We recently worked with one of our neighbors – he has a catering business. Kendall and I have always liked our neighbor, Tom, and his wife ever since we moved into our neighborhood. Even though we weren’t close he always made us feel important, he just has that way about him. Tom’s household is busy, he has three boys and all three have friends that come and go throughout the day whether they’re hanging out by the pool cabana, riding bikes to the beach to surf, skate or taking the jon boat out on the intracoastal.
On a recent Saturday, I spent a few hours at Tom’s house catching up after he catered our company holiday party. As usual it was a busy day at Tom’s house, but what really struck me was that every teenager (boy or girl) that came through the house that day (and there were a lot) looked me in the eye and shook my hand. They expressed a genuine interest in meeting me and asking how I was. They made me feel welcome.
Tom gets “it”, he understands the importance of the connection to people and everyone that goes through his house does too. All of his children know how to carry a conversation and know how to make you feel welcome. How refreshing! This isn’t a skill set always taught, but it is a skill set that will take them a long way in this world. No matter how much technology advances and becomes part of our lives, there is no replacement for building relationships and connections. Technology isn’t bad, but we have to understand it’s a tool for our relationships. We still have to understand what relationships are and what they need to thrive and how to use technology to enhance that.
As an advertising agency we do a great job utilizing technology for our advertising campaigns and gaining results, but it works because we understand how to connect and how to build relationships. We’re not rocket scientists, we’re advertisers! If we can’t connect to people and build relationships then how do we expect to connect to our customers’ customers and help them build relationships to create lasting business….The Bottom Line is we can’t. Life and business are still ultimately about people and we remind ourselves and our customers about that everyday…and besides wouldn’t it be a boring and lonely world if we didn’t have relationships!