Making Money Ultimately Depends on Relationships

The Importance of Relationships in Making Money

Making money actually boils down to the relationships between people. The key lies in how many people you can meet and get to know, and how many people truly understand you and can have in - depth conversations with you.

I call these "connection points between people". The more connection points you have, the more opportunities you'll have to make money. For example, if you're running a business and you know thousands of people in the surrounding neighborhood, even being able to call each other by name, you basically don't have to worry about not making money.

If you want to make money, you first need to meet enough people or let more people know about you. Either people should know you as a person or they should know about your products.

There are two ways to achieve this: one is to promote products through people, and the other is to attract people through products. Both ways work.

Different Approaches to Making Money Based on Relationships

People - Centered Approach

People with strong social skills, like what we often call "social butterflies", usually have a good circle of friends and are good at dealing with people. They often build relationships between people first. By meeting more people, they then promote their own products.

Product - Centered Approach

People like programmers who develop various products and apps reach more people through their products. Since the products themselves are attractive enough, they can make a profit.

Sales and Relationship Building

For salespeople, whether they work in a company or do private - domain business, they mostly build trust through person - to - person connections and then sell products.

The Role of Relationships in Different Business Models

Physical Stores

Running a physical store especially requires an understanding of relationships. Whether it's in a big city, a county, or a rural area, physical stores rely heavily on the surrounding traffic. If it's not in a big shopping mall but in a residential area, this is even more important.

Online Channels

Online channels weaken the impact of social interaction. For example, in e - commerce, short - video e - commerce, and live - streaming rooms, the interaction between people is reduced, and it relies more on the attractiveness of the product itself. However, if your content has a strong "human" attribute, like building a personal IP, it actually goes back to the connection between people. This is why personal IP is so influential. By building trust and relationships between people, you can sell your products.

Private - Domain Traffic Operation

In private - domain traffic operation, the relationship between people is further strengthened. Many times, it's not the product that brings in users, but people who drive the sales of products. Unless your product is a hit, so popular that almost everyone knows it and it's extremely scarce, like the earliest ChatGPT accounts when they first came out and were very rare, in this case, it can be "product brings people". But in most cases, it's "people bring products". After understanding this, what you need to do next is still to meet more people and expand your social circle.

The Limitations of Product - Driven Approaches

Using products to attract users is often just a short - term trend unless the product has formed a personal brand. Maybe a certain product becomes very popular for a while and attracts a group of users to buy it, but after a month or two when the hype is over, people will stop paying attention. Your relationship with users and consumers will also be interrupted. Then you have to rebuild trust, awareness, and relationships, and it's difficult to transfer the traffic and users accumulated from the previous product to the next one.

The Concept of User Loyalty

When it comes to user loyalty, there's actually no such thing as a truly "loyal user" in the real sense. It's hard for relationships between people to remain absolutely loyal, let alone for a product. Users will naturally choose products that are more useful and cheaper. What they care most about is quality and price. Of course, there are exceptions, but that's not within our current discussion.

The Importance of Building a Personal IP

This is why building a personal IP is extremely important. It's difficult to turn a product into a brand, but it's relatively easier to turn a person into an IP. Here, "easier" doesn't mean on a large scale. It's because there's already an emotional and trust foundation between people. People have emotions. Through frequent chatting and interaction, two people can become friends. In this kind of relationship, when you recommend a certain product, the other person is very likely to buy it, or at least will seriously consider your suggestion.

Practical Steps to Build Relationships

So, what should you do specifically? The key is to learn to treat your fans and users as real people and as friends. Behind every view, every like, every interaction, and every comment, there's a real person.

You need to develop your ability to communicate, interact, and socialize with people. The stronger this ability is and the wider the range of people you cover, the more business opportunities you'll get. You can either expand the breadth or deepen the relationship with users. Also, writing articles to communicate with users is actually an efficient way. This is why everyone is constantly writing articles, posting videos, and doing live - streaming. Since private chatting is inefficient, we need to communicate in a one - to - many way.

Turn your content into conversations. Use a chatting tone instead of a formal writing style. This can close the distance. Just write your content the way you chat with your friends. That's the secret.

Daily Reading & Writing by Xiaolu 2025.07.14 [day679]