Week 3: All About Ale

Here at Milagro, it seems that e-mail is the primary source of communication with clients. I’ll admit, sometimes I e-mail Sally being two steps away from her desk. It’s fast and convenient but it’s not always effective. This week Dave told me, “Chica, we’re going on a field trip!” He needed to meet with clients in person to discuss a few projects that are going on, and Sally and me tagged along.
Our first stop was Ron Gonzales’ office to show him a brochure for his non-profit organization. Dave explained to me on the way to his office, there is no better way to convey your ideas than in person with a sample. We pulled up to the building, Dave with his new gafas, (sunglasses) as he calls them, and me and Sally right behind. We go up the elevator, through a maze of offices and were greated by two ladies behind a desk. Mr. Ron Gonzalez had stepped out of the office. We left a sample behind, assured that Ron would get the idea.
Our next stop was The National Hispanic University. This week a shipment of decal car stickers came in, half of them looked great, and the other half, well, didn’t measure up. Literally, they were a few inches short of what we had ordered for the client. The error required that we visit the client personally to share with him the steps we could take to get them the correct stickers.
As we walked in, I was surprised by how beautiful the campus was. There was a cute cafe as soon as you walk in and huge windows with a beautiful view of the East Foothills. Considering I live only up the street from NHU and drive by it all the time, I was in shock that I had never actually been inside. Like Dave told me, I need to get out more!
We walked up to the office of the Marketing Director of NHU. We almost missed him, but luckily we were able to have a small informal meeting. We explained the situation with the decals, and discussed other campaign projects to begin working on. Previously, there had been communication via e-mail and it really wasn’t moving forward. In this short meeting, it felt that a lot more was accomplished than through constant e-mailing back and forth.

Nowadays, every answer you may ever need is at our fingertips. Particularly here in the Silicon Valley, people are fine with sitting behind the computer monitor all day, and terrified of picking up a phone or much less meeting in person. Social media and smartphones may single-handedly eliminate all personal contact. It might seem better but in reality it may not be as effective as we think. Having something always available and convenient, makes most of us, put it off or have it linger. But there’s nothing better than physically meeting and putting your ideas on the table, literally.