What’s Your Valid Purpose?

Why aren’t people returning your calls or emails? Why aren’t they re-connecting with you after you meet them at an event? It’s because your valid purpose isn’t their valid purpose.

It is difficult for two professionals to commit to building a relationship without a matching valid purpose. Imagine that you and I meet at an event and I express to you that I’d like to get together to see who you could refer me to or to sell you an insurance policy. It’s very likely that you will not have the same interest in getting together that I do.

A valid purpose is a reason to engage, meet, or have continuing dialog based on the interests of the person with whom you want to build a relationship. Your valid purpose must be receiver centered. In other words, you need to be empathic. By understanding the needs and wants of the person across from you, develop a valid purpose that is meaningful for them. Here’s a sample valid purpose, ask for a meeting to learn more about someone’s services as you have customers who may have a need for their assistance.

It would be easy to construe from this brief description that your valid purpose can be just a veil to get you the meeting. Nothing would be further from the truth. Your stated valid purpose must be congruent with your intent. Trust is build by what you do overtime not in one moment.