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Hello fellow Relationship Capitalists,
There's something I've been thinking about: we've got better tools than ever for tracking who we know, but are we actually getting better at building relationships?
That question came up in my latest conversation with David Nour, Founder and CEO of Avnir and creator of Relationship Economics. David has spent decades studying what makes professional relationships valuable, and his story goes back much further than any CRM system.
It All Started With a Relationship List
Growing up in Iran, David would walk through the bazaars with his father every Friday. Along with the usual shopping list, his father kept a "relationship list."
People he wanted to visit.
People he wanted to help.
People he made time for even when he needed nothing from them.
Years later, that lesson became central to David's career, and I think there's something worth revisiting there. How often do we reach out simply because we want to maintain a relationship?
CRM Forgot the R
David made a point that I loved.
Most CRM systems are pretty good at tracking events: calls, meetings and emails. But events aren't access, access isn't trust and trust isn't influence.
It's possible to have a packed CRM and very few relationships that genuinely matter. That's why David would rather have 100 customers who love working with him than 1,000 who barely know him.
Hard to argue with that.
The Relationship Begins After the Sale
We also talked about something that happens far too often. A salesperson spends months earning someone's trust, the contract gets signed and suddenly, the customer is handed over to an entirely different team.
The relationship they've spent months building gets interrupted right when the promises need to become reality.
David's view is that this is where businesses lose some of their greatest opportunities for retention, referrals and growth.
The Final Thought
David is now building Avnir to help businesses understand their relationships more intelligently using AI. But the principle behind it is wonderfully human.
Know who matters
Understand what matters to them
And invest in the relationship before you need anything
A big thank-you to David for sharing both his experiences and the thinking behind his work. Plenty to reflect on from this one.
Listen to the full episode here:
RELATIONSHIP CAPITALISTS
Your CRM Can't Measure Trust ft. David Nour
This Week's Trust Builder
Don't disappear after the deal closes. David described the moment most relationships break: months of earning trust, a signed contract, then a handoff to a team the customer has never met. Post-close silence is the loudest signal you can send. This week, pick one customer who signed in the last 90 days and call them with no agenda. Ask how it's going. If someone else now owns the account, make that introduction yourself and stay on the thread. The promise was yours, so see it through.
This Week's Value Deposit
Forward one article with a one-line note: "Saw this and thought of you because…" It's the modern version of the relationship list David's father carried through the bazaar, the people you check in on when you need nothing from them. Pick three names who haven't heard from you in a while. Find one thing each of them would actually care about and send it with that single line. No ask, no follow-up. That's a deposit, and it compounds.
Here's to building meaningful connections,
Jason Masciarelli
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