A couple summers ago, I met this cat at Affiliate Summit East. Since then we’ve talked more on the Internet, and even partnered on a few ventures and had some moderate success. We also met up occasionally at conferences too. Last week, he happened to have some time available so he came up to chill in Canada for about 9 days. My friends and I took him out to some local clubs, and showed him a bit of the scenery by going to my cottage up in Quebec. Had some camp fires, he did some fishing with a friend of mine, and generally shot the shit.
Basically he got the full Canadian experience. Including but not limited to real beer, seeing bears and deer in the wild north, eating poutine, French pornography on TV at all hours of the day and of course Canadian Cigarettes.
Now, you may be wondering, why is this important?
It’s Simple, Really…
Face to face conversations generally mean much more than any electronic mediums – especially when building business relationships. Why do you think that people still fly from New York to Tokyo to meet business associates, sometimes even for seemingly unimportant meetings? That’s right, it’s because more can get discussed, drawn on napkins, explained with hand gestures or even reading micro expressions in person than online. All of this obviously leads to stronger relationships, and ultimately more money down the road.
While it’s easy to converse using instant messaging, telephone and other electronic methods they aren’t always the best. Talking face to face, often leads to more in-depth discussions, and aides in the level of trust that each person or business entity gives to each other. Not to mention the fact that it seems every cat in this industry has ADD or ADHD, so jumping back and forth from topic to topic in real life can be easier to follow than online with the constant scroll. It sounds silly, but if you think about it I think you’ll probably realize it’s true for you too – why else would you pay all that money to attend the various conferences?
I do think that electronic communications are great for quick ‘hey, what was that offer again’ type things, but when getting right down to discussing business more can be accomplished in 2 hours of talking over beer than often can be done with 10 hours of IRC or Instant Messaging.
I think we got more conducted in 9 days, than we had for the past 2 to 3 months online. For real.
Why did I write this post? Because I think that many in the industry, especially the younger folk take face to face meetings for granted, and would prefer everything to be electronic. When I was younger, I remember my dad telling me to ‘make friends with your banker, don’t do everything electronically’ and that advice has saved me thousands of dollars. The same principle applies to affiliates or any business really. Getting to know someone in real life is better than just being a client number or contact on MSN.
Comments
Comment by Brent on 2010-07-03 16:19:58 -0500
We’ll always have vegas……..
and that random asian bar across from our hotel in San fran…
but seriously its the truth. the people i work the most with right now are the people i’ve actually met. And not met as in like saw them at a convention for 5 seconds but actually sat down with and shared a beer (or like what happened in SF, so many that when the time came for our bill she couldn’t even remember how many mat and I had consumed…. yeah, the benefits of flying to sea-level when u live in denver…tolerance is through the roof). But the conversations we had..which were actually 90% non-affiliate related, led to a much larger connection than the folks i chat with on irc/aim, etc.. He speaketh the truth folks.
good post
Comment by Affbuzz on 2010-07-03 16:45:33 -0500
Sounds fun, makes me want to get in on that whole “Canadian experience.” Did you listen to early 90’s Canadian pop star Robin Sparkles the whole time? …I would have.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF1b1pf9DRY
Comment by Matt on 2010-07-03 17:00:15 -0500
lol!
that video is totally a joke from ‘how i met your mother’, but it was modeled after one of our super star canucks – alanis (morrisette).
we did however, listen to some badd asss quiet riot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW2J_UZ8lQU
Comment by Shawn McConnell on 2010-07-14 17:39:08 -0500
I hope club super sexe was on the bill, It’s been a while since I have been out that way. I agree, when I meet clients face to face it’s easier to explain myself
I agree with the ADD too,
Shawn