Starting a new professional endeavor as a realtor, a friend was given her first assignment: send one hundred mailers to her own personal contacts announcing her arrival into the real estate world. Of course, a small amount of vetting was required; she didn’t include her elderly aunt and uncle who just moved into a senior living facility. There had to be at least a small amount of potential for the purchase and/or sale of a property.
What she found, and was completely caught off guard by, was the difficulty she had finding that quantity to reach out to. In her fifties, she has met thousands of people in her lifetime: through other jobs she had had, her childrens’ schools, activities and sports, church, her community and social media. And yet she struggled to come up with a list numbering three digits. Even when she had a name, she also needed their address which was an additional unforeseen challenge of this first opportnity to impress her new boss.
When she told me of her struggle, I wondered how I would fare if this was tasked to me. I checked my Christmas card list and including those ruthlessly cut over the years (nothing says Christmas like slashing recipients of your glad tidings of comfort and joy), my total is 64. If I were to pare it down based on the slightest chance they are looking for a new manger, I would be down to 50. Adding back in maybe another 20 I could think of, I’m still only at 70.
How would you do? Would it be easy for you to come up with ninety-nine plus one? It sounds easy, doesn’t it? We are all introduced to so many people as we go about the business of living, crossing paths with complete strangers whom we will either never see again or with whom we will connect and build a relationship. The latter is the exception and certainly not the rule. When it comes down to it, there’s only a dozen people I would even play Monopoly with, let alone enter into a contractual agreement where the money isn’t one-sided and printed on white, pink, blue and yellow paper.
