Albino Kangaroo: Relationships – ‘Nuff Said!’

Dear Diary – Day 4, Indaba’s over, nuff said.

Sorry if you feel misled by the fact that this is not going to give you any deep insights into ‘romantic’ relationships because I am still trying to work those out for myself. Still single with no kids (that I know off) is living proof of that. If YOU have any ideas, please send them to seidmand@gmail.com or post them on the blog comments.

What struck me was when someone asked me what I had done today.

Mentally, I told myself that I had cemented 2 relationships, formed 3 new ones, and was re-acquainted with an old one. To not sound like a total geek, my actual answer was “not much”. So much for being a creative geniuse.

But this got me thinking…….

What is a relationship? Like the misdirection in the title of the article, an obvious one is a romantic relationship. But this is not where most people’s relationships actually are. English is very inaccurate when describing ‘relationships’!

If you take French, as an example, you have:

Connaisance = Someone that you nod too at a party
Amis = A friend whose phone number you have on your mobile
Copain = Someone who invites you to their barbecue and you actually go
Pot = A brother you take a bullet for

In English, you end up having a friend. But that does not really define your relationship? Is he a good friend, a best friend, a wanna-be friend??

Regarding business, I tried to then find some definitions to my original thinking on what I had done today. I came to the conclusion that, as far as business is concerned, I have 2 categories of ‘relationships’.

The first category I would call ‘Contacts’. These are people I nod too, have on my mobile, find out what they do, and then store away for future use. This is where I think most of the value of networking lies. You go out there, meet lots of people, whether at a trade fair, event, cocktail evening, or otherwise, and have a very brief amount of time to ‘evaluate’ them and in a very mercenary way, determine their ‘usefulness’.

This is an extremely important process, as the whole point is not to necessarily close business here and now, but to have a resource of people you can contact when necessary to get a good service or product. Your ‘rolodex’ of trading so to speak.

The second category for me is what I would call ‘clients’. These are people that I have either found some kind of bond with (diving, sailing, traveling, technology, geekiness, etc) or are ‘critically useful’ (gotta be mercenary again, time is money). These I lavish attention on, attend barbecues, but, unless they become ‘pot’s” through time, I don’t think any amount business is worth taking a bullet for!

Hence, I really spent today attending to clients. I saw a couple good clients again and had good progressive discussions, I met 3 new clients, and I found a client I hadn’t seen in a long time. All in all, a good day.