Why you should always make friends with the cable guy

Is the art of relationship building getting lost? Why it's time to diversify your marketing if you're a service-based business. I can help 👀

In my first job I was responsible for running mini events overseas. Sometimes as often as three times a month, I’d head off to Barcelona or Vienna to set up an event, run it (drink cava 🥂) and return home.

Without going into too much detail, those events relied solely on me able to give out a type of networking technology to each attendee. This was an NFC device about as big as a two-pound coin and everyone got one. Without these devices, I couldn’t run my part of the event which involved networking, digital data download and even just registering the people who attended.

You know how those devices got to Barcelona or Vienna? Packed on the back of a truck which would get driven to the event.

But you see, my devices weren’t the only thing on that truck. In fact, they were about 10% of what went on the truck and often the lowest cost item on there.

Which left me in a perpetual state of fear every time that my devices wouldn’t make their way safely to the event 😬

As well as just having general job pride, I also got a bonus on the profit made on each event. Lost devices = additional courier costs = a massive dent in my profit margin.

So I knew I needed to oversee the packing. But I soon realised that a 22-year-old in high heels, walking around the warehouse pestering people didn’t work all that well.

Then one day I struck up a conversation with a guy who worked in the warehouse known as “the cable guy”. You see, he had a part time retirement job packing cables for jobs that went out on the truck.

Long story short, he offered to pack my devices for me.

What ensued was an unlikely friendship between a young marketing/biz dev head and a partly retired cable manager. In popping down to check my devices, we built a rapport. I knew about his wife and what he’d been up to that weekend. He teased me about my driving lessons and heard about the projects I was working on.

You know how many times my devices got forgotten in two years?

Never.

The cable guy went out of his way to make sure his cables were packed, and now my devices too. On every truck, without fail. And let me tell you - things did get forgotten on those trucks, often.

In business it used to be that relationships were the pinnacle of what got done and how successful you were. Business lunches, networking events, making connections (not on LinkedIn I’ll add) were as important as writing contracts and delivering work.

Long before covid, this stopped being the case and we all started to hide a little more. Post pandemic, and I don’t think relationship building is high on any one’s list of priorities. We think we’re too busy, that it doesn’t mean much, or honestly? We’ve simply forgotten how.

Yet when I think about the origins of many of the people who have been pivotol to my career, they’re mostly people I’ve either worked with or met face to face.

An event here, a chat at a drinks evening there. Someone in an office I used to see once in a while.

It reminds me that while the world favours online brand building, there’s a lot to be said of making friends with the cable guy.

It’s certainly something I’ll be planning to do more of this year.

How much networking and relationship building do you do? 10% of your total work time? >20%? I’d love to know - hit reply and tell me your thoughts.

Yours,
Beth

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New masterclass alert 🔔 How to market yourself as a service-based business

Next month I’m going to finally be running my most requested teaching to date: how to market yourself as a service-based business owner who wants to:

• Use just one or two marketing channels to really great affect

• Build a pipeline so you don’t have to worry about leads

• Know how to use Instagram, LinkedIn or TikTok when you’re not selling products

• Use (or forget) channels like SEO or PR once and for all

More details and link to book a ticket here.

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• According to a Stanford Professor, all of the layoffs happening across tech companies right now are more likely due to copycatting big tech than actual need to lay people off… 😱

• There’s another new preteen social media app on the market called “Gas” that says it’s here to help you “gas your friends up”. This guide gives more info (especially if you’re a parent!)

• Non marketing related but if you loved White Lotus Season 2 as much as I did (could.not.stop.thinking.about.it) then you may like this breakdown of themes from a behavioural economics standpoint by one of my all time favourite coaches Monica 👏

• More Americans than ever are pivoting to part-time work. According to this article it can be attributed to post-pandemic burnout, less drive to “hustle” and layoffs caused by the downturn, with a rise in roles from typically part-time industries like hospitality.

• Meta has released its Culture Rising 2023 report highlighting trending topics which are always an interesting starting point for your social media campaigns. Some of the top topics include: frugality, financial intelligence, neurodiversity, middle-age, women in business and more.

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Thanks for your time ❤️

Hi I’m Beth 👋 I create content and SEO strategies that help companies to grow organically. I’ve ran marketing and teams for startup and scaling companies like ScreenCloud, Growyze, Countfire, Blueprint (recently acquired by Klaviyo 🚀) and Eventbrite. I’m also a mentor to marketers looking to grow and have fulfilling, financially rewarding careers.

You can find out more about what I do on My website or Built by Content.