Do You Have Enough Friends? Dear John,
Two years ago, my wife threw me a surprise 50th birthday party. It was a touching celebration with the people who are closest to me in attendance. Family flew to Florida from New York to celebrate with me. There was great food and wine and lots of reminiscing.
Most of the folks who joined us from out of town stayed at a local resort and the celebration continued throughout the weekend.
This is a weekend I will remember for the rest of my life and I’ll always be grateful to the people who spent that time with me.
A couple of months later, as we were preparing our holiday card list, I came across the invitation list my wife used to invite folks to attend the party. While I understood why many of my friends from out of town declined to attend because of travel and logistic issues, I was surprised by the folks within driving distance who just said “no.” Some of them didn’t even send a card.
This led me to do some deep thinking about my relationships. Had I overestimated them? Were they one sided and I failed to realize it? Am I spending so much time working and focusing on my family that I neglected to nurture the personal relationships in my life?
I came to a realization: While all those things are true, that’s the way life works. As our family grows and our work becomes more complex, we drift away from the people who became our friends when we were at a different time in our lives. We focus on a few good friends. We dedicate our limited time and attention to them.
Then I applied this thought process to my business. I have several clients today who have been with me since I founded my company in 2007. I have one client whom I’ve known since 1990. The average tenure of my client relationships is 43 months (that’s more than 3 years). When I host a live event or a virtual event, I regularly have over 50 people in attendance.
My business relationships are strong, and they keep getting stronger.
This is true because I nurture them. I communicate weekly with my subscribers and multiple times each week with my clients.
That’s the difference.
We ignore some friendships because we believe we have emotional leeway. We believe we can neglect communication with them and pick up right where we left off. This is only true of the strongest friendships.
In business I teach my clients to develop deep relationships with their clients. I teach that we must communicate with clients as frequently as possible. I teach that we need to connect with new people, deliver value, and continue the conversation for a lifetime.
In my case, many of my business associates and clients have become close friends. They were present at my birthday celebration and they continue to be present at my business events.
That’s the real lesson here.
When you invest in client relationships, both financially and emotionally, and you deliver value, clients become friends. This is not only a desired outcome; it is a natural outcome. A byproduct of this is deeper investment and lots of referrals.
That’s why I asked this question today.
Building a business is just like making new friends. Deliver value. Be reliable. Have ongoing conversations and deep communication and your life with be rich.
If you’d like to discover more ways to grow – both your business and your personal life – join my Inner Circle Business Development and Referral Community. We meet three times each week and we support and help each other. Find more information here: http://JoinDaveLorenzo.com
Warm regards,
Dave Lorenzo
Revenue Growth Expert
Toll Free: (888) 444-5150
Miami, FL: (786) 436-1986
Email: [email protected]
Website: DaveLorenzo.com | 