Before COVID-19 landed on Earth, I was hired as the keynote speaker for a chamber of commerce’s annual dinner and awards banquet. The title of my talk was “How to Date Your Clients and Make Money Doing It”.

The metaphor is how the business and dating worlds are very much alike. You must build a relationship with your client like you would a potential romantic partner. (NOTE: “How to Date Your Clients and Make Money Doing It” has a different meaning in Las Vegas.)

I do not write my keynote speeches or rely on a PowerPoint/Keynote presentation. I read the crowd when I arrive and deliver a speech that captures their attention and gives them relevant and useful information. This was a particularly exceptional night where everything seemed to just flow perfectly. I focused on comparing clients who repeatedly do business with the same company to people who agree to a second date.

I asked my audience to give me reasons why they decide to give people a second date.

“Trust” was the first answer from a woman in the middle of the room.

“Common Interests” was the next answer from a guy in the front row.

A woman in the back yelled, “Chemistry”.

I started with the woman who said that “trust” was the reason she gave a guy a second date. I asked her, “When you call your friends the next day to tell them about your date, do you tell them that you are going out with him again because you trust him?”

She said, “No.”

I then asked the “Common Interests” guy, “When you go for a beer with your buddies and start talking about the night you had, do you tell them that you’re going to go out with her again because you have common interests?”

He said (with a chuckle), “No, I would never say that.”

Lastly, I asked the “Chemistry” woman, “If you really stop and think about it, have you ever gone out with someone again just because you had chemistry?”

She answered, “Once, but I didn’t give him a third date.”

So, what is the key ingredient that everyone is missing?

What is the primary reason for deciding to go out with someone again?

You go out with them because you “like” them.

That is what you tell yourself, and that is what you tell your friends. You like them. You may have other reasons like “chemistry” or “common interests” or “great conversation”, but none of these reasons matter if you do not like them. Regardless of the way you build attraction and create rapport with someone, the glue that holds everything together, in the beginning, is “like”.

NOTE: If you do not believe that you use a process to build attraction and create rapport, then you are mistaken. You are using a process; a process that you developed by accident along the way. I predict that a process developed by accident is not getting you the results that you want. (Learn a proven and reliable way to create rapport in my article titled “Develop Rapport… The Right Way”.

Ask yourself, “Have I ever felt a connection with someone, we seemed to have a lot in common, but she never called me back?”

She never called you back, because she didn’t like you. A connection and commonalities do not equal like.

I had the chance to spend time with Bill Cosby several years ago (DISCLAIMER: This was before I learned what he did to women behind the scenes.), and he gave me a bit of advice that I took to heart: “If everyone likes you, then you are not doing something right.” That statement is true in business as well as in relationships.

Not everyone is going to like you.

Your responsibility to yourself and other people is to be authentic (be yourself) and never lie in an attempt to get them to like you. If a woman is going to like you, she must like you for who you really are; and remember, you can’t make everyone like you while staying true to yourself.

There is a quote credited to Thomas Edison regarding his numerous failures while inventing the lightbulb, but I cannot guarantee he actually said this; however, it’s still relevant.

“I have not failed 10,000 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”

This is a great mindset to have when you’re dating. You are going to meet a lot of people. Some of them will like you and some won’t. You are going to like some of them and some you won’t. That’s okay. Learn from the people who don’t like you as well as the people who do.

So get out there and fail the shit out of dating until you find the one who you like the most and she likes you in return. That’s a great foundation to build a life upon.