Knowing Your Clients pg2

This newly acquired client could, very likely, be the conduit to many more potential clients who would be open to a conversation with you on the strength of their friend's knowledge and belief in you. Think about that!

You may have heard of the saying "six degrees of separation". What it means is that you are six people away from knowing anyone you'd like to know. And when you do the math, if each person knows between 150 and 300 hundred people, and each of those people knows their own 150 to 300 people, when you connect six people, you've got a ton of people.

I've conducted this exercise many times, both for myself and with clients and it's always amazing to see how a few people result in an enormous number of connections and business deals. You meet Mike, and then Mike introduces you to Jim, and then Jim introduces you to Cathy, and Cathy introduces you to Sarah, and then Sarah to Dave and so on. I've seen it many times where huge books have been built, and if you trace the connections back, it's not unusual to find that seven to ten people are responsible, and the lead source of the business.

So based on the above, the assignment is to begin "knowing your clients", and if you think about it, "knowing your own universe".

Start by selecting 3 clients and build a profile of what you know about them. While you can look at obvious aspects like: occupation, family, background, interests, etc., move beyond these to: whom do they associate with, associations they belong to - social, sports, philanthropic, travel, neighborhood, etc. When was the last time you sat down with them over a drink or a meal and really took the time to understand what was going on in their life: family, friends, challenges, disappointments, things they're looking forward to? It's always fascinating to learn of other people's lives and how they are both similar, and dissimilar to your own. And the more you know about someone else's life the more you understand about what's important to them and where and how you can add value, and how this insight might apply to you as well.

One way to test your knowledge of your client is to list the number of people that your client knows that you know, and what you know about these acquaintances of your client? How many can you list? Six, ten, more? And, in addition to the quantity, what's the depth and quality of your knowledge? You could do the same for the people in your universe too. It's a very revealing process to assess your real understanding of the people in your universe.

In addition to you learning more about your clients and people in your universe, which puts you in an advantaged position in being able to add value to your relationships with your clients and friends, you are also distinguishing yourself with the same people as they become acutely aware that you have taken a serious interest in their lives. What they like to do, who they like to do it with, their enjoyments and challenges, their highs and lows, goals and aspirations, interesting people they know and organizations they are familiar with, or friends who are part of those organizations, are now important to you and your clients and friends will now understand this. The true value of your relationships is going to come into focus for you and enable you to view your clients and friends in a multi-dimensional way.

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