A Q&A on developing relationships in business.

This was asked in LinkedIn and I gave a shot with my answer. Hopefully you can gain some ideas:

Q: What does a business do while developing relationships to close business, in the short term? This is a topic no one wants to really addresses openly. I understand that there is a balance and that it takes time to harvest time spent to grow a business. Any thoughts?

A: I'm not sure if I can answer your question accurately, but I'll try. By nature, most people won't respond to a company or its staff unless it's absolutely necessary, so the staff must do some things to maintain their interest or get them interactive, like:

1) Hold a lucky draw
2) Conduct a poll
3) Get feedback to a question
4) Run a "no-selling" weekly newsletter
5) Conduct a webinar
6) Invite blog comments

If you can do one of these things twice a week, by next month or 2 they should have some expectation of the products/services to come.