I'm on the train to London, or at least getting on the train to London. It's about half an hour late, and I get on to my carriage but at the wrong end and my seat was at the other end and I'd seen a guy on the platform that I kind of thought I recognised, and he got on at the other side, and both of us met in the middle having got on at the wrong end of the platform - hilarious.
He said to me, "Do you remember me?" and I said, "I'm sorry, no", and it turns out that I'd spoken to him at the park recently when I'd been with my nephews close to where they live.
He works for a guy who I used to work with who was a trainee at our practice.
He built an extraordinarily successful company in dentistry, not doing normal dentistry, but doing something else (The details are not really important).
He was travelling to London to a leadership team meeting for that business.
We started to chat about that business and about how it was doing, what they were doing and how it tied up with what I do in my business, what I trained to do and things that I've done in the past.
And so he said it would be great if we could work together. I said, "How could I help?" and after a conversation about the challenges of his business and how to get better, I told him I could introduce him to Wrights Dental who we partner with and told him that I was sure I could speak to Wrights and make things happen for them; that would be really good, save them money, get them better service, all of that stuff.
We talked about educational opportunities because they were missing things and how that might work for us and things that we could do to help and make it better so that the business would be better and better and more desirable, more profitable, but ultimately a better experience for the client group.
We got off the train, shook hands, exchanged details, and off we went.
The best part of relationships starts with the question, 'How can I help?' but not just a question, not just a pleasantry with a general motivation to help the person you are crossed with because if you do, you'll be valuable, and if you're valuable, kind and approachable, why would it not work with you?
Blog Post Number - 4071
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