A few years back, in one of my jobs, I had a brilliant idea.
(Yes, yes, patting myself on the back there.)
I proposed making a custom video for every subscriber who joined our email list. That’s right… every new subscriber would get a custom welcome video after they joined the list.
Something on the lines of –
“Hey John. Nice to have you here. I saw that you are working as Vice President at ABC Group. How are things for you? Eager to geek out with you on Topic A“
And that’s precisely when this annoying team member asked, “Okay, but how will we scale this?”
The idea never saw the light of the day.
The scalability question kills great ideas. Why? Because it forces you to think about the future, where you’re overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the activity you’re doing today.
The logic is – It would be hard to make 15 videos for 15 Johns who join the list every day.
I get it—businesses want to grow, build systems, and ‘standardize’ everything. Connecting with a fellow human sounds too ‘soft’ and unnecessary. Deep relationships don’t matter.
Except they do.
My friend and mentor, Sean D’Souza from Psychotactics and the author of The Brain Audit, sends chocolates to all his clients. Is that scalable? Not sure. And it’s definitely hard work.
But it’s something that builds real connections. It may also increase his clients’ lifetime value, but that’s not why he does it. He sends chocolates because they make his clients smile.
Here’s the thing: You are probably not building the next billion-dollar tech startup. You’ve got a few clients, and maybe you want a few more.
Investing in relationships in ways that don’t seem scalable in the short run… is not a bad idea.