I went to an excellent event this week followed by a get together with a friend – and it made me think about relationships, of all types.
I was at the Bristol Constructing Excellence conference down at Bristol waterfront yesterday morning and it was a beautiful day, one for being on the river rather than looking at it through a pane of glass, but hey if I took every glorious day we had off, not much of anything would have been achieved this month – its been fab eh?
Rebecca who has become a friend and colleague over the last few months is the chairman, chairperson, chairwoman whatever you wish to say to be correct or not, led the conference and it was brilliant! Brilliant speakers, brilliant venue, brilliant networking opportunities, it was just…. Brilliant!
I met Rebecca (who runs a fab Business Development company called Rejoove) through a lady called Debs, a lovely, giving, warm and smart American woman, with the gentlest southern drawl you can imagine. Debs put a group of woman together that she thought would get on and work well together and she was right on the button with her choices. We have formed the Gorgeous Girls club – because that is our common denominator! And it is awesome –as Debs would say!
Debs owns a company called DMM Consulting and does a great deal of work in supporting companies reach their goals and one company that she works for is Referral Institute, who we also partner with. Referral Institute basically helps organisations reach their sales goals through working smarter not harder, it's that simple and therefore of course it works!
One of their models is VCP – which is a mnemonic for Visibility, Credibility and Profitability – it describes the process of which good business relationships go through: You become or make yourself visible (network), and if you want the relationship to progress, you show yourself to be credible (prove yourself).
It might help to think of this in terms of a new romantic relationship; you put on the glad rags, hitch up the skirt and apply the lippy to get noticed. Once you have the interest, you tend to want to make yourself credible, men might tell you they drive a Ferrari and women might say … well actually we don't need to say a thing really! Once those two elements are in place it is then likely profitability is an outcome – whatever that might mean!
Through our Gorgeous Girls group we have got to know one another and are going through the VCP model naturally and we have all supported, nagged, challenged, questioned and encouraged each other in our business endeavours; one of the supporting outcomes was the attendance of the conference.
Rebecca used VCP in her opening speech, this time standing for Values, Communication and Passion – all key themes throughout the day for the conference.
My afternoon was topped off with a relationship progression too, not work related, but one that I think went through the process of VCP of both Debs and Rebecca's definitions. The outcome was and is profitability – a stronger, more honest and a better understanding of one another – all relationships that survive and grow and flourish have to have their challenges too, it's never all plain sailing eh? But how nice that would be! But the hiccups are the test. So whatever relationship you are in – what is the status?
Are you visible in a good way and do you share values?
Are you credible and deserve it through communicating?
Are you in profit, emotionally and/or financially? Is it passionate, strong?
Mark yourself out of 10 on those three questions on all key relationships and then you can see where and what focus is needed – because at home, work and play, we are all where we are today due to the relationships we have today and those that have passed.
I for one, am very, very, very, very grateful for each and every single one of my relationships, and looking forward to the new ones that will come my way – because right now I have my own definition of VCP, which I hope continues = Very Cool People!
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