Love WIIFM Style

Most human suffering can be explained with the breakdown of relationships between people. Conflicts between countries, childhood abuse, domestic violence, bullying, human trafficking, and work-place conflicts all have in common that on some level the relationships between people lacked compassion, understanding, respect, appreciation, and tolerance.

Millions of people get killed or harmed in wars and political conflicts. One in two married couples file for divorce, one in ten families struggle with domestic violence, and one in four women or one in six men experienced sexual abuse in their life. Caring being either withheld, given in distorted and abusive ways, being painfully absent, or replaced by hate and cruelty seems to be more common nowadays than having healthy effective relationships.

The development in the last few years has given those statistics an interesting twist. People become more and more aware that you have to be skilled in establishing and maintaining relationships if you want to be successful. Even sales and marketing gurus advise that first you have to establish a relationship before you can sell a service or product. You can’t find a sales or marketing article nowadays that does not explain the concept of WIIFM (what’s in it for me). When you want something from clients/customers, you have to quickly let the person know that they will benefit from the connection with you.

Isn’t it a worthwhile challenge to translate into personal relationships what marketing and sale experts have used successfully for some years now? What would be the hallmarks of “Love WIIFM Style”?

• A willingness to connect, engage, and understandn • Building a relationship before you ‘close in’n • Finding out what the other person needsn • Considering whether that need can be met by youn • Being clear and concise, honest and openn • Establishing a Win-Win situatio

As you can see, such a strategy is not very conducive to romantic love. However, the principle idea is one of connecting, respect, and establishing a win-win situation, which is more than can be said of many personal relationships. It might not be the ultimate dream come true, but it certainly wouldn’t harm to add this formula to existing relationship strategies!