Is Marketing a Form of Dating?
By Adam Radzik
Consultant to Professional Firms

Many years ago, I was giving a series of lectures on marketing for professionals and a young man stood up in the back of the large group and raised his hand. I acknowledged him, and with a big grin on his face, he said, “This marketing stuff sounds a lot like dating to me!” The group laughed heartily, indicating their assent. I agreed that there are many parallels between marketing and dating.

If you think about it, when you are speaking to an audience, you are attempting to create a relationship with them. When you are writing, you are trying to create a relationship with your readers, and when you are networking, you are clearly attempting to forge a relationship with your companion. Just like in a dating relationship, you must gain the other person’s trust or the relationship will go nowhere. Developing these business relationships —I call them business friendships —takes time. As an example, when two professionals meet for the first time, it usually requires more than 15 interactions before one will refer business to the other. In the popular song “You Can’t Hurry Love,” with lyrics written by Diana Ross, she croons, “You can’t hurry love. No, you just have to wait. She said trust, give it time, no matter how long it takes.”

Sometimes a partner attempts to make the relationship produce too quickly, and when that happens, the survival of the relationship is called into question. In the romantic arena, it would be tantamount to proposing after the third date, and in the business arena, it would be pressuring the other person for a big referral simply because you had bought the person an expensive dinner.

A person’s success in the marketing arena can actually be predicted by the quality and the number of significant relationships he or she has in the business community. Often times what I discover with my trainees initially, is that they have too few relationships and that the relationships they do have tend to be distant and superficial. When my trainees became successful in landing significant clients, I always made it a point to inquire about the details. Invariably, their big fish resulted from their significant relationships.

Ask yourself how many significant relationships do you have. How can you deepen those relationships? How can you develop more significant relationships? It’s a mistake to believe that simply taking someone out to lunch once a year will produce the desired result. For many professionals, yet another lunch of boring shoptalk is not a desirable event. In fact, it can be an annoyance. Think about how you can be of significant help to the other person. Find out what the person is struggling with (and it doesn’t have to be a business problem).

In an upcoming book of mine, I point out that, "Flowers are charming and chocolates are sweet, but nothing compares to the performance of a thousand small favors." (Print this quote for display in your home or office).

For training on how you can get better results from your marketing efforts:
Contact Sales Improvement Consultants Today!


Comedy Corner

Ray was railing bitterly over the fact that Blue Cross/Blue Shield turned down his health insurance claim for a routine doctor’s visit. “You see this is what’s wrong with this country. These companies are very glad to take your premiums, but you submit a simple legitimate bill and they flatly refuse to reimburse you.” Ray’s best friend Carlo, finally tired of hearing this story over and over again, inquired, “What did they say to you? They can’t refuse to pay you for no reason.” Ray’s face became a florid red. “You want to know what they said to me, do you?” Carlo repeated himself, “ Yeah, what did they say to you?” “They told me I had no policy with their company, and therefore they felt no obligation to cover my expense. Can you imagine that? What’s that got to do with anything?”