Are we becoming more efficient but less connected?

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about human connection and whether in our obsession to become more efficient, we are accidentally becoming less connected. Because AI can help us write faster, respond faster, filter people faster, automate customer service, and it can remove a lot of admin and, you know, back and forward, and I love that.

I’m certainly not AI by any stretch of the imagination. But I do think we need to ask ourselves, what happens when the things we automate are the very things that build trust and genuine connection? Let’s dive on into it in today’s episode.

Welcome to The Intentional Money Show, where we talk business growth, profitability, mindset, and building a wildly successful creative or digital business without sacrificing your life in the process. I’m Clare Wood, business profit coach, speaker, author, and unapologetic believer that you can build wealth  and freedom doing work you genuinely love.

Each week on the podcast, we dive into the strategies and honest conversations that will help you scale sustainably, increase your profit, and build a business that actually feels good to run. Let’s grow your profit.

Today’s episode is all about connection, and if you’re based on or near the Gold Coast, I would love to invite you to come hang out with me and some other business owners in real life on the 14th of October at our Future Proofing Your Business event. This event is for business owners who are at that scaling stage.

This is for you if you’ve got a team, your business is growing, and you’re trying to work out exactly how to build to that next level of business without everything falling in a heap behind the scenes. This session will be run by myself and Renee Henville, who is an expert in HR, and we’re gonna be talking to you about your team, your financial foundations, and what AI means for the future of your business.

But the thing I’m most excited about is getting a group of really clever business owners into the same room together. We’re gonna have some drinks and networking at the end. So I’ll be sharing more about that on the podcast or on my socials. If that’s of interest, you can join us by clicking on the link in the show notes for today’s episode.

So let’s talk about connection. There are multiple studies now that show that if you have healthier and happier interpersonal relationships, you actually live a healthy, happier, and longer life.

There are multiple studies now that show that the quality of your relationships affect the quality and even the length of your life. There’s a Harvard study that shows that relationship satisfaction at age 50 is a better predictor of someone’s health at 80 than their cholesterol level was. This is how important relationships are, not just for our happiness and fulfillment, but for our actual physical health.

And as a business owner, relationships also help us to make more money. They lead to referrals, collaborations, partnerships, clients, speaking opportunities. I know that I’ve had conversations about business that have literally changed the entire direction of my business. Sometimes having a coffee creates more opportunity than six months of posting on Instagram trying to figure out the algorithm.

In my business, I’m going through a real relationship building phase. I’m meeting a lot of people, grabbing a lot of coffees, and I’m not doing it with any agenda. There’s not some weird sales pitch. It’s genuinely just about meeting people, connecting with them, finding out what they’re struggling with, finding out how I can support them and vice versa.

It feels really nice to sit across the table from an actual human and have a proper conversation. That’s how you can feel whether you connect with someone. It’s how you get a real sense of whether this is someone who you might do business with down the track.

Because I’ve been out and about a lot lately, I’ve been meeting a lot of really senior business leaders and founders who’ve shared with me that they actually feel lonely. They, on the face of it, are absolutely thriving, but they don’t really have anyone to chat with and talk about some of the struggles they are having at that level of business.

Humans are seeking human connection.

And I believe this is happening and people are craving this so much at the moment, because so much of our communication is becoming automated and weirdly impersonal. You know, I was talking to one of my friends about this. She’s internet dating, and she was talking to me about how some of the replies have started to feel as if she’s talking to a bot.

Something about the language, even though technically it was all fine, something about the language didn’t feel quite right, and it felt like she wasn’t, you know, actually connecting with the other person that she was messaging. And so anyway, she did a bit of research and went down a rabbit hole and discovered that there are these AI bots that basically go through the process of the, that initial, back-and-forward messaging involved in online dating.

Now, on one hand, I totally get it. Dating apps are very time-consuming, and there’s only so many times that you can ask someone what they did on the weekend before you start thinking surely it would be more efficient for a bot to do this. But where does this lead? Like, if a bot’s pretending to be you at the start, when does it decide, okay, you’re ready to talk to the real person now?

And what’s it doing to the foundation of the relationship if someone finds out that at the start they weren’t talking to the real you? Now, I don’t have all the answers. I obviously don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with using automation. But where does it start to become weird and blurry?

Where does automation stop supporting a real relationship?

I want you to stop and step back and think about where you’ve had this experience as a customer. Let me share something. I have recently lost access to my Facebook Marketplace account. It is driving me crazy. I can’t sell, I can’t buy. Ah. And the reason my account was shut down is completely inaccurate. I genuinely believe if I could speak to an actual human being for, like, 30 seconds, they would understand what happened and sort it out and reinstate my access.

