Why The Most Human Company Wins...

[Music] What's up guys? Welcome to our first create a rare experience podcast. And this whole podcast is about human connection and going against the grain where every other business is focused on AI, automation, and efficiency, which those things are good, but they're not ultimate things. And when everybody's chasing those things, that means people are taking their eye off the ball, the most important thing, which is human connection.

So, we have a really interesting show today, which I think you're going to get a lot out of. Recently, I was on LinkedIn and I was reading an article by Mark Manson, a very prolific author. And in that article, which we'll link in the show notes, he highlights that often people and businesses that perform the best, they take have a contrarian take on something. Okay? So, they're doing something differently than everybody else is doing and they bet big on it. It was a great article. I was extremely fired up and without thinking it uh much I just fired off this comment which got a pretty big response. So I'm going to read that comment for you now.

This and he asked what is your contrarian take that you were going to bet big on. And here's what I wrote. In a world obsessed with AI automation and squeezing every ounce of efficiency, the real contrarian play is this. The most human company wins because machines can process data. Only people can create connection. Anyone can automate a task. Almost no one will choose to slow down and serve. That's the bet. The most human company wins. Who's with me?

So hopefully that gets you fired up. If it does, you are in the right place. It certainly got a lot of people fired up in the comments commenting on that. comment. And I think there's a couple reasons for that, but we want to break that down. Break down what we do here and then give you a principle to take away and apply to your life.

So, first off, why do I think that's important? Well, at the end of the day, I think human connection is a need that everybody has. It's an intrinsic need, and it's a need that's missing right now in our day and age. Okay, once smartphones came on the scene, social media came on the scene, you know, obviously the internet and that has grown, we are more digitally connected than we've ever been, but we're more disconnected with other human beings than we've ever been. And you've probably seen it. You've seen people on a date and they're both on their phones like this or friends, they get together, or maybe they don't even get together. They get together just through a text chat. And loneliness is a major major epidemic.

So even before this got started though, we understood the power of human connection and that each person wants to be seen, wants to be heard, wants to be known, and wants to feel important. And so when we set up Vortex, we made sure that we were going to lean into that. We were going to overindex on that. our competitors at the time, and I probably should say competitors because we started from zero, okay? They didn't even hardly knew that we existed, but they were really busy making themselves the hero and their product and they wanted to put everything into their features, into their benefits, and then magnifying that with their marketing. So we certainly put a lot of work into our features, our benefits, our technology, but that comes secondary to our customers, to our employees and that human connection piece. And we think that when you start with that and work out from that, that is a recipe to really connect with your customers and really create momentum for your customers, for your employees, and for your company.

And so when I fired off that uh that comment, that wasn't just theory. I fired that off and I was so fired up on that comment because I had experience that over almost 25 years in business. And so right now in 2025, what all you're hearing about is AI, all you're hearing about is automation, and all you're hearing about is efficiency. And everybody is racing at breakneck speed for those things. Okay. So, first of all, by you also going after those things, you are not differentiating yourself. Okay. That's the first thing. The second thing is is that well, good luck competing with some of the biggest companies out there. If you're not Apple, if you're not Microsoft, if you're not one of these AI companies, you can leverage those tools, but you're probably not going to overtake them. Okay? So when you focus on human connection, you're actually focusing on something that's rare right now in 2025 and you're focusing on something that costs you nothing except for your time and your energy, which is certainly is a resource, but it's something that you have control over. You may not have control over some of the ideas that you want to do that some other companies like an Apple who's got all the money in the world that they can focus on. So focusing on human connection, it's rare and every company and every person wants to be rare, wants to stand out. And number two, anybody can do it. Anybody can do it at any area of the organization. You can be a frontline employee, you can be an intern, middle management, or you can be a CEO, and you can focus on human connection.

So, we got a couple um uh principles or ways of saying this that we want to give to you which we think can really help you as you go about your day and go about your life in general. It's going to work in the workplace. It's going to work in um the workforce. So, first of all, when people are focusing on AI automation and efficiency, at the end of the day, what they're really focused on is they're focused on transaction. They're focused on a transactional relationship. Okay? That relationship might be with their work or it might be with another uh employee or customer or somebody in their life. If I do this, I get that. It's very quidd proquo. It's very tit fortat. And a lot of people are touting to lean into that principle as well. You go one step and and they better go one step and then you can go another step and then you can go another step. Okay? And I'm going to tell you right now, I'm going to tell you right now, that is an awful way to be successful in business. And that is an awful way to be successful in life. That is a scarcity mentality. And I have never met somebody and I've met a lot of successful people. And I have never met somebody who's successful with that scarcity mentality. Now, can everybody come up with an example where you needed to go tit fortat with somebody because they had negativity in their heart or in that transaction? You better believe it. So, you need to have your radar up. I get that. But when you overserve other people as a general rule and principle and you focus on connection truly authentic connection with that other person and you do it in all of your relationships and interactions in your life, you're not keeping score. I promise you in the aggregate it's going to come back to you in far greater than what you put in. But if you go in with this little tit fortat mentality and this scarcity mentality as opposed to an abundance mentality, that's what you're going to get. You're going to just get a scarcity life. So keep that in mind.

Now, first of all, let's talk about this then. So if we're not going to focus on transactions, I'm not saying transactions aren't important. I'm just saying they're not the ultimate thing. We want to go with this. We want to go with connection is greater than and I hope I spelled this right but connection is greater than transaction. Okay, connection is greater than transaction. We're saying that both of these things are important but man we are going to overindex on this. Okay.

