Even if you had to buy a copier from someone for your business, what's more important to you, the speed of how many documents could be printed in 30 seconds by that machine or how your daughter does in her soccer game this weekend?

What gets you more excited, the work you do during the week or the fun you have on the weekend?

If professional relationships are bridges, how solid are yours?

Truth is if we only get to know those we work with and get business from on a professional level, we risk becoming a commodity. Consequently, those bridges can become rickety and unstable.

Under trying times and bad relationship weather, if you will, they can snap in half, sending the relationship plummeting to its death.

Sound a bit morose? I could be dramatic and say that relationships are like flowers. In order to blossom, they need to be continually enriched with nourishment and love and care.

If this sounds too flowery, see if you can answer these questions about your employees, clients or customers:

When is their birthday? Where did they grow up? Where did they go to school?

What activities were they involved in? Are they married? What is the name of his/her spouse? Do they have children? What are their names?

Pets? Names?

What do they enjoy doing on weekends? What are they truly passionate about?

Did anything exciting happen to them recently? Is anything exciting coming up?

Shockingly, most people don't know the answers to these questions, yet they're quite easy to discover, IF YOU ASK THEM. If you don't know at least half of these answers with half the people you work with, then absorb this truth:

"You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people, than you can in two years of trying to get other people interested in you."

— Dale Carnegie

How often do you hear someone say, "John provides a great product, but I really hate him as a person?"

Fact: People like to do business with people they like. The more you learn about people and show a genuine interest in them, the more they will like you and want to invest in a mutually profitable professional relationship.

Bridges are built stronger when they are reinforced with support, when they have a foundation that is reliable and secure.

Like bridges, relationships need the reinforcement of support by showing those we work with that we value them as people first, colleagues second. Please don't confuse this for it is unequivocal, indisputable and irrefutable.

"People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."

The challenge with all this is that many people express that they know the importance of finding out about others, but don't know how to go about it without seeming too pushy or manipulative.

Stay tuned because in next week's column I will share nuggets like "conversation starters," "database collectors" and other clever connections that will make your bridges rock solid.

Joe Takash speaks to organizations looking to improve morale, customer relationships and leadership. He also serves as director of corporate relations for Robert Morris College. E-mail him at .