Why Testing Your Associates For Seasonality Or Permanence Is Critical

80% of associates identify with you only for as long as your financial wherewithal is indisputable. People hardly look out for you but their selfish ends. This means that your associates keep you feeling close because they can depend on you without reciprocation, should trouble come knocking their way.

So, if you've enjoyed an uninterrupted financial streak for eons, chances are that your mixed bag of associates is hardly tried and tested.

This story helps to bring out the point.

A rich man one day found his business empire in trouble. A credit line had just been cancelled by an international bank.

No other institution was willing to step in the gap for him and he began to seek out his friends for help. These were the who-is-who in the business circles.

One golfing buddy after another was unavailable for a game. Word about his predicament had travelled faster than he could salvage the situation.

Lucky for him, he managed to dispose of some assets abroad that were unknown to anyone in the country.

Within four months, his credit lines were reopened and his businesses roared back, and this time, at full steam.

Those who'd been by his side during his dark season were a handful of nobodies. He decided to stay close to them and as life moved on, the deserters crawled out of the woodwork, one by one. Mr. Rich man never acted negatively toward them. He allowed them to pick things up individually from where they had left them.

But the cracks would show when the rich man invited the handful of nobodies to his functions and at the visible exclusion of the who-is-who list of old associates. He had reasoned that if his alienation had happened while he was alive, he'd hate to imagine what the same lot would have done, had he died.

A number of those that had stayed on were the vulture types circling to clear the remains. These groups often hang around you whilst testing for weaknesses to exploit when the situation presents itself.

Over the next five years, the rich man relocated to a different part of town and changed his entire set of friends.

So, the smiles and compliments you receive can be from people on a highly activated 'temporary mode'.

Prevention, they say, is better than cure. So, why not develop early warning mechanisms to rid yourself of seasonally-minded associates?

A good place to start off is with those who most frequently cross your path. Leave out money for now. See if they can spare some time for you.

Send someone while in town to pick up something for you. Have your package availed from the same building your associate is going to and preferably on the ground floor. What are the chances that someone can be in the same place as your package and still feign a level of urgency that prevented them from picking it? Pretty high.

There of course are many simple tests that one can employ to help filter out the temps.

What about faking a low battery and asking someone to jump-start you? Or even pretending to be searching for a nut or bolt in the parking lot that just fell off your boot?

You will be shocked that very few will lend you their time even if they were going to nowhere important.

It pays to have an eye for the useful 20% that can be with you through thick and thin.