Selling In A Remote World

Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

I heard an interesting comment the other day at a panel of Founders and Venture Capitalists.

Someone made the observation that when the world went online during COVID, the available money went - predominantly - to ‘known’ founders (versus first time entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs that VCs didn’t know). 

And this happened despite the fact that there was more money available for investment than at any other time in recent history.

The implication, of course, is clear. That when we face the unknown, we tend towards the familiar. We work to remove uncertainties. We look to reduce perceived risk. Nothing earth-shattering or profound there, of course.

There’s also nothing inherently wrong with that. It makes sense, when faced with tremendous uncertainty, to minimize risk and maximize impact, in the best way we know how. 

But it does also point to one inalienable fact as we think about the future of work, our working relationships and the idea that we’re moving to a ‘remote’ world.

We thrive on the familiar.

That as much as we cherish the new and the novel, as much as we want to view ourselves as striving for change, when it comes to paths of action, we have a natural tendency to gravitate towards the familiar. That’s as true in investing as it is in the advice we might give or the products and services we choose to buy (especially in a professional context). 

In other words, the value of human connection - of real relationships - cannot be underestimated. That the work needed to build those points of connection is needed and necessary. And that that connection certainly cannot be built over Zoom - not to the same extent, anyway.

I touched on this idea in a recent post that spoke to how human connection is central to strong teams. It’s as critical when we’re selling something, perhaps even more so.

Remote communications and work is certainly here to stay. But a world where it’s the overarching Modus Operandi? 

I don’t think so.