A Great Call Is Not a Result
Rapport creates the opportunity. Someone still has to move the conversation somewhere.
You had a great conversation.
So what came out of it?
A guy told me about a call he'd been trying to get for weeks.
Sharp operator, been around, seen a hundred companies like his.
Finally got the meeting.
And it went beautifully.
Deep.
Wide-ranging.
Where the industry's going, what he'd watched work and fail, war stories.
The guy told him his model looked solid.
He hung up energized.
So I asked how they'd left the actual thing, how the two of them would work together, what each would send the other.
They never got to it.
They'd had such a good conversation that they talked right past the reason for the conversation.
It happens constantly and almost nobody catches it, because it doesn't feel like failure.
It feels like the opposite.
You come off warm, encouraged, validated.
Somebody smart told you you're on the right track.
But nothing moved.
No commitment.
No next step.
No date.
Just two people who enjoyed each other.
Rapport is not an outcome.
It's the conditions that make an outcome possible, and then you still have to go get the outcome.
And warmth is the easiest thing in the world to mistake for progress, especially if you're likable.
Likable people fail at this more than anyone.
They get the meeting, they charm the room, everybody leaves happy, and the pipeline doesn't move an inch.
They mistake being well-received for getting somewhere.
Then they wonder why the calendar's full and the revenue's flat.
The fix isn't being colder.
Have the good conversation, that's the part that makes people want to work with you at all.
But know the one thing the call exists to produce.
Write it down before you dial.
And do not hang up until it's either done or scheduled.
That's it.
One sentence of discipline against an hour of pleasant drift.
Because the drift is seductive.
Interesting people are interesting, and following the tangent is genuinely enjoyable.
It's just that the enjoyment gets billed to you later, when you realize you have to ask for the same meeting again, and this time you're the guy who wasted the first one.
Good conversations are cheap.
Anybody can have one.
Conversations that end with something decided are the whole job.
So look at your last few calls that felt like wins.
What specifically changed because they happened?
And if the honest answer is that you both enjoyed it, what were you actually doing in there?