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The Last Handshake

I was talking with the owner of a deli in South Deerfield a while back. I asked him how he hears about new services for his business. He said he doesn't. His daughter handles most of the communications, and he ignores the rest.

I don't blame him. Nobody reads mail anymore except the bills. The rest goes straight into the recycling. Email from anyone you don't know gets blocked or buried. And if you call a business, odds are you'll get a recording before you get a person.

That last part is going to get a lot worse.

The voices are disappearing

Think about the people you used to talk to just to keep your life running. The service rep at the electric company has already been replaced by a menu and a chatbot. The customer service rep at your bank is next. The person who answers at the heating company won't be far behind.

For a small business owner, it's the same story. If you run a deli, your supplier might be one of the last people you still talk to face to face. The guy who drops off the cold cuts every Tuesday, asks how your kids are doing, and tells you what's selling at the other shops on his route.

As AI answers more and more of the phones, that guy becomes the most trusted voice the owner hears all week.

Handshakes get rarer, so they're worth more

I spent decades in sales. The best tool I ever had wasn't a brochure. It was ten minutes of listening, in person, with my hand out at the start and the end. People buy from people they trust, and they trust people they've actually met.

AI is going to take over a lot of the talking. I use it every day, and it's genuinely useful. But it can't stand at your counter. It can't notice you look tired today. It can't shake your hand.

So here's my guess about where this is all going. The more the world fills up with bots, the more a real person showing up will matter. The supplier, the neighbor, the daughter who handles the phone, the regular who tells you about a guy who can help. Word of mouth was always the best advertising. Soon it may be the only kind that works.

If you have someone like that in your business life, the delivery driver, the bookkeeper, the old customer who still stops in to chat, hang onto them. They're becoming rare.

Adam Sweet

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