The Power of Making Someone Feel Seen.
A golf ball to the head changed the way I looked at a potential business partner.
Let me explain…
I love sports, which also means I probably shouldn't be trusted to make completely rational decisions about sports sponsorships.
I know that about myself so whenever our marketing team brings me an opportunity involving a team, I tend to scrutinize it even harder. Sometimes I'll remove myself from the process almost entirely.
That's what I did when we started talking with the Milwaukee Brewers. Our marketing leader Ashley Givens liked what she was seeing. I was intrigued, but skeptical. Then I ended up at a Brewers game as the guest of another business partner…
At some point during the game, a few people from the Brewers front office stopped by the suite to say hello. One of them knew my friend Joe and asked where his wife was. Joe explained that she wasn't feeling great. The day before, they'd been golfing and she'd gotten smoked in the head with a golf ball. Thankfully she was okay, but she still had a pretty good headache.
We all winced. Then the conversation moved on…
A few minutes later, I noticed one of the Brewers guys excuse himself, but didn't think anything of it. About 30 or 45 minutes later, he came back into the suite with something hidden behind his back. He walked over to Joe.
"Hey, I've got something for your wife."
Then he pulled out a Brewers batting helmet.
"This is Christian Yelich's backup helmet. Thought she might want to wear it next time she goes golfing."
It was hilarious. Joe's wife thought so too when he brought it home.
But I've thought about that moment a lot since - that guy didn't need to do it. Joe was already a partner of the Brewers and nobody was asking for anything. There was no sponsorship package called "Emergency Golf Helmet Activation."
He just heard something, noticed, and acted on it.
And THAT was the moment my skepticism about partnering with the Brewers started to disappear.
You can learn a lot about an organization from the little things its people do when there's nothing in it for them.
At Vortex, we talk all the time about keeping your radar up for these little moments.
Pay attention, listen for the little details people share, then look for an opportunity to turn an ordinary interaction into something they'll remember. Grand gestures are great, but most rare experiences aren't grand. They're a batting helmet somebody didn't have to go get.
And years later, people are still telling the story.
That's the power of making someone feel seen.
P.S. I recently had Brewers President of Business Operations Rick Schlesinger on the Create A Rare Experience podcast. We talked about how they've built this kind of culture and experience inside the Brewers organization.