When I chat to prospective clients to understand if there’s an opportunity for UBF to add value, it’s quite common to hear people say “I love my broker!”
Love is a strong emotion to feel in a business relationship but hardly surprising in our industry because of the emotional nature of it – we’re working at a human level to directly affect people’s welfare and wellbeing.
There are 7 aspects to those relationships that are often defined as close enough to elicit feelings of ‘love’:
- Understanding… “They provide what we need”
- Responsive… “They’re here when we need them”
- Concern… “They understand us and our people”
- Longevity… “We’ve used the same broker for decades”
- Friendship… “Our CEO is best friends with our broker”
- Loyalty… “We went to college together”
- Honesty… “We get great service and value”
Because the information needed for a broker to do the best work possible is often very personal, there has to be a deep emotional connection on both sides. Not just with the HR team or the C-suite, but everyone in the company. The best brokers understand how to provide the right services, emotional support and ideas that build a relationship… all of which are sought in our personal lives.
Clients that “fall in love” provide access to leadership and share the inner-workings of the company. They value employees and have shared values throughout the organization. They are highly intelligent, passionate and looking for lifelong relationships. They are looking to love and be loved.
Relationships that last, take time to create and nurture. You have to communicate frequently, be there for one another, and do what you say you are going to do. It also helps to be humble and grateful. Our own research into how long it takes for love to really take hold has revealed a steady growth until about 18 months into a relationship. The investment on both sides requires time and thoughtfulness. With the right effort… love becomes inevitable.
Our mission is to make an impact on our clients by delivering our service with the “utmost good faith”. The context of our engagements provides insight into how we can improve the management of human capital. Our love for what we do has a significant impact and influence within the companies we serve. Our clients have given us opportunities to work in all corners of the world and fall in love with the people we help… something we are humbled by and proud to be doing.
Our clients are being contacted by the competition on a regular basis and what’s their response? “We love UBF…” We’ve kept a healthy roster of relationships over the decades and work hard to ensure the love grows. In fact, over 90% of our clients stay. We have had some clients with us for 20, even 30 years because they absolutely love us.
So, do you love your broker? Are they providing the information you need to run your company and manage the human capital that, in many cases, is the most important element of a business? I certainly hope so.
I came across several quotes that were fun to read about what love is “like”. Let me know in the comments below which one you most…love!
- Love is like a child that longs for everything that he can come by —William Shakespeare
- Love is like a cold. Easy to catch but hard to cure —Anon
- Love is like a dream that’s too good to be true —Langston Hughes
- Love is like a friendship caught on fire —Bruce Lee
- Love is like a wind stirring the grass beneath trees on a black night —Sherwood Anderson
- Love is like butter, it goes well with bread —Yiddish proverb
- Love is like electricity. It flares up for a second and is soon extinguished —Isaac BashevisSinger
- Love is like growing pains; something we all have to experience for ourselves —Anon
- Love is like heaven, a brief possession, unsearchable, hard to reconstruct with two-by-fours and building blocks —Leonard Casper
- Love is like learning to walk; we all have to go through it —Anon
- Love is like malaria. You never know when you’re going to catch it —Rita Mae Brown
- Love is like quicksilver in the hand … leave the fingers open and it stays in the palm; clutchit, and it darts away —Dorothy Parker
- Love is like soup; it cools when the fire dies out —Anon
- Love is like the measles; we all have to go through it —Jerome K. Jerome
- Love is like a well: a good thing to drink out of, but a bad thing to fall into —Anon
- Love is trembling happiness —Kahlil Gibran
- Love is like a tennis match, you’ll never win until you learn to serve well —Dan P. Herod
- Love is like death… a universal leveler of mankind —William Congreve
- Love’s like the measles, all the worse when it comes too late —Douglas Jerrold
- Love without return is like a question without an answer —Anon
- Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. – Solomon
Tim lives in New Jersey and enjoys biking internationally.