The New Normal Continues to Evolve

The “New Normal” continues to take new twists and turns, and are not as easy to read as the hanging curveball I saw last night in my return to Baseball after a 21 year absence (yes, I officially made my “over 40” debut).
I was speaking with a colleague of mine today about trends we are seeing in and around the financial industry and a name of someone we used to work with came up. I was told this person wanted to reach out to say hello to me, and looks forward to having a conversation that does not involve business. The ironic thing is, I cannot recall many, if any conversations with this person that did not circle back to business. My point being that we hear about the importance of networking and to seek out opportunity everywhere, yet here is someone, who reported through me for over ten years, who wants to speak about things other than business (I presume the Yankees winning streak). I think this exemplifies that the “New Normal” is totally unpredictable.
My hopes are that the “New Normal” expands the way people think in the following ways:
- How can this help my customers?
- How can this help my business?
- How can this help me?
- How can I make money?
- Is there anything I am doing that this person/ entity can do well with (the thought being a favor/ referral is returned many times over)?
- What if we explored ways to share customers/ ideas, can this work to our mutual advantage?
- I need to say what I will do and do what I say I will do.
The best business I do is through relationship building and referrals. I hope the “New Normal” allows me to dwarf my past success!
Bob Germano
July 10th, 2009