I’m sure there will be at least 153 articles trying to comment on the year that’s just coming to an end. This one is not meant to reminisce or to sum up the 2020. I’d like to share just one realization I had this year. And a few conclusions that this realization has brought me to.
Before we start, a short note from the author: we usually serve you practical knowledge and actionable tips on this blog. This post is different. It’s more of a stream of consciousness, which I hope will be apt for December 24th. I hope you’ll forgive me my tone in this piece, perhaps a little high-flown. I also hope it will trigger a reflection or two in you – that’s my goal.
We were taking too many things for granted
What we all need is the sense of belonging to a community – the feeling that there are other people who understand us, and will be there for us whenever we need them. That there are people whom we can always trust. People who we can rely on no matter what.
And that’s nothing new. That’s not a sense that was born in 2020. It’s just got stronger. More vivid. Much more obvious to many more people.
Many of us realized this year, more than ever before, that relationships with other people have a tremendous impact on our lives: on how we feel, how we work, how we celebrate the moments of joy, and how we manage to survive over hard times.
I dare to claim that after this year, people all over the world will care about human-to-human relations more than ever before. Because this year many of us realized that earlier we could have taken human-to-human relations for granted. That’s one of many lessons we got this year, I think.
Moreover, I believe this realization concerns all kinds of relations: both those with our friends and families, and those we have at work and in business.
Here comes the realization…
Businesses come and go, but relations last. That’s why you want a business built around human-to-human relations. Not relations built around a business.
And the conclusions…
It’s not just about the great service or product anymore. It’s not just about numbers, revenue, and return on investment. It’s not like all of those don’t matter any more – because they do. But what matters more, in the long term, is the relations you have with the people in your business: with your audience, your clients, your teammates, your partners.
The thing about relations, though, is that they don’t just last on their own. They need to be invested in. They need to be nurtured.
Investing in the strong human-to-human relations, nurturing and nourishing them regularly requires time and effort.
It’s easier to start and nurture valuable relations when you have a small group of friends. It works the same in business. The wider the group of your friends or the group of your clients, the harder it gets to nurture the relations you have with them. It requires more time and more effort.
What happens to your relations as you grow
If your goal in business is to grow, at some point you realize that even if you invested all your time and effort into valuable conversations and staying in touch with all the people you care about, you just wouldn’t be able to keep up.
What can you do about it? You’ve got at least two possible ways out of this situation. Either you stop nourishing some of the relations you had so far, which is not something you really want to do. Or, you look for someone or something to help you keep up.
But who can really help you out with this? It’s not like you can hire someone to take care of your relations for you. It’s not like someone will be able to do it instead of, well… you yourself.
The best solution would be… to clone you. Then maybe the two of you (or three… or four?) could take care of all the people you want to stay in good relations with. The relations that actually keep you and your business grow and constantly become better. Well, you can’t really clone yourself, can you?
But you can look for the help you need in a technology. A technology that may help you start and maintain the meaningful relationships.
How technology may help you take care of human-to-human relations
For over 5 years now at Woodpecker we’ve been trying to deliver such a technology to people who care about meaningful relationships.
A technology that will do parts of their work like they did it themselves. A technology that will perfectly adjust to their specific communication style and processes. A technology that will enable them to start and maintain meaningful business relations. A technology that they can trust like they trust themselves.
Over the 5 years we’ve discovered that Woodpecker has become more than just a cold email tool. It’s a tool that people rely on to start and maintain meaningful business relations. Both in outbound and inbound. For lead generation and sales, but also for customer success and recruitment. In other words, for all those processes where a human-to-human relations are still key.
Our goal is to support the human-to-human relations. Not to substitute them.
That’s why we don’t talk about “sales on autopilot” or “lead generation done for you” or “the all-in-one tool for xyz“.
We don’t aim at building and growing your business for you. We want to do it with you. We want to assist you in building and maintaining meaningful human-to-human relations that will become the foundation for your business.
An assistant for busy professionals who build business on valuable relations
We want Woodpecker to be your assistant. To work with you as a full-time assistant that helps you reach out and stay in touch with all the people you care about in your business: potential and present clients, partners, and candidates to join your company.
An assistant that will work not only on email, but also on social platforms and phone. An assistant that will verify if the addresses on your email list are valid before you send anything. An assistant that will find necessary contact data for you. An assistant that will make sure your messages and follow-ups get delivered. An assistant that will check for replies 24/7 and will manage your follow-up schedule no matter where you get a reply. An assistant that you can rely on no matter what.
We want Woodpecker to be an assistant that helps busy professionals. The professionals who belive that a successful business is built on genuine, authentic, valuable human-to-human relations. The professionals who are always busy, yet decided not to give up on taking care of meaningful relations. The professionals who refuse to ever give up on other people.