Today I was reading a blog post by Seth Godin titled, "It's not personal, it's business" which reminded me of my favorite movie of all time, You've Got Mail. In the movie, Kathleen Kelly, played by Meg Ryan, is coached on how to take on the big chain store that threatens the existence of her small business.
Her main piece of advice, unknowingly fed to her by her enemy, is ultimately, to pull out all the stops, whatever it takes, because "it's not personal, it's business."
When she is still forced to close her store, and is talking to her adversary, she grows impatient when he says it wasn't personal...
"What is that supposed to mean? I am so sick of that. All that means is that it wasn't personal to you. But it was personal to me. It's *personal* to a lot of people. And what's so wrong with being personal, anyway? Whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal."
In Godin's post, his advice is simple: make a habit of dealing with people, not businesses.
And really, in our times, when communicating with the world is as simple as opening your phone, isn't that what we want? We ignore mass marketing, we ask to be engaged, and we ignore those businesses who refuse to "get" us. So if we want our businesses to be anything, it's more personal.
Don't believe anyone who tells you it's not personal, it's business. We know better.
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