What makes you memorable (enough)?

It's 2023-03-13 and I had just finished a catch-up call with a good friend of mine. He's close to selling a company for a relatively small but still very significant amount of money. This is a big deal for him. The company is in the tech-adjacent space, and is selling to a startup company more directly in the tech space.

We get on the call and I ask him how the sale is going and he says "have you been following the Silicon Valley Bank story?"

I had a forehead-slapping "I was following this story; how could I not have already thought about how this would affect my friend!!" moment. I had all the dots in my head but I didn't connect them.

How many people who are well-positioned to refer clients to us have a similar "near miss" in connecting the dots?

How much of this is due to our negligence, and how much of that "didn't connect the dots" gap can we realistically close?

I don't have a great answer except, "some of it".

I'd love your thoughts on this. Substack comments are on. If you would benefit from a specific question prompt, use this one: How could you or a business like yours become more memorable so that the right people connect the dots to you?