American Airlines had a commercial 10-12 years ago that was one of the best pro-business commercials of all time. The commercial showed the CEO having a meeting with every senior sales rep at the same time in the board room. He starts the meeting by handing out airline reservations to every sales rep to fly, of course, to meet face-to-face with every major account. He says to the group “We have let ourselves rely too much on email and phone calls, and we have lost touch with our business and our clients. Today is a new day at American Airlines. We are physically going to go see our clients and get them back.” Someone in the room asked the CEO where he was going (thinking he was not going to actually follow his own instructions) and the CEO held up an airline reservation and said he was going to see their biggest client who just fired them and get the client back.”
The message: face-to-face is where the magic of business happens.
I could write about my own experiences on this exact subject, but the description of the commercial above really says it all. KT
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