The Relationship Edge: Don’t Write Checks The Relationship Can’t Cash

Don’t Write Checks the Relationship Can’t Cash

By Aaron Drussel, Co-Founder & Partner at REUNION

First of all, I’m impressed you’re even reading this.

For real… think about everything you have to do today, and you’re actually taking the time to read this?

Or are you just reading this to avoid the other work you don’t want to do?

Hey, I’m not judging… I’m just glad at least someone is reading this.

I was thinking about something…

You know that moment at a business “networking event”…

You sit down. Introduce yourself. Meet the person next to you.

And before you know it, they’re asking who you know that could use their services.

Ummm… dude, I’m still trying to remember your name.

In real estate, I call this commission breath.

You can almost taste the sales-yness and desperation.

It’s what happens when our need for business, or money, gets ahead of our interest in the person.

Geez… we’ve just barely opened the relationship account… and we’re already writing checks.

Then, when those checks bounce, we decide networking or relationship building doesn’t work.

Or…

Maybe we just haven’t deposited enough yet.

Think about what we’re really asking when we ask someone for a referral.

We’re asking them to put their reputation behind us.

That’s a pretty big withdrawal.

Have we given them enough reason to do that?

Not just told them how great we are.

Have they experienced enough consistency, follow through, generosity, competence, or character to actually trust us?

Maybe the better question is:

What deposits are we making into the relationship?

Did we follow through on what we said we would do?

Did we make the introduction?

Did we remember something important they told us?

Did we reach out when we had absolutely nothing to sell them?

Did we look for a way to help their business before wondering how they could help ours?

Those are deposits.

And I think we dramatically underestimate how much they compound over time.

But there’s another side to this…

Making a deposit doesn’t mean we immediately get to make a withdrawal.

If I send you a referral on Tuesday and expect one back by Friday, that wasn’t generosity.

Let’s get real…that’s an invoice with really confusing payment terms.

Relationships aren’t transactional scorecards.

The strongest relationships I’ve built in business didn’t happen because we perfectly exchanged favors.

They happened because, over time, enough deposits were made that trust existed when one of us finally needed to write a bigger check.

Maybe that’s part of The Relationship Edge.

Stop trying to cash relationships too quickly.

Make deposits.

Build trust.

Give it time to compound.

And when the moment comes to write the check…

make sure there’s abundance of value already in the account.