By Hipolito Munoz Navarrete, Managing Editor/Publisher

At the center of business rhetoric, many “leaders” have created the ultimate excuse for excess, indulgence and injustice: “it’s not personal, it’s just business.” Well, surprise, business is personal. All transactions we execute will affect someone personally especially the businessperson making the deal. The larger the transaction the more trust we must have in order for the decision to be made. At the center of these collaborations are two questions; how well do they know your company? How well do they know you? Over the years business has shifted from manufactured empathy to necessary transparency.

Are your clients and/or partners feeling that you are truly open and authentic with them? If they do not, you will always be looking behind your back for the others that are recruiting them for the business, because its not your business, its your clients’ business.

How do you avoid that? You can’t, what you can do is present the most authentic version of your business to them by telling your story through your brand.

So let’s help you create a character that folks can identify your assets through. Define the attributes you want your partners to think about when they think of your business. If it were human, what would that look like? What type of voice would it have? How would it dress? What would be the first thing she/he would do when he/she saw your client? What would be the first thing that it would say? There are many business plan templates that ask you the same question in a very different way, but this is about connection, you should look at your business plans to see if your idea of what people should see, is what you and your team, if you have one, have created.

This humanistic representation of your company will allow you to use metaphors to connect with your business partners because they will be able to relate better. If you think I am being foolish, why do you have Facebook “friends” rather than connections? There is a certain amount of responsibility to the way we manufacture compassion and we can always address those concerns through our authentic transparency. That does not mean that everyone gets to take a look at your ledgers, it means that you will always be truthful as to how what you and your company does affects their business.