Your First Relationship

It's soon time to honour the first person you met upon entering this world... your mother! Mother's Day is fast approaching.

With that in mind, today I'd like to talk about your close relationships, as well as thinking outside the box and choosing Mother's Day as a way to send an unexpected heartfelt card to your clients this year.

How will you celebrate it this year? How do you nurture the relationship with your mother and other loved ones, for that matter.

First of all, when I ask clients who they need to keep in touch with to establish the number of cards they need to send out, I am astonished with the frequent reply: I don't have many to send.

Stats say, the average person knows about 2000 people by the time he or she is 20 years old. Imagine how many people the well-established business person knows?

Probing a little further, I discover the client is thinking only of their A-list clients. And while it's important to focus 80% of your time on the top 20% of your clients, a huge opportunity to explore the goldmine within the remaining 80% is missed.

If you leverage your time, and use an efficient system, you can keep in touch with those clients without spending a lot of time doing so.

While you need to enhance relationships with your clients, what about nurturing relationships with your loved ones at the same time? At the end of the day, these are the people you spend a large part of your time with, and those relationships matter most.

How many mothers do you have? Of course, you only have one biological mother. Growing up, however, you likely adopted a few mothers along the way.

In my case, my honourary mothers include the mom of my best friend in high school, some of my mother's close friends who were like a parent to me growing up, and when I married, some of my husband's adopted moms. I have a few honourary grandmothers too.

What impact do you think you'd have if you sent each of those people a sincerely-worded card, telling them what a difference they have made in your life?

The added bonus to nurturing those relationships is you remain in the forefront of their minds. Wouldn't it be great to get more heartfelt referrals from those closest to you?

Now, it's time to turn your attention to your business clients. Think outside the box this year. How many of your clients are mothers? How many other mothers in your circle of influence do you know who are mothers? Your hairstylist, your child's caregiver, the organist at your church, women at your gym, school contacts, your chiropractor, massage therapist...

The list is endless. Are any of these people potential clients for you? Could they provide referrals to you? How will you ever know until they know you better, and more importantly, until they know you care?

What impact would you have if you sent them an unexpected, heartfelt Mother's Day card? Do you think it would make their day? Would you generate goodwill and nurture a lot of relationships in an instant?

I think you'd better put pen to paper and get cracking on that list! Time is money.

(P.S. If you need to find a quick, easy way to send beautiful cards that are also cost-effective, I'd be happy to help you out. Email me: susan@AreYouACardSender.com)