Many people have become quite familiar with the various ‘As a Service’ type offerings that exist today…. You can have software as a service (SaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and more. These offerings have become more prevalent as they offer a fundamental value added service about providing something that has already existed (software, hardware) and make it more easily used for a variety of different types of entities, from individual business owners to multi national corporations. In Steven MacDonald’s SuperOffice article from November 2, 2020, he discusses how Saas can help companies increase growth rates by 19.6% (https://www.superoffice.com/blog/saas/).
I personally believe it’s a great thing to see a number of multi generational businesses being built on this fundamentally unique means of doing business. It also brought to mind the ‘Service’ type of offering that is used conversationally be many people today. I’m a huge fan of a Service First mentality, especially with my own set of four favorite words to use whenever I make a new connection. These four words are ‘How May I Help’? I purposefully don’t specifically state ‘You’ or ‘Your Business’ or ‘In Any Specific Way’. I have learned to keep the question open ended, as I, in many cases, don’t know how I may be able to help, I just want to at least ask the question, and see where it leads.
In many cases, it very well might not lead anywhere…I simply may not have the right idea, person, connection, or support that is required at the time. However, it does not prevent me from continually asking the question, as I am always curious as to where it may lead. More importantly, it’s the start of what I believe it fundamentally important in terms of building a deep and long lasting relationship with people…one connection at a time. Getting to meet with various people of quite diverse backgrounds, with varying talents and capabilities, and – here’s the fun part – getting to genuinely listen to and resonate with their individual *story* is one of my absolutely favorite activities to do. After hearing their story, having the opportunity to ask this simple question of how I can help, and then, most important, actually *doing something about it*, is a personal passion of mine.
As Dan Mannion stated in his April, 2018 post on ‘Your Network is Your Net Worth’ (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/your-network-net-worth-daniel-mannion/), he talks about the power of trusted referrals in your network that are based upon those relationships that you have built over time.
This directly leads me to the intersection between personal passions and work, and why I am pleased to be a part of Tailwind Business Ventures, where we have trademarked the phrase “Software as a Relationship”. Each of the founding partners has a fervent and fundamental belief that the relationship with the people that we have been given the opportunity to do business with is something not to be taken lightly. We truly believe in the power of a long standing relationship; one built upon mutual trust, respect, accountability, and integrity. With a strong foundation built upon the power of the relationship, the inevitable business issues and challenges become a bit more manageable, and there is almost always a straightforward path to success.
With Tailwind, our focus is on creating these various Software as a Relationship type of engagements. Because with Tailwind, it isn’t business…it’s actually personal.