I was listening to a successful entertainment entrepreneur detail his journey to outsize success. One thing he overemphasized was that he’s in a relationship business. He built the right relationships with people and used the relationships to open doors at opportune times. Eventually, he developed relationships with executives who had immense power, which made an unprecedented run of successes possible.

The key to his success was partnering with someone different from himself. He came from a nontraditional background. He quickly realized he had a hard time connecting with people in the industry, who didn’t know him and weren’t sure what to make of him. So he sought out someone in the industry who had the traditional background that people tended to trust. The two of them were different and had different perspectives on life, but they shared a goal. They saw a massive opportunity that no one was paying attention to. They wanted to be at the forefront of introducing this new market to the masses. They formed a partnership, with the traditional partner being the conduit. He understood both worlds. He was able to lend credibility to two sides who had a distrust of each other. Because of him, the two sides embraced each other and had a crazy run that to this day is hard to believe.

I love this story. It exemplifies how two people from different backgrounds can work together to achieve massive success. And it shows how valuable conduits can be . . . especially in emerging markets!