Your long-term strategic goals should include ‘Who’s’ as well as specific outcomes

Successful people and successful companies have one thing in common: goals. And goals need plans, which in the mid- to long-term are known as strategies. Some time back I learned myself that to complete these strategies you will need allies. Some of these allies will be internal (inside your company), external (outside your company) and personal (friends and family). You might be surprised as to how many people do not consider these key alliances to be part of their goals, or better yet, even the goals themselves.

To accomplish almost any goal worth achieving you need to build relationships. You need to have people on your side who help on not only because money is at stake but also because they value their relationship with you. Because of this I would like to invite anyone who doesn’t think of their goals in these terms to sit down and look at each task or project you are trying to complete and write down who’s help or services you’ll need to accomplish each and every step in the process. Once you have done this you will see clearly what I am telling you about how important it is to include the ‘who’ into your planning.

If you agree now that this is important then go back to that piece of paper and look at all of the people you wrote down. Ask a few questions:

• Do I already know this person? And if so what level is my business and / or personal relationship with them?
• Do I not know this person yet? If not, how do I meet them and establish a relationship with them?
• What help can I offer them in return for their help in achieving the goal? What have I done for them lately (so to speak)?
• And in both cases, how do I make sure that my relationship continues beyond this goal I want to achieve?

If you do this quick exercise for any particular goal or task you want to achieve you will see that this effort is worth its weight in gold. If you are reading this write up in the first place I think you already understand that relationship building is worth money to your company and gives you a richer life as well. However, this exercise will supercharge your goal achieving productivity. It will also help you to understand the truth in “it’s not what you know, but who you know.” And if you use this exercise regularly you will also see back flow to you in that you will become a lightning rod for opportunity coming your way.

Gary Dale Cearley is the Managing Director of Advanced International Networks Ltd. (AIN), one of the fastest growing and most dynamic business-to-business networking organizations in the world. AIN’s networks include AerOceaNetwork (AON), XLProjects Network (XLP), and AiO Logistics Network. Gary Dale has been in many facets of international freight forwarding for more than two decades from operations to sales to the owner of the first 100% foreign owned freight forwarding company licensed in Vietnam. The companies that he has been involved with have been both generalists and specialists. He has also worked from large European and Asian multinationals (Danzas and Hankyu Express) as well has small start up forwarders. For the past ten years Gary Dale has owned and operated AIN. He has lived in several major cities in four different countries and he is multilingual. Currently Gary Dale runs the AIN operation from Bangkok, Thailand, but travels the world over.