What Online Dating taught me about Sales and Sales about Dating

Dating is a very personal matter and not many people would want to talk about their adventures or misadventures openly in public but as an entrepreneur, I am compelled to draw parallels between how sales and dating operate in similar fashion.

Pursue the right leads

I notice many people including me, looking for more and more leads to sell their products. While getting more leads is always the way forward, one must be wise enough to narrow down to the right leads. As an entrepreneur, the clock is always ticking for you and you must not waste time on everyone. Instead, you must identify the most valuable and the best fit leads to pursue.

Same goes for dating. In the current times of online dating, it’s easy to find people but it’s difficult to meet the right person. The analogy is that you again have a lot of leads but you need to carefully narrow down to the people that you want to pursue. If you fail to do so, you may get short term pleasures but actually in the long run, you are sure to go out of business.

Be interesting

Imagine going on a date where the other person doesn’t find you to be interesting when you meet in person. They’ll either walk away with some excuse or you’ll never get a second date.

Same applies to sales as well. While it’s seducing to be called arrogant as Steve Jobs, you must understand that not everyone is a Steve Jobs and arrogance was just one aspect of his personality along with so many other traits which you’ll be completely missing. So, it doesn’t help if you are arrogant and not-so-likeable while dealing with your potential clients. They must be meeting shit loads of people everyday and if you are not enthusiastic and you do not come out as interesting, you won’t be able to arouse curiosity unless the other party is absolutely desperate.

Patience pays off

Ok, you have met him/her but things are going slowly. Is it a bad omen?
Not really. Remember, you have just met someone and it isn’t always love at first sight. Be it sales or dating, the potential clients are talking to the other service providers too and if they really see value in you, they’ll come back to you. The key is to never being out of picture and not defining this process in terms of end result only. Regular follow ups may be helpful just to be in their minds but the frequency should not be overwhelming.

DO NOT Complain

You hit it off really well with a person in texts and met them, and may be met them again. BUT then, at times, you feel that you aren’t getting the attention you deserve. Be it the person you are dating or the business that you are trying to sell to, everyone needs time for their own stuff. For the other person, there’ll be hundreds of other priorities before you become their number one priority and that takes time. While you might feel ignored, there is no use of sending out messages reminding the other person that they should be devoting time to you. Nobody likes complaining folks and what authority do you have anyway to complain?

Never close a thread

Dating and Business Dealings shouldn’t be seen as binary operations where the results are only success or failure. Meeting people gives you an opportunity to closely analyse human behavior and it also helps you in finding your own flaws. Every date or a business dealing that doesn’t go your way, gives you an opportunity to think about what went right and what went wrong, which ultimately helps you in becoming a better person.

Also in business dealings, you must place value in the person that you meet and not really the business that they represent. People are rarely married to a particular organisation and if you strike a connection with someone, they will be able to introduce to atleast 2–3 other organisations in their own network during their lifetime. Same applies to dating as well. If you focus too much on the end result and decide that you’ll either date the other person or block him/her, you are actually shutting yourself to all the possibilities that may have come with much more useful friendship.

If she doesn’t like you, she DOESN’T LIKE YOU

Since I am a guy, I am able to present a guy’s view on this, therefore I write — “If SHE doesn’t…”

Movies often portray the protagonist trying all sorts of creepy things to woo the girl and the girl eventually falls for him after several attempts. Although you may have seen many such real world examples too, this isn’t the norm. Finding love is not about working your ass off in pursuing the wrong person and hoping that your hard work will pay off. Everyone have certain aspirations in life and they try to meet them. Like you may not like everyone out there, the other person also is the same. If you are not someone they actually relate to, trying hard is just useless and it also wastes your time that you could have utilised on the other person.

Similarly, if you are not a right fit for a client, you cannot go on and create non-existent use cases for them. If you are actually not solving their problem, you are just wasting your time. So stay in touch but not with business expectations.

You can’t be ignorant after you get her

Every relationship requires nurturing. Be it the person that you are dating or the business with whom you have just signed a contract — you cannot ignore them once you have them. Talking about business, if you act like an asshole and do not provide best of your services, you may not get anymore contracts and your name will also be tarnished in the circles. Similarly, if you stopped putting in efforts in your relationship, it is bound to end and end pretty badly.