I was looking for an image today to highlight the sense of "Disconnect" I am sometimes get from doing business with the online community and dealing with the so called real world. Do the Google search and you will amused by what falls into the image category for the word. Now I am not discussing the virtual world when I say real world, but the one where you get to meet people face to face, share a drink and build a relationship.
In the company I work for the original model had been to hire people wherever they were and build a new market. That changed to higher them where ever they are and build an existing product and has since even evolved further to where our sales staff are becoming more centralized in our head office of Ottawa. Ironically I am the one who does the job posting and initially screening to locate candidates to test in our working environment. For the past 8 months the best candidates have been in or within an hours distance of Ottawa.
As our culture has changed my interactions with the new staff have been done by email or phone call all virtually. Not knowing people from face to face interactions does put a strain on relationship building as you can not really read someones tone from an email response or a phone call. At the start of October I was able to spend two days with the new team and this helped me fill in the missing aspects of the different personalities. Now the internal dealings of staff at a company can be much more intense then dealing with customers but it shows the value of actually meeting the person in the real world.
As for dealing with clients, sometimes the online world is a distraction to them between having to respond to emails or phone calls. I have found some of who I thought were the busiest people just find taking 5 minutes for a phone call or responding to an email to be a time waster, however if you meet them face to face you can spend several hours with them chatting over dinner and drinks. These clients embrace real connections vs. the online community.
The situation gets even more interesting as I am finding the younger generation ( I am only 35 and seem to be at the point where I am a bridge between the old and young, lol) the young 20 somethings are all about online interaction. Streamlining customer management to online platforms, generating sales using online forms and using social media to live their lives. Dealing with these clients is rather easy for me as i can manage 10 of them in the time it takes to manage a real world relationship. However when these online relationships are finished they feel more like an online transaction verses relationship building.
How do you get away from this online relationship building, find real world situations to connect. Trade shows, association meetings, industry functions or pay attention if your at a hockey rink and see someone wearing a construction jacket or hat. Ask them if they work at the company, ask if they are there watching your kids as you are. In most cases you just establish rapport with someone who is in the same situation as you. It is a little easier them sending an email in the dark hoping the reply.
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