Celebrating Client Relationships and Transformations

Don and I just had an amazing night with many of our clients over the past few years. We were able to use one of Don’s properties over in Magnolia he has been developing over the past 4 years.  It’s now a short term renal overlooking the Puget Sound. There wasn’t a could in the sky, and we had a great turn out.

In the moment, I was bopping around catching up with everyone, it was fun to see all the familiar faces in one place.  Beyond the feelings of gratitude I was feeling, there was a kind of undefined sense of gratification I was experiencing. I couldn’t really put my finger on how to describe it in real time.

As I thought about it more, a few realizations popped into my head.

Back in the day, when we were on terrestrial radio, the vast majority of the time at the end of the show, the “work” we just did felt very fleeting. Not unimportant, just ephemeral. It was a performance, and once you did it, it was gone. There wasn’t an actual product or object I could point to and say, “This is what I did today.” 

I would hope that I had done a good job for the company, and that the radio show was entertaining and informative. Every month when the ratings book came out, you could say, “Lots of people are listening.” Some days I felt maybe we moved the needle a little to impact an issue or tell a big story. But for the most part, “The Work” would literally disappear into thin air as the radio waves turned into sounds in your speaker. There was no way to know who you were actually communicating with.

What struck me so deeply at our Client Party was the tangible difference we make with the people I now consider friends and not just clients. In fact, at the end of the night, I had one person hug me and say, “I love you” as they were leaving. Without irony, I said, “I love you too.” We had been through quite a journey together buying and selling multiple houses to get them closer to their dreams as a family.

There is just a difference in depth of emotion when people would tell me, 

“I don’t know what we would have done with you and Don.” 

Or, “You guys really changed our lives for the better.”

I really enjoyed seeing the photos of changes to the house or new additions like babies and/or puppies, and I couldn’t help but grin from ear to ear.

These past few years for me personally and the world in general have been a wild ride in many ways, but to be able to celebrate all the people we’ve had the pleasure to work with and some folks that we will be working with shortly is nothing short of amazing to me. To everyone that attended our event, I want to thank you for trusting me to be a part of one of the biggest decisions of your life. And to the people that will choose us in the future, I’m looking forward to toasting you soon and naming you as a friend.