My subject today is “What ever happened to doing business with people?”

You’re probably thinking you always do business with people, so what is he talking about? But do you really?

How many times a day do you opt to use text messaging, emails, voicemails etc? You probably do that a heck of a lot more than a face-to-face interaction or a handshake. Another question you might consider, is who answers your business phone? Is it a real person or voicemail? Where has all the ‘so-called’ personal touch gone? At some point, the lack of personal interaction is going to catch up to us, and it seems like only a matter of time before people are going to get sick and tired of communicating through cyber space.

Do you notice differences between communicating online versus face-to-face? What are the implications of our increasing online communications and decreasing face-to-face communications? Although there are many positives to online communication and social media, we must be careful not to only nurture our relationships in this way. Interactions online tend to be brief and to the point. Having personal interactions brings a human element to your work and the services you provide, which leaves a nice impression. It is impossible to truly relate to even the biggest social media ‘over-sharers’ without physically meeting them in person, because you miss out on certain qualities that cannot be substituted for online. The social interactions of these personal meetings are not only more genuine, but they also allow you to physically see what you will get.

Now don’t take me wrong, I believe in Social Media as an extremely useful tool, but I make sure I use it without sacrificing personal relationships. My company uses it and also supplies our clients with the capabilities and knowledge on how to break through what can seem like an online marketing maze. Finding the balance between the two forms of communicating is not only important, but it is key in building real relationships. Remember, you still need to market your company the old fashioned way: face-to-face.