I was texting with my friend Mike McNerney recently about something mundane — a restaurant recommendation, I think — and it struck me how far our relationship had come. We'd started as professional contacts. LinkedIn connections. Then email. Then a phone call. And now we text about restaurants.
There's a hierarchy to professional communication, and most people never think about it. LinkedIn is the outermost ring. Email is a step closer. A phone call means something. But texting? Getting to text takes a comfort level that few professional relationships rarely reach.
Think about it. When you text someone, you're entering their personal space. You're on their phone alongside messages from their spouse, their kids, their closest friends. That's intimate. And it signals something important: that the relationship has transcended the purely transactional.
A strong relationship gets richer with time, developing complexity and value like a stew that's been simmering all day.
In the workplace, we maintain formality as a protective mechanism. We keep people at a professional distance because it feels safer. But the relationships that drive the most value — the ones that lead to the biggest deals, the most important introductions, the career-changing opportunities — are the ones where people let their guards down and grant themselves permission to be authentic.
I'm not suggesting you text every business contact. That would be weird and probably unwelcome. But I am suggesting that you pay attention to the trajectory of your important relationships. Are they deepening over time? Are you moving closer, or staying stuck in the LinkedIn zone?
The deals that progressed most smoothly in my career were always the ones built on personal connections. Where we'd gone past the pitch deck and the talking points and actually knew each other as people. Those relationships evolved beyond the initial transaction and created lasting value for both sides.
So cultivate genuine relationships. Exchange real value. Be proactively helpful. And if you're lucky, some of those connections will make it all the way to text.
Originally published November 2018