Business is a contact sport : Using the 12 principles of relationship asset management to build buy-in, blast away barriers, and boost your business

Business is a contact sport because human contact, connection, and cooperation is the essence of business. Even in our transaction-driven, increasingly virtual world, solid, long-lasting relationships are still fundamental to success. Yet in most companies, relationships with customers and employees and even more so with suppliers, distributors, licensees, licensors, shareholders, lenders, strategic partners, board members, universities, charities, the media and the community are the most underutilized assets. Business is a contact sport -- because human contact, connection, and cooperation form the cornerstones of business. In our transaction-driven, increasingly virtual world, solid and long-lasting relationships are still fundamental to success. Yet in most companies, relationships are the most underutilized assets. Consider this: Your company is only as valuable as its relationship assets. More specifically, your company is only as valuable as its employees' abilities to create, maintain, and use relationships to the benefit of all. So begins the essence of an entirely new managing paradigm -- Relationship Asset Management (RAM).Business Is a Contact Sport introduces 12 crucial principles for managing each business relationship as an asset at every level of the company, whether dealing with customers, stockholders, suppliers, employees, or community leaders. RAM takes the understanding of the one-to-one relationship to the highest level, explaining how to use not just what you know but who you know to succeed in business. Business Is a Contact Sport shows managers and entrepreneurs how to recognize all of their company's relationships as strategic assets and manage them as such. Offers 12 crucial principles for managing business relationships as assets, at every level of the company. Offers a detailed understanding of this special relationship, showing what tools to use and who to know to succeed in any business. Introduces the Relationship Asset Management paradigm, based on these ideas. We're here to blow the whistle and call a timeout!