How would you like to spend 20 to 30 minutes every day building one new relationship a day that will double, perhaps even triple your income?
I’m going to toss a new wrinkle into the relationship building game. I want you to think about two words could have dramatic affect on your life and your income.
Those two words are “on purpose.”
What do you think might happen if you started creating new relationships on purpose? And what if you attached an immediate dollar amount value to each of those new relationships?
That’s what I did several years ago and my results have been nothing short of amazing. I know it might sound cold and calculating to think like this, but bear with me.
It all started one evening as I was doing an Internet business seminar for a local S.C.O.R.E. chapter. I was talking about how to increase the value of email in your business. I looked down and, by chance, in my materials, I had one of those thousand dollar bill bookmarks you can buy at your local bookstore. Hold one up and it looks just like a $1,000 bill.
I wanted to impact the audience on the importance of building their email list so I told them they should treat each email address as if someone just handed them a $1,000 bill and I held up that bookmark.
Then I said, ” How would you like to build One New Relationship A Day. And how many of those relationships would you like that each one puts an additional one thousand dollars in your pocket?”
The reaction was immediate. Some audience members sat up. Some smiled broadly. Many whom I thought was asleep began asking questions. What I had discovered was the value label I attached to their future relationships that could begin with an email dialog made sense to them. They no longer just saw an abstract email address. They saw potential income.
I knew I had stumbled on to something and so my little “on purpose” relationship income experiment began. I started thinking what would happen if I purposely viewed every email relationship I created as a potential income stream that was worth a minimum of one thousand dollars and worked toward that goal. Of course, I believed each one would have to be a win-win and without a doubt there had to be real value for both parties involved.
So, from that day forward, every time the phone would ring, when I met someone new, received a referral or an email request I began to feel the anticipation as if I had just earned another one thousand dollars. Some days I would make cold calls or go to places out of the blue with the intention of meeting just one person.
From then on I started each day knowing I was going to meet someone new and create another relationship on purpose. Some days the momentum is so great I created multiple new relationships with. It’s became quite remarkable. I started attracting more people who wanted to work with me and give me money. Imagine that.
At some point I begin to track daily the purposeful creation of these new relationships. With each one I had a short conversation to discover what they needed and how I might be able to help them. Each time, in the back of my mind, I knew we would each at some point put a thousand dollars or more into our respective pockets.
To help you better understand this concept let me familiarize you with two terms I created for my experiment. They are Relationship Value and Relationship Income.
Relationship Value and Relationship Income
RV is the abstract value that you place on a new relationship. RI is the actual income that comes to through new relationships you create on purpose.
I know not every relationship manifests into one thousand dollars in RI from a client or customer, but it doesn’t matter. I just know that each new relationship will eventually lead to one that does. So each new relationship actually increases my RV.
Every day it happens. It’s incredible to watch as one person leads to another. New situations that create new income. Each new relationship somehow puts RI or trackable relationship income into my pocket.
Now I know the idea of building new relationships is nothing new for you, but perhaps focusing your intention on purposely defining one new relationship a day is.
I personally define a “new relationship” as having that initial conversation that helps outline how the relationship will develop. For me those are usually phone calls that last about 20 minutes or an email dialog that goes beyond one or two emails. That’s enough time for me to realize what I need to do to begin the process with that new person.
I make a physical note of the day, how they came to me and the talking points from our initial conversation. I don’t do anything else. I just continue my day and move on to the next relationship if there are any more for that day.
What makes this concept so amazing is I’ve gone back through my tracking sheets to see the results of these new “on purpose” relationships. Over the last 18 months there has been a dramatic increase in my actual income, my resources and my business holdings. I can attribute much of it to my creating one new relationship a day on purpose.
Most of us have learned to understand the value of relationships, but until I started following the path and tracking new relationships I never realized how much control I had over the income that would come from “purposely focusing” on creating new relationships.
How much could this idea be worth?
Think about the value of this one idea and how it could impact your own income. You create one new relationship a day on purpose. Think of each one having real immediate value. You can apply whatever RV or Relationship Value you want. I use one thousand dollars and it continues to work well for me.
If you could build one new relationship for each day of the year you would have a relationship income of…
$365,000 per year
Let’s suppose you slipped up and only did this “on purpose” exercise every other day. That would give you…
$182,500 per year
Let’s further suppose that only 20% of those every other day new “on purpose” relationships had actual relationship value. You would still created an additional relationship income of…
$36,00 per year
We’re talking about an increase of real money for simply and easily creating one new relationship a day.
What happens when one of your “on purpose” relationship manifest greater value and much more income than you initially valued that relationship? Of course, your income increases. And it will happen and not just with one or two of your new relationships.
Some of my relationships have grown far beyond what I had originally intended. Some of these people I met “on purpose” have become friends and long-term, highly profitable clients. Others have provided additional business interests. For me the results of my “on purpose” experiment have been stunning.
One important thing to consider.
I know there are skeptics who will dismiss this entire idea. Others will think that purposely creating a relationship with someone solely for the purpose of extracting a thousand dollars or more from them is cold and wrong.
I don’t believe it is. I offer great value for the services I provide. This is simply a strategy for assisting us in meeting new people and identifying with whom we want to do business.
In business, don’t we concoct methods and strategies for marketing and selling our products and services? Aren’t we already thinking on purpose when we make a presentation or a proposal to prospective client? Don’t we have the goal in mind of selling that person on us and the product or service we’re offering? Of course. But most of us are not purposeful in our approach. We know we have something of value and we’re simply making that known to our potential customers and clients.
My concept of creating one new relationship a day is merely a purposeful strategy to insure that you continue to build viable and valuable relationships that will over time respond, realize and reciprocate for you in dutiful, purposeful business.
I don’t think of these new “on purpose” relationships as cold, hopeful introductions. I value every one of them. Like all of my relationships I do what makes sense and what’s right to earn their trust and their business.
Most, I’m happy and proud to say, have led a to fuller, richer business experience. Some have developed into strong, healthy personal relationships as well. Nearly each one has had far more monetary value for them than I purposely anticipated. And there are ones that have evolved into putting actual income for my business too.
I openly share this new spin on a crucial business building technique with you because I believe “relationship building” shouldn’t be passe in business. It’s a vital fact of business and the sooner you embrace a purposeful means to increase the amount of purposeful relationships in your life, the sooner you will realize a dramatic increase in your income.
Someone is destined to be my “New Relationship of the Day” today. Is it you? I inv