Yesterday, I was talking with a business owner about his business and an apparent slump that he was experiencing. After a bit of digging, he told me about a health issue that he was dealing with at the same time that he was dealing with potentially life-threatening issues with his mother. I consoled him by saying that anybody dealing with that kind of stuff would be distracted and I shared a couple of personal experiences. He told me that he’s a private person and doesn’t let business contacts know what’s going on in his personal life. I asked him why and he replied that he’s always been private and kept his personal life separate from his professional life. I asked him why again and he really didn’t have anything else. So, I asked whether he thought that his customers might like to know a little about the man. While he thought, I asked him if he knew anything about my sons. Yes and he told me where they lived and what they did. He knew some stuff about Elaine. He knew about Maine. He knew about Kai and Zane. I asked him if he thought that knowing that stuff made our relationship stronger or not.

Then last evening, I went to a chamber of commerce meet and greet and had a glass of wine with Maria Hopkins. Maria founded her company 24 years ago. She is THE appraisal company in this market. She is also the rainmaker at her company. She knows everybody and knows her. When I shared the story above and asked what she thought, she replied with “Everybody knows everything about us. We wear our hearts on our sleeves.” Then we started talking about other rainmakers that we know and realized we know their kids, spouses, health issues, favorite (and least favorite) customers.

So, we kind of think that rainmakers share personal information fairly easily and routinely and that it makes them better rainmakers.

What do you think? What do you do?

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