Hi {{first_name}},

Treat everybody like they're your client.

I've been running market research calls recently, asking coaches about their business, their struggles, what they're trying to build, and just letting them talk.

I had to reassure a few people at the start that I genuinely wasn't going to sell them anything. 

They'd been on enough "friendly chats" that turned into demos.

People opened up. They shared things they probably wouldn't have shared if they thought I was angling for something.

At the end of the calls, they'd start asking me questions. 

What do you do? How does your business work? Some offered to introduce me to people they knew. Others followed up afterwards to stay in touch.

I didn't ask for any of this.

I'd been leaving so much on the table this year.

I was coached to avoid coffee calls. Don't waste time on conversations that don't lead somewhere. 

Get people onto a discovery call. If it doesn't convert to a sales call, move on. Find the next prospect.

So when I genuinely wanted to get to know someone better, just because they seemed interesting or we had mutual connections, I talked myself out of it. 

That's not productive and it’s not how you build a business.

When discovery calls didn't convert, I didn't stay in touch. I moved on to the next prospect.

That cost me relationships, a network I never built, and people who might have become clients six months later or introduced me to someone who became a client or just been good people to know.

I was so focused on making everything about a sale that I forgot how business actually works.

The people I know who have the strongest businesses aren't the ones with the tightest sales processes. 

They're the ones who know everyone, who built relationships for years before any money changed hands, who treated people well regardless of whether there was an immediate transaction.

Treat everybody like they're your client.

Give them the same attention you'd give someone paying you. The network you don't build today is the opportunity you won't have next year.

I'm changing how I operate: conversations without an agenda, staying in touch with people who aren't ready to buy, actual coffee calls.

It feels like the opposite of everything I was taught about efficiency and qualification and not wasting time on people who aren't buyers.

But I think the advice was wrong.

If this hit home for you, or if you've felt the same tension between "be efficient" and "be human", hit reply. I'd genuinely like to hear about it.

Jack