So, let me just give you some ju just some examples in case this isn't crystallizing for you. So, let's say we've got a customer that um calls in and he's talking to Ryan Muckenhur on phones and he's got um a new rifle that he's his daughter and him are going to go on our first hunt. Okay. And he's trying to figure out what's the best rifle scope for me to get for my daughter on this first hunt. Ryan spends about an hour with him. Ryan's super pumped for this guy because after all, if you got a daughter or a son and you're taking on your first hunt, that's kind of a big deal, right? That's a big moment. So Ryan is leaning into that moment, right? Because if it's important to the other person, if it's important to the customer, it needs to be important to you. So Ryan, and if you knew Ryan, you'd know he's authentically into this, right? He's helping him get the best rifle scope. and um and he and he might even throw in a hat for for him and also his daughter. Maybe even does a handwritten note. So he helps this guy out. About 6 to 8 weeks go by and all of a sudden he gets an email from this guy and this email is telling him, "Hey, thank you Ryan. You helped me out so much and um you know, we got the rifle scope on. We got it mounted bore sighted. We went out and here's the picture of me and my daughter Olivia and with her first dough. Okay, so at that point, what happened right there, okay, is this guy is now reaching back out to Ryan because they had an authentic human connection initially. Ryan didn't look at that as just a transaction. How do I get this guy riv scope for his daughter and get him off the phone, get on the other phone? That's a transactional way of looking at it. Ryan really leaned into the moment, made this guy feel seen, heard, and important because it was important to him. He has this moment with the daughter. And who does he want to reach back out to? He wants to reach out back to Ryan.

Now, most people, if they get to that point, they're going to read that and be like, "Wow, what a heartfelt email." And it's true, it was a heartfelt email, but what would be a way to go further? And also, let's evaluate what's going on. this dad is reaching out making what we call a bid for connection or BFC. So, he's making a bid for connection. And if you've got your radar up um and uh you know, I'll tell a story maybe about that a little later, but if you've got your radar up and you're saying, "Oh my gosh, this guy's making a bid for connection. How can I lean in and elevate this moment from a really human perspective, from a really connected way?" Well, you've got a picture. You can print that sucker out. You can get a picture frame. You can put it in there. You can do a handwritten note. Get all the guys in the consumer sales phones uh signing that bad boy saying, "Great job, Olivia." We can put that in there. We already have this guy's address. He's already in our system. and we can send him a surprise care package that has that moment in that photo that he shared in a picture frame and it is ready to go to put up right on this guy's nightstand or right at work where he's going to see it every moment of every day. That is leaning in authentically to a human connection moment. And here's the thing, you don't keep score. But if you do moments like that, what you're going to get is you are going to get loyalty for life from this guy, most likely his daughter, all his family, and certainly his deer camp. Okay? That's what you're going to get when you lean into human connection. When you lean into transactions, this guy is now just a transactional customer. He is a free agent customer. and next time he needs an optic, he's a free agent. He's very likely going to go with another brand. So, by leaning into human connection, we've got this guy as a customer for life. Again, we probably have his daughter. We probably have his deer camp. But the other thing is is that it made your day. If Ryan does this and these guys sign this card, you think their day got better? You think their day I think their day got better. I think that put a smile on their face. It put a smile on his face. It put a smile on his daughter's face and just like we talked about from the loyalty perspective, it created momentum for the organization. So we got momentum for the organization, we got momentum for the customer and we got momentum for the employees. All by overindexing on connection rather than transaction.

But here's the interesting thing about this greater than equation. By focusing more on authentic connection, authentic human connection, what actually happens is rather than it being greater than, it ends up being a conduit for more transactions. Okay? We're not say transactions aren't bad. Okay? We want your bottom line as a company to do well. All right. But by focusing on this, you actually end up getting that. Now, it has to be authentic. Okay? You're not going through the motions over here. People feel that. But by authentically focusing on connection, you actually end up with more transactions. And you want some proof? Well, Vortex is all the proof that you need. We started in 2002. We started from zero. Okay? We're now the largest sport optics company in the world. We've been that for almost 10 years. Took us about 15 years to get there. It was kind of a compound interest situation by it was the overall accumulation of these moments that we leaned into and these customers for life. That's what they often tell us that we created and that loyalty and that momentum that spread far and wide to more and more customers. So, we are living proof by focusing on this. you're going to get this. Okay, so this is something that I would take with you. And if you want a principle that actually kind of lives even over that, what I would say is what we say a lot here is connection creates momentum. Connection creates the momentum. That's kind of the key overarching principle here. Connection creates momentum. Connection is within your control. Okay? You don't need a certain amount of money to focus on connection. You don't need to be the team lead or the CEO to focus on connection. You can do this in your life. You can do this at the coffee shop. You can do this all the time. And it creates momentum for everyone. For everyone. So that is the big takeaway that I want for you to have today is be thinking how can I apply this to my life? How can I apply this to the situations at work? How can I apply connection and create momentum? Because I'll tell you this. I'll tell you this. When you're living in a world where loneliness is an epidemic when you're living in a world where everybody comes at it transactionally transactionally. If you're living in a world where everybody is just texting each other and emailing each other and nobody's there face to face, what you get is you get a world where everybody feels stuck. Everybody feels like their work is soulless. Their life is soulless. And certainly if you ask them if they have any momentum, they don't. They don't. We want to create momentum personally. We want to create momentum in organizations. We want your organizations to thrive not only on the bottom line. We want your organizations to thrive inside your people. And the way to do that, the starting point to do that is to focus on connection. And that's what's going to create momentum. Listen guys, movements are built on connection. If this resonated, share it and join the conversation. Hit that subscribe button or check the show notes where you can follow me on all my socials or check out more about the movement at vortexcare.com. Let's build something rare together.