May Luck Find Me Interacting. ~via Sebastian Sirvent
Sebastian Sirvent captures exactly what I’ve been sharing for years… the most meaningful opportunities rarely come from dashboards or campaigns, they come from people. Conversations, shared moments, unexpected crossings… that’s where trust is built and where real value begins.
RETURN ON RELATIONSHIP isn’t a tactic… it’s a mindset. When you lead with clarity, curiosity, and genuine human intent, the “returns” show up in ways data alone can’t predict… context, continuity, and connection.
Thank you for articulating this so thoughtfully Sebastian.
RETURN ON RELATIONSHIP adds more to ROI than meets the eye. /Ted
For years we learned to measure almost everything in terms of return. Investment, time, effort, money. But there is a type of return that does not enter into dashboards and, nevertheless, explains many of the most important opportunities that appear along the way: the return on relationships, (ReturnOnRelationship), a topic that the great Ted Rubin with whom I had the privilege of chatting at a Starbucks in New York always talks.
Relationships do not work as a campaign or respond to a linear logic. They are built on conversations, on unexpected crossings, at times that were not on the agenda. A message can open a door, but a face-to-face chat can completely change the context. Not because one is better than the other, but because nuances appear there that do not exist in the digital world.
That's why the famous elevator pitch was never just a speech to sell something in a few seconds. It was, in fact, an exercise in clarity. Knowing who you are, what you do and why it matters, for when the moment appears without warning. Because many opportunities are not sought: they happen. And they almost always come through people.
The return on a relationship is not always immediate or evident. Sometimes it appears some time later, from a place that could not be foreseen. But when it does appear, it is usually accompanied by something more valuable than a one-off result: trust, context and continuity.
Investing in relationships is understanding that not everything important is measured in numbers. And that many times, what really moves things starts with a conversation.
