Connecting in 2021 and Beyond

We sell fantastic photographic products. When one of our clients purchases something, we almost always include something extra in the shipment. What we decided to include resulted from an exhaustive process of narrowing down way too many choices. Ultimately, we ended up with these fuzzy wuzzy little animals (that have been backordered, and are currently sitting in some shipping dock somewhere, presumably).

With the backorder situation, we heard from one of our clients recently, Son P, who remarked that his daughter loves the little animals and collects them, and she is missing the Chicken. Well … unfortunately we don’t have the Chicken, because our next supply order is … somewhere, maybe on the way, maybe not. It’s the way of things these days, it seems.

I feel bad for Miss Quyen. And I know she is counting on me to remember to send her that Chicken once we get our next supply of fuzzy wuzzy animals (even if Daddy doesn’t order something, I’m sending it to her). Do you know how much I appreciate Son sharing this with me? It means everything. It means everything! People ask me sometimes, how do you connect with clients? How do you communicate to them that they are not just an order in the system? How do they think of you not just as an anonymous source of some material good, but as a valuable or beneficial or at the very least, enjoyable relationship in their life that they would not otherwise have? I think it may be possible to have too many relationships in your life. But is it possible to have too many beneficial or enjoyable relationships in your life? I don’t think so.

So this is not just good business practice, it is good medicine for the soul!

We have a newsletter that goes out a couple times a month, and we spent a lot of time deciding what to call it – and we landed on The Connection (thank you Kyra!). Because for the people that work here, I’m not sure that success would have the same meaning without the connections we make with our clients. This is a thank you to Son, and to Quyen, and to everyone who took part this year in these connections, in these relationships that we have with our clients, who become more than clients.

Thank you everyone for being part of our lives in 2021, and Best Wishes for 2022!