In 2019, before “remote everything” became the norm, Harvard Business Review published an article titled “Why Face-to-Face Meetings Are So Important.” The finding was simple but profound: in-person requests are 34 times more likely to get a “yes” than emails. Fast forward to today, we’ve automated outreach, scaled webinars, and built martech stacks worth millions yet conversion rates are declining, not rising.
So what happened? We optimized for reach, not resonance. When everyone can access the same virtual platforms, proximity becomes the new scarcity.
Consider companies like CrowdStrike and Okta, which continue to invest in local cybersecurity community events even as global brands. They understand that in industries where trust and expertise are currency, the moment someone shakes your hand is when they stop viewing you as a vendor and start viewing you as a partner.
Sociologist Mark Granovetter called this “the strength of weak ties”. The idea that opportunity flows through casual, human connections rather than formal networks. Every field conversation, every local conference, every roundtable is a micro-signal of trust waiting to be secured.