Abu Lahya explains why entrepreneurs should prove their competence before pursuing friendship with wealthy clients. He shares how his partnership with Ali became a genuine friendship only after delivering strong results, and warns that premature friendliness can backfire if you haven't yet built credibility.
For somebody that's just starting out, let's say they want to build a business, how do they balance between the business relationship and then being friendly with their clients?
You need to start by being good. I first started speaking with Ali because he was good and he was recommended by a guy that said he's been doing my ads for a long time and Ali is great. And after that, I spoke with him for like hours making sure he was good. And after he was good and we started spending some money and getting some results and we made a lot of money because he was good, that took like 2 months. I was like, okay, we're going to a retreat, swing by. And then it was cool. And then from there it's easier. If I was trash and you tried to be my friend, I'd be like, yo, I would be even more repelled because like, you're not only bad at your job, but also you're trying to take even more of my time. I'm already busy fixing what you made as a mess. Don't even try and get busy with me with wasting my time.
I was just about to say the exact same thing that I was like, do not try and become friends with anybody before you have the skill. Get yourself proof that you can execute on a skill, whatever skill that may be. I'm not friends with all of my clients. I'm not friends with all the people that I work with. Some of them are just transactional. If you're lucky enough to meet good people on the way, if you can enter into a relationship with the people around you where there's fair value exchange, you all are striving to be better, and that you all make yourselves better just by being around each other, then alhamdulillah, you can't really ask for much more, you know.
First, be very good at what you do because that's gonna get your name out there. It's just gonna get people to even pay attention to you. You have to be good at what you do. After that, to grow and go big, you have to be nice and make people like you. And be sociable and make friends. It's first you be great and then you make friends.
