Your network isn't measured by how many people you know. It's measured by the value you exchange — and most leaders have never had a real way to see it.
The room got quiet — and then it got honest.
Yesterday we went live with a question most consulting and executive search leaders have never been given a real framework to answer: what is your network actually worth? Not how big it is. Not how active it is. What it's worth — measured in the value moving through it in both directions.
For most of the leaders in the room, the honest answer was the same one we've been hearing for months: I don't know. They could rattle off names. They could pull up a CRM. What they couldn't do was tell us which of those relationships were compounding, which were quietly decaying, and which had been treated as assets for two years while functioning as liabilities.
Halfway through, somebody named the thing the rest of the room had been thinking: "I think I'm cold-calling people my own team already knows." Said out loud, it sounded like an accusation. Said honestly, it was just math.
A few numbers framed the conversation: 84% of B2B deals start with a relationship. 91% of those relationships aren't in your CRM. And most firms have 3–5 multipliers — almost none of them know which ones.
That's the gap May is built around. Not who you know. What's actually moving — and in which direction.
Relationships are off-balance-sheet assets. They compound — or they erode. Most leaders have no instrument to see which.
Not a spreadsheet. Not a CRM. Not a once-a-year gut check at planning time. May is where we hand you the instrument.
Every relationship has an account. Most leaders never balance it.
You make deposits. You make withdrawals. And occasionally, if you've built it right, you encounter a third category most leaders never name — multipliers — relationships that don't just return value but compound it across your entire portfolio.
Deposits look like time fully present, knowledge they can use, access to your network, recognition in public, and advocacy when they're not in the room. Withdrawals look like asks and favors, warm introductions requested, endorsements and references, strategic counsel, and pulled-in expertise. The third category — multipliers — are the 3–5 relationships whose value compounds, opening doors and sending warm intros and vouching for you in rooms you'll never enter. Most firms have them. Almost none know which ones.
One leader in the room put it plainly: "I've been treating my biggest 'asset' relationship as a multiplier for years. After yesterday, I realized it's been a withdrawal-only account since 2023 — and I never even noticed." That moment is the whole point of May. Once you can see the ledger, you can't unsee it.
What yesterday opened — and what the next four weeks will close.
Each pillar gets unpacked across May — on LinkedIn, in the blog, and inside the forum. Less polished framework. More live thinking, with the firm leaders working through it alongside us.
01 — Relationship Deposits & Withdrawals. The currency you're not tracking, and why most leaders are running negative balances on their highest-priority accounts without knowing it.
02 — Relationship Multipliers. The small handful whose value compounds. Most firms have 3–5. They almost never know which ones — and that's where the leakage starts.
03 — The Relationship Value Assessment. A four-question diagnostic to surface, in under ten minutes, where your time is actually returning value — and where it's quietly costing you opportunity.
04 — What "Relationship-Rich" Actually Looks Like. Inside the firms whose pipeline never feels uncertain, whose hires arrive pre-vetted, whose deals close because someone made one call.
Sit With This — Before Friday
A 10-minute exercise that will change how you read your week. Pick three relationships you've quietly considered "important" for the last two years. For each one, run them through the ledger: write the last meaningful deposit you made, with a date; write the last meaningful withdrawal you took, with a date; then compare the dates and notice the gap. If the deposits are older than the withdrawals, you've found a liability disguised as an asset. If you can't remember either, you've found something more dangerous: a relationship you've been counting on without ever investing in.
Missed Yesterday's Session? The Replay Is Live
The Value You're Not Seeing · LinkedIn Live with David Nour · May 5
The full session is up — including the four-pillar walkthrough and the relationship value assessment exercise. If you only have ten minutes this week, run three of your most-counted-on relationships through the ledger. The answer changes the rest of your month.
See What We're Building
AVNIR · The Relationship Intelligence Layer for Modern Firms
Everything you just read is the diagnosis. AVNIR is the system. Built on David's Relationship Economics® — and quietly assembled with the firm leaders who refused to keep guessing — it surfaces the relationships your team already has, the deposits and withdrawals moving through them, and the multipliers hiding in plain sight inside your own inboxes and calendars. Not another CRM. Not another contact list. The lens that turns the value you can't currently see into something you can act on.
Save the Date: Relationship Economics® Summit 2026
October 12–14, 2026 · Pursell Farms, AL · 5th Anniversary
Five years in, RES remains the room where the most intentional leaders choose to invest their time — not a conference, not a networking event. The centerpiece this year is Lead NXT, an immersive leadership development journey for the high-potential leaders your firm is preparing to promote, and for the senior executives ready to invest in the next generation. Limited spots for attendees and sponsors.
Register or Nominate → · Sponsor Inquiry →
Yesterday gave us the framework. The next four weeks are where it stops being a concept and becomes the way your firm actually evaluates the relationships it has built its growth on. The value was always there. May is where we finally hand you the lens to see it.
— Nour + the AVNIR Team
See your network. Win your market.