luck

Who remembers the great Tina Turner hit from 1984? I certainly do as I was still in Uni cultivating my mullet hairstyle. But look again at the title of this piece. I’m not talking about love. I’m talking about luck.

Now I think it was the legendary South African golfer Gary Player who said something like, ‘the harder I work the luckier I seem to get’.

I believe this is true in all aspects of life especially when it comes to building relationships.

By way of up to date examples, I always take the time to find out where each of our new insurance claim instructions come from.

How did the client come to hear about us? I am always intrigued and delighted to see that virtually all our clients come to us as a direct result of a referral/recommendation.

Over the last few weeks, we have been instructed on a large water damage claim, following a major burst main in Finsbury Park. Referred by a surveyor I met and built a relationship with several years ago.

We were instructed on a large fire in a flat by an existing client.

We’ve acted for the client and his family over several years following an initial recommendation.

We’ve been instructed on several large household thefts recently, where the referral was from a friend or family member who was delighted with the work we have done previously.

On and on this goes.

But how and why does this happen? Luck?

Well, I can assure you; luck has nothing to do with it. Its all about cultivating long term relationships with as many people as you can.

Some of that is formal networking and some is just being and doing the decent thing around others, and being a good connector of people, without the expectation of anything in return.

Only this week, I met up with a solicitor friend of mine Jay Sahota, Senior Partner of Jarmans. Now we keep in touch via LinkedIn and this newsletter (which Jay tells me he reads every month with interest – as do his family!), but we don’t speak all that often.

In fact, we arranged to meet up at a hotel in the Inns of Court central London for a coffee. Jay was super busy as was I, but we took the time to have a nice social catch up, and then to see where we could help each other. We both gave freely and with very little effort were able to connect each other with folk we know.

Now something or nothing may come of this, but I sure as hell am more likely to refer to Jay than another firm.

That’s not luck.

That’s good old fashion networking or as I prefer to call it relationship building.

So, if your phone isn’t ringing as often as you feel it should, it’s not that you’re unlucky, instead look at the work (net ‘work’ing) you do and the relationships you cultivate. You must give of yourself without expectation of getting back, or you are doing it wrong in my view.

Today I can only wish I had enough hair to cultivate a mullet hairdo as I did in the 80’s, so I’ll have to make do with reminiscing and listening to Tina Turner ‘What’s love got to do with it’ -Everything. What’s luck got to do with it. Nothing.

Until next month.

Steve Lazarus
Steve Lazarus