You Need to Stop Acting Like a Robot

Robots are everywhere these days. There are probably like six of them talking to you right now. Maybe they aren’t here in body – all laser eyes and wiring for innards. But they’re here. One challenge of this current age of ultra-automation and booming AI is making real connections and figuring out who you can trust. 

This last part – the “who you can trust” thing – is maybe the most important part of today’s business relationships. And it’s something that you can do better than the robots.  

In order to get to the trust stage of business relationships, you first have to forge some kind of connection. And the best way to do that? It’s by doing something all these automations and robots can’t: Getting personal. Making real, personal connections is the beginning stage of trust and can lead to long (and lucrative!) business relationships. How to get those connections going? Well, you still need to do nuts-and-bolts marketing. You still need to get your message in front of people. But you need to get a little personal in order to break through.  

How? Let’s get real about that for a minute. 

• By sharing personal anecdotes and achievements. (I just ran another marathon. You think I’m going to hold back on letting people know about it. I’m not!) 
• By celebrating career and professional milestones. (I just celebrated 11 years at the same company. I’d probably tell my network about this with a pre-emptive joke about my advanced age.) 
• By sharing news about authentic hobbies or interests. (I just made plans for my summer canoe trip. There’s probably a wellspring of solidarity bubbling up from the dozen or so other canoe enthusiasts out there!) 

 These personal details are humanizing, and they’re real chances to make actual connections with prospects and renew bonds with current clients. 

So the question now is: How do you meld the personalization necessary to break through to actual people with the mechanisms to get your message in front of them? We still need technology. We still need systems to get marketing out there. The capabilities of modern marketing are what make it possible to find great prospects in a sea of nay-sayers. The trick is imbuing all those marketing mechanics with a touch of the personal.  

There are some tools that can help do this, but they take time, planning and a little bit of expertise. (Many people engage with a service – like Essential Engine – for marketing services that mesh the personal with the scalable, allowing themselves the luxury of closing deals and working with clients while the services do their work.) 

It may be tough with robots all around us, but don’t be dismayed. Your business is still built on you. And your prospects know that. You just have to let a little bit of yourself out now and then.