But I can’t. I’ve a Meta Verified customer, I have been for years. I have paid so much money, thousands and thousands of dollars to Meta over the years, and yet there’s no way for me to get in touch with a real person to understand the context and apply some human judgment. This experience does not make me feel more connected to Meta.

It gives me the ick. And I feel the same when I call a company and have to have conversation after conversation with a bot before I’m allowed to speak to a real human. I don’t necessarily mind automation at the start because sometimes there is just things that people ask on repeat. But when something, when a situation gets a bit more nuanced I need access to a human being.

And then I want you to think about this then as a business owner or a business leader, because this matters for your own business too. If every caption, email, customer service conversation has been generated from AI, where does the customer start to feel that ick disconnection? Now, you will know the difference.

 We’re all seeing it, we’re all experiencing it. Sometimes AI’s doing a really fabulous job of writing content, of having these engagements, but sometimes there’s something that’s just amiss.

Let me share an example of this. So I’ve been writing a pitch for a TEDx opportunity. I wrote the pitch myself. I’ve been practicing it, and then, I went to AI and said, “Well, what do you think?” And AI, basically the AI tool I was using said it’s pretty boring. And I started doubting myself and questioning the whole thing.

And I spoke to my assistant about it yesterday, and she’s like, “Clare, stop relying on AI. You’re the one who gets asked to be on stage. People always rave about how fun and funny you are and how much they enjoy your talks. Just be you. That’s what people want.” And she’s totally right.

AI doesn’t know the facial expressions I use, the way I use my hands, the energy that I bring, the jokes that come to me on the day. It was just assessing the basic words on a piece of paper. That reminded me too, my best performing content on social media is nearly always things that I have thought of.

It’s always my own ideas, not something that’s come out of AI. So use these tools, use this technology to improve an idea, but make sure that you are starting with that humanness, with your energy, your message. Because if we keep building relationships in a world of automation, we’re gonna lose that real ability to have human connection.

So I know the next question that you might ask is, well, how do I get more connection? And I’m sure you’ve heard, well, go and do some networking. And I’ve actually had some people DM me and say, “How do you actually get started networking? Where do you go?” So sometimes it’s really as simple as just googling networking events in your local area.

I’ve been to some really fabulous chamber of commerce events industry associations, breakfasts, workshops, events. And a really great suggestion that I’ve got is ask people that you know for events that they recommend. ‘Cause I’ve been to a few where I’ve turned up and it is not the vibe. You know, where you just know it’s the wrong room for you.

The next tip that I have for you when you actually are at these events is stop treating conversations as though it needs to have an immediate ROI. Not every coffee needs to lead to a new client. Relationships get compounded over time and opportunity comes from things sometimes that you hadn’t predicted.

I actually went to a fashion event last night, and I just walked over and introduced myself. I didn’t know anyone there. I just said, “Hi, how you doing?” And it turns out that the lady I was chatting to needed my exact services. So sometimes it’s just a numbers game and being in the right place at the right time.

But I certainly was not at this event with any intention to be finding new clients.

The next thing I want to flag, show up as your genuine, authentic self. If you’re pretending to be someone you are not, as I shared in that episode with Tracy Goodwin, people can tell in your voice. They can tell if you’re not being sincere. And if you are gonna follow people up, which I would highly recommend, do it from a place of authenticity.

Remind people, “Hey, this is that book that we were chatting about,” or, “You mentioned that you’d be open to a coffee. Are you still keen to do that?” You know, you don’t put, need to put people into a email funnel. Just stay connected.

So my challenge to you this week, create one genuine point of connection. Line up a coffee with someone, go along to a networking event, follow up an old client or someone you’ve been meaning to reconnect with. Actually just make it happen, because human connection in today’s day and age is more important than ever.

And if you are in the Gold Coast or near the Gold Coast, I would love for that point of connection to be at our Future-Proofing Your Business event on the 14th of October. This is not just sitting in a room and being talked at. It’s about getting together with other business owners who are at that scaling stage as well, who are building teams and trying to make smart decisions about what the future of business looks like.

We’ll be talking about how to build your team efficiently, and importantly, I’m gonna be talking about the financial foundation. So can you actually afford to be hiring new people as you are growing your business?

And at the end, we’re gonna be having some networking over a couple of drinks and a cheese platter. So if this sounds like something you are interested in, there’s a link in the show notes for today’s episode. I’d love to see you there.

We really need more of this, more proper conversations, sitting around with interesting like-minded people, where we’re having more connection that isn’t generated by AI. Thanks so much for tuning in, and I’ll chat to you again on the podcast very soon.

Thank you so much for tuning in to today’s episode of the Intentional Money Show. If you’re ready for more profit, come find me on Instagram at clare_wood_coach. Thanks so much for tuning into the podcast, and I’ll chat to you again next week

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio