Build Better, Faster & Stronger Connections in Person
(Written by guest contributor Sarah Jane Griesemer)
These days, there is a long list of ways to avoid having to talk to someone in person: email, Facebook, Twitter, chat, blogs, and text messages are just a few. With all these alternative methods of communication, why bother with real-life meetings at all? The answer is that face-to-face meetings and interviews are still the single best way to get to know someone reliably, quickly, and in such a way that your message gets across without any static.
Absolute trust is essential.
Would you hire a lawyer without meeting them face to face? How about a personal banker? Your accountant? An assistant who will have access to every facet of your life including passwords, confidential information, and personal communiqués?
In the Fox TV show Lie To Me, viewers follow the investigations of a behavioral scientist and his team as they act as human lie detectors to accused criminals. The team relies on a series of body language ticks, mannerisms, inflections of voice, and psychology to determine if the investigated party is being truthful or not.
Now, we don’t all need to be behavioral scientists to gain a sense of whether or not someone is being truthful. What we have is intuition, and more often than not our intuition is correct. More than once in my interviews with prospective employees, someone has looked spectacular on paper. When I’ve met them in person however, I’ve had the definite impression that you can’t trust what they say. We have intuition for a reason, and it’s important to remember that to fully use that intuition, we need to be face to face.
There are benefits to establishing the relationship quickly.
By now, I’m sure that you are familiar with Joel Comm’s “like me, know me, trust me, pay me” process. We generally speak of this concept when we are talking about effectively using and leveraging social media to gain trust, and hopefully, business. This is certainly not an overnight process. People will generally be exposed to you and your brand multiple times before even liking you, which can leave weeks, months, and even years to bridge the gap between like and pay.
Now, if you have a prospective customer you know will benefit from your services/expertise or a set person you have your heart set on partnering with, it can be a much more efficient use of time and resources to take them out for a business lunch. (But be sure to pick up the tab! Not sure if it’s worth it? Read The $25,000 Lunch.) Just be sure that in your excitement to get some face time, you don’t dive straight towards your objective. Take the time to get to know them first. People like to be wined and dined.
You can’t afford to have your communication be misinterpreted or misunderstood.
According to research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the tone of email communication is misinterpreted upwards of 50% of the time. Half of the time! Now, everyone has personal stories of an email that has gone horribly awry. If there is any possibility that critical directives, feedback, or instructions could be taken a different way than you intend, it’s probably best to schedule a little face time.
I totally understand that no matter how desperately you want to be face to face with someone, in our global economy it’s just not always possible. The next best thing? Skype. Hands down. Being able to hear someone’s voice and see someone’s mannerisms are crucial components of communication and trust. Almost all laptops now include a built-in camera and Skype is free, so there’s really no excuse any longer to not have at least that level of face-to-face communication.
The Internet has been a boon in terms of an increased ability to communicate easily and instantly with just about anyone in the world. But let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water. Personal relationships are still most easily and lastingly formed through meeting someone the old-fashioned way: face to face and in person.
