Last Friday I had the opportunity to meet the team of people I will be joining at the Insurance Org. I was a bit tired from a full day of recruiting/intros from my school’s job fair.
My boss rushed a tour of the office where I would be working this summer. Afterwards, he drove me to the bar to join the sales guys. The bar was loud, and I had a hard time projecting my voice. I introduced myself, and my boss incorporated me into their conversations. “Hey guys, this is Mitch and he is the captain of his volleyball team,” he told the guys. The guys kept bringing up my personalized intro emails I had sent before the happy hour. For context, my personalized email took 10 minutes to research and send to each person. I sent about 15 of them and closed my computer without thinking much of it.
They joked, "Way to bring up how long I've been in the industry Mitch!!”
"Hey Mitch, you made me feel old after saying how ' you are excited you were to learn from my DECADES of experience.'"
A man named Kyp pierced the conversation by walking through the door. He was confident, articulate and everyone listened when he spoke. He asked me a few questions and he smiled at some of my answers. He left 20 mins after he arrived, and I thought nothing of the situation. Once he left, the two guys next to me leaned in, "do you know who that is Mitch?” I shook my head and they explained that he would be the nicest multi-millionaire I would ever meet. They told me that he was one of the biggest guys in the industry and he never attends office events. We talked for about an hour more and my boss drove me back.
On the car ride home, my boss told me that never before had an intern sent personalized intros to the office. “Really?!”, I thought. He told me that usually the team does not usually attend the happy hours but 9/15 showed up for me… because of my email. He went on to say, "Not only that but Kyp showing up to an event is special.”
9 people, including the top sales guy, could have chosen to stay home. They all came to meet me because of one email (they didn’t invite the other interns fyi).
It was one of those things I knew that I SHOULD be doing. I thought people would acknowledge my email and take no further action. I had no idea the impact on my reputation and relationships before I even started the internship.
Moral of the Story: The little things matter.
Sending that thank you card to the person that sent a gift. Writing that follow-up to the prospect who is in a busy season asking how they are doing. Doing 15 minutes of research before reaching out to someone to find common ground.
They might feel meaningless in the moment, but people remember.
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