Are you a Transactional or Relational Entrepreneur?

Video Transcript

Transactional vs. Relational Entrepreneurship

I want to start with asking you one question, and that is whether you are a transactional entrepreneur or are you a relational entrepreneur.

The Importance of Entrepreneurial Distinctions

Now let me explain why these two distinctions are important and the mindset behind it is super important to determine whether you succeed as an entrepreneur or not.

Transactional Entrepreneurship: A Personal Experience

So let me give you an example of a transactional entrepreneur. Transactional Entrepreneur basically what they want and what they look at is to make a transaction. Then after the transaction is like if there’s no money in it, they’re not interested to talk to you or do business with you. Just like recently I purchased something from an entrepreneur worth few thousand dollars and basically after asked a few more questions about the features of this product after buying it and after they agreed to give support, they started telling me, hey, look, you’re asking a lot of questions.

 If you want to ask more questions, we have to enter into a kind of like a consulting agreement. I wasn’t asking for strategy or anything. I view that kind of mindset is a very transactional mindset where they are just looking at the dollar bill right in front of them. And that’s totally fine too. I mean, if that’s how certain people do business, that’s totally fine. Most people like that are not able to build strong relationships.

The Power of Relational Entrepreneurship

Now there’s a reason why most of our clients that work with us, work with us for many, many years, right? Because first of all, the way we conduct our business is very relational. And that’s the second type of entrepreneur, second type of mindset I believe there is.

I had basically met up with him several times in the past and brought him out for lunch and so on. One day he decided, hey, I want to launch this ‘Online Virtual Summit’. And he reached out to me and asked for help. I said, sure, let’s do it right. Did not talk to him about price, did not talk to him about anything. I just want to help you out because you are in urgent need for someone to help you out. Sure, I’ll hop in and help you out. And basically after the first event, he was so impressed with our work, he then just gave us all his business.

 And from there on, he has referred so many clients to us and basically at least helped me to triple or quadruple my business as a result of this one client and as a result of my willingness to just say, hey, just going to help you out. Don’t expect anything in return, but I’ll do my best to help you out and let’s see what comes out of it. Just one situation where it helped me to triple or quadruple my business. And he referred at least 5-6 different clients to us.

Okay? So I don’t know, if I were a very transactional guy, I would probably have said at the start, hey, I want you to pay me this much before I start work with you. But because I knew he wasn’t in an urgent spot and he needed help quickly, I didn’t even ask for any money. I just said, look, let’s just help you out and let’s settle. Whatever happens at the end of it happens, right? Whether you pay me or whatever, doesn’t matter. I just want to just help you out and yeah, the results show it for itself.

Another Example of Relational Entrepreneurship

Let me give you a second example. Second example is earlier this year, we were asked to help out once again from another friend to help out to do a actually, it’s not a friend. It’s more like a business associate. And he asked me, hey, can you help out with marketing this event? And it was completely pro bono, so that means we didn’t take any fees for it. It was just basically out of goodwill. And he needed help because he had no idea about funnels and marketing. So we said, yeah, we’ll help you out. 

And he was just so impressed with what we did that just last week he gave me a contract which is potentially worth a lot of money. In fact, he gave me an equity in his new business because he wanted me and my team to come on board to help them with the marketing for this new project. Talking like millions of dollars in investments that they’re currently finalizing right now. 

So the project is going to be worth millions as a startup, right? And I am taking an equity share, or my business is taking an equity share in this project because we simply just kind of paid it forward at the start when he needed help. And for me, it was kind of like, hey, the relationship counts more than money. So we didn’t even charge a single cent for that pro bono project. We did a lot of work, helped out a lot. My whole team actually went to the event to volunteer as Ushers and so on, and as a result, this contract happened.

Reflecting on Transactions and Relationships

So there you go. As for the guy that basically told me, hey, you want to do more work? Ask more questions, you got to pay money. Well, I don’t think I’m going to do business with him in the future. And whereas these guys, because I paid it forward, I basically gave away things for free and giving it to the right people. As a result, they are now one my clients, and some of them are my business partners. And I’m taking equity in a project that’s worth millions, and my equity could be instantly worth a few million dollars. So there you go.

Final Thoughts

Have a think about it. What type of entrepreneur are you? And I guess it also comes down to my own personality. I’m not really the transactional type of person where I actually value relationships as much as I value the business. So that’s my own way of doing things. 

And in business, you will see a lot of transactional people. I think the majority of people are very transactional. But if you can have that shift and go a bit relational in your mindset without getting taken advantage of, of course you will find that it will open enormous doors for your business that you never dream of in your life. So hope this was helpful to you and I hope this will help you to become a better entrepreneur and grow your business faster.

Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this, make sure you check out our other videos. And if you’re on our blog, make sure you check out our other very valuable blog posts and videos as well. So I’ll see you in the next video.