Back to the Future: Are Old-Fashioned Connections the New Way Forward?
October 2026
Digital tools can identify prospects and spark conversations. But trust, goodwill, and business relationships still grow through human connection.
Building business relationships still depends on human connection. A friend of mine runs a small business. He does not spend his time building a personal brand on LinkedIn, posting on Instagram, or chasing engagement on Facebook. He has little interest in social media marketing and probably does not care much about it.
What he does have is an uncanny ability to connect with people. He does it face-to-face, not through a laptop, smartphone, or AI-powered networking tool. Put him in a room with a stranger, and within minutes he often finds a shared connection. It may be someone they both know, or someone they studied or worked with in the past.
Building Business Relationships Beyond the Screen
I was thinking about this friend recently as I reflected on how dramatically business communications have changed. Companies can use social media, targeted advertising, and AI to find prospects, personalize messages, and reach customers around the world. These tools can be remarkably effective. Yet they can also confuse activity with achievement. We count followers, clicks, and connections. Do those numbers show that we have built a relationship, won a customer, or made a sale?
Spend a day at a business conference or trade show, and you may see people checking their phones between conversations. They update their LinkedIn profiles and post photographs of themselves at the very event they are attending. Some may even ask AI to summarize presentations they are missing while writing posts about how valuable the conference has been.
Are we all suffering from a collective inability to concentrate? Or has the business world decided that every spare moment must be used to communicate, promote, or sell something?
I have sat through plenty of business presentations whose essential message was that companies need an online presence and must engage their audiences. Today, the same advice might come with a demonstration of how AI can generate a month of social media posts in minutes.
Thank you. We know.
The real question is how to distinguish what genuinely creates value from what merely keeps us busy.
This brings me back to my friend.
The Value of Old-Fashioned Business Connections
I have long thought that he does business in a rather old-fashioned, and probably inefficient, way. He spends much of his day driving around and meeting people in cafés, factories, and offices. Even when there is no specific transaction on the table, he visits, makes small talk, asks how things are going, and moves on.
He does what people have done for thousands of years: he makes and reinforces human connections.
He has a mobile phone, but he is more likely to use it for what phones were originally intended to do: talk to people. At some point in a conversation, he will almost certainly say, “Let’s meet” or “Let’s talk.” Maybe something will come of it—and quite often, it does.
Even when there is no immediate business, he may introduce someone to a colleague or friend who can help. The goodwill this creates is difficult to measure on a marketing dashboard, but it can be enormously valuable. Sooner or later, the favor may be returned. A casual conversation can become a business opportunity.
It is not a glamorous way to do business. It is about talking, listening, understanding what people need, and offering something useful. In his case, that means supplying products companies need for everything from producing food to building houses.
Combine Digital Tools with Human Connection
Of course, I am not suggesting that we abandon technology and return to the days of telephone directories and endless cups of coffee. Digital tools have opened markets that once seemed inaccessible. AI will continue to transform how we research, communicate, and sell. The opportunity is to combine these capabilities with something technology cannot easily replicate: a genuine human relationship.
Harvard Business Review’s article on building strong business relationships remotely
Use AI to research a prospective client. Use LinkedIn to identify the people you need to know. Then pick up the phone, arrange a meeting, and get to know the person behind the profile.
Technology can help you find the door. It cannot guarantee that anyone will want to open it.
Much of our work over the years has involved members of the jewelry and gemstone industries. Many have been less enthusiastic about using social networks to generate business. That is not necessarily a mistake. Digital marketing works well for many companies. Others may get a better return by traveling halfway around the world to attend a trade show or visit a customer.
Why Face-to-Face Business Relationships Still Matter
In an industry built on trust, reputation, and relationships, a face-to-face meeting can accomplish what hundreds of online interactions may not.
So, the next time you update your status or ask AI to draft another social media campaign, consider an alternative. Call a client you have not spoken to in a while. Visit a customer instead of sending another email. Introduce two people who might be able to help each other.
You may discover that your most valuable business connection this week is not the one that generates the most likes. It may be the one that begins with two people sitting across a table and talking to each other.
Technology can do more of the talking for us. Still, the most valuable thing we can do may be to talk to one another. Building business relationships still starts with people.
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