In July of 2011, I got an investment for a venture.

To focus on the venture, I chose to stop working with a brand that I had been working with for a while.

I continued working on the venture, then suddenly out of blue during Jan of 2012 I received a call from the said brand. They asked me to be part of the new core team they were building.

I was not very keen but because of the relationship and trust I had built with the person asking, I said yes. When he asked me for the payout I said that I’d like it to be five times what I was being paid when I left about six months back. I also asked for the work to be remote. This was way before working remotely was widely accepted like it is now.

The brand said yes, both to the 5x payment (it came to be 4.5x eventually) and remote work. This was because they had seen my work, my commitment and they trusted my expertise.

It is not impossible to increase one’s income 4 times in 7 months on the back of learning, but it will take a lot of effort, learning, and application of what one learns. And, chances are only a small percentage of people can crack this on their own.

But for me, it took just a couple of phone calls to see a more than 4x jump in my income. One of these phone calls lasted less than 5 minutes. It happened because I had taken time to develop my expertise, showcased results that spoke for themselves during our previous engagement, and there was trust and connection that got me in the room once again for an engagement with a bigger impact and title.

The lesson here is that it is possible, but very hard, to increase one’s income exponentially based on learning and hustle alone. It becomes simple if you add relationships and trust to the mix.

Hope you’ll use it to your advantage and build relationships with the right people as you continue to grow your expertise. Great if you build relationships without worrying about milking it later. I had not built the relationship thinking that it would turn into opportunities for me. It was very organic. If I had to do it, I’d still do it the same way.

Have you experienced something like this in your life?