WHO IS CHRIS?
But it happened. And all of these unlikely (or so they seem to me) situations ended up bringing me to where I am today as if by a grand design. For example, as a twin, I have honestly been trying to differentiate myself since before I was born. I’m in my 40’s now and to this day, one of my sisters still gets us mixed up! I’m regularly confronted by complete strangers in airports who strike up vibrant conversations with me, only to discover that I’m Chris, not Trefor. Through about 20 years of business, I’ve always been responsible for sales and marketing and have built my differentiation muscles along the way. I didn’t plan to do Executive Protection, but found myself being trained to be part of a world class team where, if I screwed up, everyone could die. It’s a good way to learn how teams really work, and what I learned there I’ve taken to every business I’ve owned. I never expected to spend any time in the military, but my short stint with the Queen’s York Rangers had an indelible imprint on me and planted a discipline and focus on mission that has never left me. And being divorced? It prompted me to take a long deep look at relationships. I realized that, in general, people operate from one of two strategies when it comes to relationships: they either wing it, or they model the relationship that was most impactful in their life – not necessarily the best one in their life. It meant that we don’t really have a strategy and, realizing this prompted me to search out training by what I consider to be the best minds on the planet when it comes to understanding how a relationship works (and yes, there’s more to the story). But the net of all this is that I know how to differentiate in a meaningful way, how to work on part of a small world-class team, how to stay on mission (even when it’s difficult) and how to design great relationship intelligence systems. And, as an aside, I married the girl who actually made me take the first relationship course (I told you there was more to the story) and we live in London with our two children. |
Hi, I’m Chris Venn and I didn’t plan to lead a boutique relationship-marketing firm for financial advisors. I also didn’t originally plan to be trained by former members of the British SAS in Executive Protection (body guard for grown ups), spend any time in the military, or grow and sell some businesses. I didn’t intend to be an identical twin, and quite frankly, I didn’t intend to end up divorced after a long marriage.