that technologies don’t succeed on their own merits; they need powerful applications and simple use cases on top of them to truly catch on. And because of that I went to business school to learn about marketing, product delivery, and business. My goal was to start my own company after graduation.

Graduation came quickly and wouldn’t you know, the year 2002 was an awful year to start a tech company. So I found some people I’d worked with previously (relationships are once again important!) and was offered a job as a Sales Engineer.

In fact I was quite apprehensive about moving into “Sales.” I remember quite clearly finding it almost impossible to think about that term without “Slimy Used Car” in front of it (no offense to all the honest, hardworking automotive salespeople out there). The point is, I had a hard time seeing myself in the role of a salesperson.

It was at this point that I was fortunate enough to engage in a transformative discussion with an alumnus I knew. He said “Brian, don’t you realize that you are already in sales? You are selling every day. On your team projects… in your various activities… you are selling your ideas and yourself and that is why people want to work with you.”

As the years have gone by I’ve often thought about this point of view. As a marketing director I had to sell my ideas to the market, sell my tools to the sales teams, and sell my budgets and plans to my managers. As a product manager I had to sell compromises to diverse functional groups, and I sold my vision of the future to the entire production team. As a father I’m always selling my kids on why now is a better time to go to bed than later, or why dinner should come before dessert.

How do you define Sales? Please share your comments below:

When you reach out to someone, remember: it’s not about you. In fact, if you are in sales, most people don’t want to hear anything about you. They want to talk about themselves. So oblige them. Ask how they are doing. Bring up things they said last time you spoke. Get them to share more about themselves, their work, and their lives.

After a conversation like that, they will hang up the phone and think “Wow, what a great conversation. I could talk to that person again.” Meanwhile, you will hang up the phone and think, “I know so much more about them now.” It’s a win-win situation.