Persona non grata

"Hey there Bob. Just saw your promotion notification. Congratulations! How's the new role treating you?"

 Crickets.

 "Hi Susan, congratulations on your work anniversary. How are you keeping?"

 Tumbleweeds.

 A few more of these and I wondered if it was me? Was LinkedIn in filtering out my messages? Were these people getting too many of these messages with no time to respond? Had I, without knowing it, contracted an e-disease which meant people were afraid to respond.

 And then I realised. I had. It was called being a ... "VENDOR".

 I've always been a friendly sort of guy. Being extrovert, I get my energy from people. My favourite pastime when working in Corporate was to chat to people but with becoming an entrepreneur, it's true what they say. Life can be lonely as you burn that midnight oil. But I have also noticed a shift in people's attitudes. Now, before everyone reading this gets bent out of shape, I am sure that there are various reasons why someone might not reply to a seemingly innocuous message. But what has been surprising are those people who were "sure things" in terms of responding now seem reluctant to. I talked to a few entrepreneur buddies about this. Their view, once you move from being a buyer to a seller, most people look at every interaction as being the start of a sales pitch.

 That surprised me.

 "So, does this mean I cannot say congratulations to a friend?". "Sure, you can. But they probably will think that that is a lead in to a sales pitch and will ignore you."

 I guess I was a little guilty of this myself when I was in corporate. But only a little. If someone I knew reached out, I would engage. Some just wanted to say "Hi" and catch up, whilst others started off this way and then wanted to float a sales pitch by me. I'd usually listen but if wasn't of interest, then would tell them so. It took a few minutes of my time, but gave them valuable feedback.

 My attitude towards small business and startups has completely changed since I made that transition myself. Straight up, it is truly remarkable what many startups are doing. I regularly attend startup events and pitching sessions and the ideas on offer are usually incredibly innovative. Sadly, many of these ideas will never see the light of day, because of a reluctance to deal with startups, but what is often forgotten is that every company, at some stage in their history, were startups themselves.

 But I digress. This article is not about startups, but rather a reminder that sometimes, people just want to reach out, say hello, perhaps catch up and leave it at that. Even vendors. That is the very essence of networking, whether that be in person or virtually. I was thinking ... Wouldn't it be nice if we could have an "adopt a vendor" day. I can see the marketing tagline now; "A vendor is for the contractual period, not just for Christmas."