0:00

My dad works in B2B marketing, but

0:02

I never really knew what that meant.

0:04

Then one day my dad came by

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my school for career day and told

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everyone in my class he was a

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big MQL man. Then he just kept

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saying things like, The more MQLs the

0:15

better, over and over. My friends still

0:18

laugh at me to this day. I

0:20

think it means marketing qualified lead. One

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thing's for sure, I'll be known as

0:25

the MQL man's kid for the rest

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of my days. Why couldn't you just

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be a fireman or a lawyer?

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Why? You ruined my life,

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Dad. Not everyone gets B2B,

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be, to be. Welcome

1:04

to Before Breakfast, a production of

1:06

iHeartRadio. Good

1:10

morning. This is Laura.

1:13

Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

1:16

Today's tip is to

1:19

make your invitations specific. If

1:22

you are suggesting getting together with someone,

1:25

offer enough details that

1:28

it can actually happen with

1:30

one reply. Today's

1:33

tip, like another this week, comes

1:35

from Anna Goldfarb, who is

1:37

the author of the new book, Modern

1:40

Friendship. Goldfarb

1:42

notes that it is really harder to make

1:44

friends in our disconnected age.

1:48

But, and this is an important but,

1:50

it is not impossible. One

1:52

way to move casual acquaintances up the

1:55

friendship ladder is to invite

1:57

them to get together in a new way. A

2:00

lot of people know this intuitively. You

2:04

chat with your fellow yoga class attendee

2:06

regularly. So, at

2:08

the end of a class, you say, we

2:11

should get together sometime. The

2:14

problem is that while the intention is lovely,

2:17

this statement is pretty much

2:19

unworkable. Imagine

2:22

the person enthusiastically says yes. Now

2:24

what? You say, okay, when? I

2:27

don't know, I need to check my calendar. We

2:29

still don't know what's going on or what you're doing

2:31

or how long it will take. And

2:34

now we need to come back to each other at some

2:36

other point to make it happen. I

2:39

know people who will stay on it until

2:41

it happens. But these

2:43

people already have tons of friends

2:46

because they are just like that. For

2:49

the rest of us, these are

2:51

some fairly long odds. So

2:55

Goldfarb suggests making your invitations

2:57

more specific. You

2:59

should ask the person to do something

3:02

that you strongly suspect they will be

3:04

interested in. You

3:06

should give them a specific time or maybe

3:08

even a backup time if it's

3:10

something more vague. You

3:12

can explain the upside for them. She

3:16

offers examples. For instance, if

3:18

you've noticed that someone seems into their nails or

3:20

at least wants to be, want

3:22

to get manicures next weekend? I'm

3:25

thinking 11 a.m. on Saturday at the place

3:27

near your gym. You can

3:29

grab Chipotle afterwards if you have time. Or

3:32

for someone interested in food, you might email, thinking

3:35

of you, any interest in going to

3:37

a farmer's market with me on Saturday from 10 a.m.

3:39

to noon? We can grab

3:41

Almond Croissants from the new bakery that just opened

3:44

nearby. Or it's

3:46

been too long since we've seen each other. Any

3:49

interest in going with me to the new tapas

3:51

place for Sangria on Thursday, say 6 p.m.? We

3:55

need Sangria in our lives. I

3:58

know if anyone I had chatted with with enjoyably

4:00

extended one of those invitations to

4:02

me, that would be a

4:04

pretty easy yes. If

4:07

I couldn't because of the timing, I

4:10

would immediately come back with, well, gosh, I'd love

4:12

to, but I have a kid's piano recital at

4:14

11 a.m. on Saturday. Could we do

4:16

two o'clock or could we do the next

4:18

Saturday? The specificity

4:20

of the invitation invites

4:23

specificity in response.

4:27

I'm guessing these would be easy yeses or

4:29

at least easy yeses with modifications for you

4:31

as well. So

4:33

if you would be excited, probably

4:36

most people you would extend

4:38

these specific invitations to would

4:41

be excited as well. The

4:43

odds are good that you will

4:45

wind up spending time together. As

4:48

you spend time together, the relationship

4:50

grows. So

4:53

follow Goldfarb's advice in Modern Friendship

4:55

and make these invitations specific. Your

4:59

social life will likely improve as

5:01

a result. In

5:04

the meantime, this is

5:06

Laura. Thanks for listening.

5:09

And here's to making the most of

5:12

our time. Thanks

5:19

for listening to Before Breakfast. If

5:21

you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,

5:23

you can reach me at

5:26

lauravandercam.com. Before

5:29

Breakfast is a production of iHeart

5:32

Media. For more podcasts from iHeart

5:34

Media, please visit the iHeart Radio app,

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

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your favorite shows. Hey

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