Welcome to the OPPO FLOW Storybook. 

Each week I fly an entertaining and motivating story that provides actionable items to inspire growth towards your success and happiness.

The weekly flights bring you one of the following:

A MINDSET SHIFT to prepare for opportunity and build better habits towards success. 🤯

Or…

AN OPPORTUNITY STORY sharing inspirational pivotal moments from someone’s life that changed their trajectory in a positive way. 🚀

Let's get you introduced to our AMAZING CO-PILOT!! ✈

Journey Payroll & HR is expanding NATIONWIDE through local Ownership. If you know a strong business professional living outside of AZ, who would be interested learning more about controlling their own destiny with an AMAZING TEAM and becoming an entrepreneur working closely with the small business community, please reply to this email.

JOURNEY PAYROLL

FYI - If you’re interested in being a sponsored Co-Pilot for an upcoming FLIGHT, please SEND ME AN EMAIL

Hi Friend, 👋

Last week I wrote about Auditing your Personal Relationships to Drive Happiness. (👈 ICYMI)

Let’s keep the Relationship theme going for another FLIGHT. 🚀

This time we’re talking about how Professional Relationships have a major impact on your career and your life when managed the right way.

Let’s dive in. 🤿

As a small business Owner, operating Journey Payroll in the PHX 🌵 market for other small business owners, the life blood of our business is through REFERRALS.

Referrals don’t come without strong professional relationships.

They just don’t.

Partners don’t refer us business without trust, hard work, and being accessible.

According to this Entreprenuer.com article 👉 50% of all Small Businesses Fail within the First Five Years. 😱

We launched our business in 2017 and continue to experience rapid growth.

I can directly attribute our SUCCESS thus far to the Professional Relationships we’ve developed with our partners over the years.

Instead of hunting, we’re farming. 🌾

We’re cultivating that partnership to become fruitful long term.

It’s not easy. It takes patience and a little persistence.

This is done by…

• REFFERING FIRST

  • Have a GIVER’S GAIN mentality. Give more than you receive, and eventually you’ll end up with an X multiple in return.

• STAYING IN FRONT

  • Being visible with your partners and keeping them informed is a great way to stay top of mind.

• GO ABOVE AND BEYOND FOR A REFERRAL RECEIVED

  • When you’re referred in, treat that potential customer like they’re your only client. BLOW THEM AWAY. They’re going to report their experience back to your referral partner and you want this to be an exceptional review.

We have a saying on our team, “We’re Building Lifers”.

Basically, that comes from us being a Sales AND Operations organization.

Of course, we love sales, but we also really LOVE retention.

We are a sales driven but retention focused organization.

It starts with HEART.

We’d rather sell one client and keep that one, than sell two clients, and… well… only keep one of them.

This does a couple of things…

• Ensures we’re developing a true connection with our clients.

• Ensures we’re not getting negative reviews in the marketplace for lack of care.

We’re not a churn and burn business.

We launched over 6 years ago and started tracking retention about 4 years ago.

We’ve never achieved less than 98% client retention YOY. 📈

Clients want to be LOYAL… They really do.

They don’t want to hop from vendor to vendor or provider to provider.

It a DISRUPTION to their business having to change service providers every year.

They want providers who they can trust and who will be there for them when needed so they can FOCUS on what they do best for their own customers.

When providing a service or product, it’s up to you to prove that you’re going to do what you say you’re going to do.

Build client relationships with effective communication, consistency, and confidence that you can make it happen.

This build TRUST. 

Having relationships with clients at a high level is also extremely helpful when things don’t go as expected.

No one is perfect and mistakes happen.

Clients are more understanding when things go wonky.

WHY?

Because they trust you and know that you’re human.

They know you will communicate well on what happened, how you’ll resolve it, and what you’re doing to ensure it doesn’t happen in the future.

Without the relationship built, you’re just a vendor who makes a mistake.

And this is not a great place to be for retention. 😔

With these Client Relationships you’re able to confidently go out into the marketplace to work with new clients/partners and flex your muscle. 💪 

You are able to share stories and testimonials of how well you take care of your clients.

Build your business by developing relationships with your clients and make them feel like they’re not just a number or a transaction on a spreadsheet.

This gets you in the door during the sales process. This peaks interest.

This drives revenue.

This drives SUCCESS. 🤩

As a small business, it’s not about the company name that people want to work with, and it is more about the PERSON representing that organization.

Think about striving to become an Intrapreneur.

This person establishes themselves as a LEADER in their role.

They have developed a strong identity for themselves through their skillset, aligning who they are in their personal lives to their professional lives, and taking OWNERSHIP of their business within their organization.

They’re building their own REPUTATION internally and externally.

This is done with their character, expertise, and follow through.

They SELF-BRAND towards their own success. 🙌

Being a confident intrapreneur enhances trust with your colleagues, promotes innovation, and brings an abundance of opportunity within the organization.

Some easy ways to start building trusting relationships with internal team members:

• Ask about them first, then listen.

• Do what you say you’re going to do.

• Share stories, relate, and show empathy.

• Think of how you might be able to help them get ahead.

• Be a proactive team player, a resource, and have their back.

I think it’s safe to say that building strong Professional Relationships furthers your career in whatever industry you’re passionate about.

One of the best things you can do for your professional career is to find a strong networking or mastermind group.

These people are LIKE-MINDED and GROWTH-FOCUSED professionals you can be vulnerable with, discuss business challenges with, and ask for advice from without any judgement.

This group helps you think differently by providing various perspectives, ideas, and holds you accountable.

They have the ability to open doors for future opportunities and vice versa.

Over time, these types of relationships will typically become casual or close Personal Relationships that bring a ton of value in all aspects of your life.

Seek out these Professional Relationships for your Personal Growth.

Through all of this…

Remember, YOU are the most important person to have a great relationship with.

Without the best version of yourself, you simply cannot achieve what you want out of life or consistently make a positive IMPACT on others.

It’s extremely difficult to start developing strong relationships personally or professionally, if you first are not happy.

Working on yourself day in and day out, challenging yourself on purpose, and giving yourself grace through failures are all crucial steps to being HAPPY within. 😊

This is where confidence is built. This is where your light shines. 🌞

All relationships, both personal and professional, will become stronger when you’re committed to being the best version of yourself.

When you realize your potential (which is much more than you think, trust me 😉) and set out to make the positive changes in your life, you become…

• LIKEABLE

• CONFIDENT

• TRUSTWORTHY

People want to work with people who believe in themselves, have a growth mindset, and are striving for success.

When people want to work with you, you’re presented with more OPPORTUNITIES that can further your GROWTH.

Be someone that people want to work with.

Create more PIVOTAL MOMENTS by developing and leveraging a STRONG PROFESSIONAL NETWORK.

This is the MINDSET SHIFT. 🤯

Until our next FLIGHT, enjoy your YOUTUBE Music Video of the Week! 

👇

Remember, Opportunity is Everywhere!!

Cheers! Steven

Ohhh.... and also, there's a few Social Media icons around this email. See them? Cool! Click them. Follow for more OPPO FLOW stuff throughout the week. Also, if you know someone who needs a nudge or just likes entertaining mindset stuff, please share this email with them, and they can subscribe for FREE!

As always, thanks for your support!