It Starts With Clients

Week 14 Become an Irresistible Person of Interest

Everyone wants to have relationships with executive decision-makers and other important influencers. As I pointed out in Week 13, however, getting on the calendar of the CEO is like snagging a table reservation at the latest, hottest Manhattan restaurant. Without connections or celebrity, it's nearly impossible. I've seen this from the inside, while advising many C-suite executives. There's just endless demand for their time.

Let's do a thought experiment. What if this situation were turned upside-down? What if top executives were actively seeking you out? What if, when you called them for an appointment, they were delighted to hear from you and cleared their schedules to make room for you? How would this feel, and what would it do for your business?

A pipe dream? No. You may not develop quite the renown of star defense attorney Mark Gerargos or decluttering expert Marie Kondo, but you can absolutely increase your gravitational pull. I call it “becoming a person of interest to the C-suite.”

Technically, a person of interest—in the US—is someone police want to question because they may have witnessed, have information about, or been involved with a crime. They are being “actively sought out,” which is the sense in which I am using it here. For our lexicon, a person of interest is someone whom senior executives are drawn toward. ...