Three principals. One conference room. Not a single person who wasn’t 100% on board.
We were talking about an owner’s rep firm that sat on several of the projects we were tracking and wanted to win. Every principal agreed: we need to be in front of them. Heads nodded. Somebody said, “Absolutely, let’s get that set up.” I walked out of that room with the excitement of a relationship about to grow by leaps and bounds.
As a BD leader who had a strategy, I was humming! And I had an edge. I’d spent years building real relationship capital with the rep. This wasn’t a cold email to a stranger. This was a call to someone who picks up. I reached out, they said yes, and they sent over a few days and times.
Then my team gave me crickets.
Not because anyone changed their mind. Because everyone had a good reason. *I’m buried in a proposal. My big out-of-state project is going sideways and I need to fly there to meet with the client. I’m out on a much-needed vacation. Their office is in Tacoma? Can we do virtual instead?*
So I’d go back to the rep and ask for another set of days and times. Then another. Week after week, the same song with different lyrics. Every reason was legitimate. Every one was a real fire. And somewhere in the middle of all that, I called time out, because I could see where this was heading, and it was NOT good.
**The real problem**
Here’s the thing nobody tells you about relationship work: it almost never loses to something unimportant. It loses to something urgent. And urgent is loud.
If you’re a principal, a project lead, a PM, or anyone who’s accountable for a project, I’m not going to tell you to ignore the fire. You’re committed to the project, and that’s the right call. A client is waiting on an answer. Your team needs you. The work is what keeps the lights on, and people who treat project problems as optional don’t stay in business long.
But here’s what I keep coming back to: there is always a fire. This week it’s a proposal. Next week it’s an RFI that blew up. Next month it’s a client changing the design after you’re already in construction. If you’re waiting for a quiet week to build the relationship, you’ll wait forever, because there isn’t one.
The fire will always be there. The opportunity won’t.
That’s the part that gets lost. A fire is loud and demands an answer today. An opportunity is quiet. It doesn’t send reminders. By the time a project hits the street as an RFP, the people who wrote it have usually been talking to someone for months. An owner’s rep who’s shaping next year’s work is open to meeting you now, while they’re deciding who they want to know. Six months from now, they’ve decided. Same with a new facilities director in their first ninety days, a design partner assembling a team, or an owner with a funding vote coming in January. These windows open for a stretch and close without a sound.
And that’s what makes relationship work so easy to skip. The cost is invisible. Nobody calls a meeting to say, “We lost that project because we didn’t have coffee with the rep back in October.” The fire gets put out, a new one starts, and the chance quietly goes to someone who showed up.
Nobody in my story did anything wrong. That’s what makes it hard. It’s not a discipline problem. It’s a default problem: when nobody decides, the fire wins every time.
Picture how this plays out at almost any firm. A new facilities director starts at a hospital system you’d love to work with. Everyone agrees you should get in front of her. Week one, nobody has time. Week four, same story. By month three she’s had lunch with two of your competitors, and she has a shortlist in her head before a single RFP is written. Nobody at your firm said no. Nobody ever said yes with a date, either.
Four ways to protect the opportunity
1. Know which relationships have a clock. Not every relationship is equally time-sensitive. A client you’ve worked with for ten years will still be there if the coffee slides a month. A relationship attached to a window won’t wait. Sort your relationships into two piles: “they’ll wait” and “they won’t.” The second pile is the one with a clock on it: the owner’s rep shaping next year’s work, the new decision-maker in their first quarter, the partner putting a team together right now. Spend your scarce time there first.
2. Block the time before the fire does. Fires don’t ask permission. They take whatever’s open. So don’t leave it open. Put a standing relationship block on your calendar, two hours a month to start, and label it like a client meeting, not “BD time.” (Anyone will schedule over “time.”) If you have a BD or marketing partner, let them fill that block. They bring the person, the place, and a quick brief. You bring yourself.
3. Cancel down, not off. When the fire is real and you can’t make the coffee, the choice isn’t “go” or “cancel.” There’s a middle. A five-minute call from the car. A short video chat. A text with a specific question. “Something’s on fire on my end. Can I call you for ten minutes Thursday and then lock in the in-person?” A shrunken meeting keeps the relationship moving. A bare cancellation with no replacement is what reads as a no, even when you meant the opposite. And virtual is a perfectly fine first step. Just make sure the in-person still gets a date, because it’s hard to build a real relationship that never makes it past a screen.
4. Say the trade out loud. Fires win by default because nobody actually decides. A meeting slides, then slides again, and nobody ever chose to give up the relationship. So make it a choice. Take thirty seconds and ask: “If we don’t meet this person before the RFP drops, what does that cost us? Are we okay with that?” Sometimes the honest answer is yes, the fire has to win this week, and that’s a legitimate call. But then put a date on the reschedule, ten days out, not “soon.” The point isn’t that you never say no. It’s that you choose it, instead of letting it drift.
How to actually do this, this week
Open your calendar and spend five minutes thinking through your relationships. Find the one with a clock on it. Ask yourself one question: if this person committed to someone else by January, would I regret not having met them? That’s the one.
If you’re not sure which one it is, run this quick test. Ask whether there’s a date attached to it: a funding vote, a team being assembled, a new role, an RFP expected in the next two quarters. If there is, it has a clock. If someone on your team has already said “we should really meet them,” and it still hasn’t happened, that’s your sign too.
Then do three things before Friday.
First, put two thirty-minute holds on your calendar in the next two weeks, labeled like a client meeting, and send them to whoever sets up your meetings. If you have a BD or marketing partner, send them a note like this:
”I’m in on [Prospect]. I’ve put two 30-minute holds on my calendar in the next two weeks. Offer them these. If something blows up and I have to cancel, I owe you a fifteen-minute call with them within 48 hours.”
Second, write your cancel-down message today, while nothing is on fire, so you’re not improvising when something is:
”Something’s on fire on my end and I don’t want this to slip. Can I call you for fifteen minutes on [day], and can we lock in [two dates] for the in-person?”
Third, tell one person the backup plan out loud. When someone else knows you owe them a fifteen-minute call, it actually happens.
That’s it. A few minutes of setup, and the fire doesn’t get to decide.
Where things stand
Back to that conference room. Three principals, all 100% on board, and not one of them was wrong to be buried. They were doing their jobs, and their jobs were on fire. I still don’t have a meeting scheduled. Thankfully I got to spend time with this friend and they understood. We are good. Relationship sustained. Future relationship still hangs on a balance.
I called time out because I could see where it was heading: a window closing quietly while everyone did exactly what they were supposed to do. That’s the danger. Nobody drops the relationship on purpose. It just loses, one reasonable excuse at a time.
You will never run out of fires. You can run out of chances.
If you’re a principal or project lead, I hope this gave you permission to protect a little time on purpose. And if you’re the one doing the asking, the BD or marketing person who keeps sending dates and times and getting crickets, Thursday’s paid piece is for you. It’s a four-part framework I call “The Easy Yes”, built to help your team actually show up. And if you’re a principal reading this, forward Thursday’s piece to your BD or marketing lead. They’ll know why.
