The power of personality.

Some say, you are who you hang around with. Ok, maybe that was just my mom, but the older I get, the more true that statement becomes. 

Same goes for business. Thankfully, there’s so many different personalities and work-styles out there, that it is possible to find your match. 

For example, about 5 years ago I met with a client in their West LA office. I’ll remove the name to protect the innocent. The meeting went off without a hitch. However, post-meeting, they asked us to respond to a RFP that was muddled with hourly rates and team members who would be on the account. Seemingly taking away from the WHY and the HOW we were going to make their life more seamless and efficient.

Looking back, I wouldn’t even entertain this type of request. 

But alas, we did it. Sent over that 5+ page proposal (big yuck — quick refresher on why those don’t work here.) and then our main point of contact went missing. Welp, after a quick search on LinkedIn, she was let go. 

A year later… similar scenario. Got called in to present, did a big ‘ol refreshed proposal, and he too was let go. Then I was chased to come back as a new person was hired in their place. You know what happened next… 🤮

Since then, it’s been a big joke with my client that if THAT company were to call again, we would just send them over one of the 3 proposals we had already shared and tell them to “pick one.” 😆

So guess what happened next? I got pinged by a NEW contact at THAT company back in March. I got a good giggle when it came into my inbox. But this time, the personality of the guy jumped off the paper and one of my good entertainment connects recommended us to him by name. I was intrigued…

This time, we did Zoom (like every other meeting these days). And rather than jumping to do a proposal for them, I started off the call sharing our past experience with pitching and how my client wasn’t in a place to be doing rounds again. Let’s be real, it’s me. I wasn’t having it. Ha!

To my surprise, the client claimed he read my “no asshole rule” article and assured me this wasn’t him. He had me. It also helped that he’d been at the company for over a year so I was confident this wasn’t a fly by night contact. #littlewin

The result… they are now a client. There was no big proposal. Just a 1-page deal memo we worked out over a Zoom conversation. Did I also mention there was no scoffing at Net-30? 🥳

Sure, we’re going through the legal schmegal onboarding and red-tape on the backend, but this time it’s worth going through the motions because him and his team are a REAL pleasure to work alongside.

🔑 Power of personality people. Be forthright. Be genuine. Don’t write off a company because of a particular person. Hold your standards and be patient. Sometimes the right contact comes along and it changes everything. 

To finding your match!