Getting deals done often comes down to business relationships. Sometimes you have to deal with relationships that have gone sour which puts any business in jeopardy. You will have to decide whether or not the value in that relationship is worth saving. There are MANY ways to cross a bridge, but burning that bridge is NEVER going to be an option a smart person will take. But as last episode points out, there are a lot of bad managers and business people that you will have to deal with and they can blow up the bridge from under you. You will have to repair the bridge to maintain the value you’ve created in your venture. When business relationships are precarious, you will constantly flirt with patience versus progress. The key is to know who holds the ‘currency’ in your marketplace. You may not like it, or who has it, but if you don’t have a good understanding of where that currency lies, you won’t be able to gather it up for yourself to fix the bridge to start building value. This episode focuses on repairing business relationships so you can move forward to create options to help you build long term value in your venture. * Know the ‘golden rule’ prevails in business relationships: ‘He who has the gold rules.’ The player with the most power gets to make the business decisions…they get to set the rules and they don’t necessarily need to tell you what those rules are. * Some people have power just because they are popular, and power and politics will often trump good business. * Know what constitutes currency in your marketplace: political power, money, seniority, or talent. * Get out of ruts * Be patient, you don’t always need to be grinding away * Don’t get caught up in doing lots of tasks trying and control all the things we cannot * Don’t thwart your own efforts because you aren’t patient enough to let some options and business relationships play out * Follow the dollars * Know how the money flows * Invest your resources to ‘go with the flow’