When was the last time a business actually made you feel something?
Not impressed you. Not saved you two clicks with an app. I mean actually made you feel like a person instead of a transaction number in a queue.
Struggling to think of one? That’s exactly the problem, and it’s exactly why a book has been riding shotgun with me to work for months now. Audible put it in front of me on a walk. I liked it so much I went and bought the hard copy too, because apparently I needed to underline things and dog-ear pages like it’s 1997. I’m on my third pass through it now. This one is The Relationship Economy by John DiJulius, and I’m just going to say it. Best book I’ve read all year. Most impactful, no contest.
Human Interaction Beats AI and Laziness. Every Time.
DiJulius makes a case I’ve believed for years but never heard someone put quite this bluntly. All the technology in the world cannot replace a genuine human connection. Not AI. Not automation. Not the lazy shortcut of firing off a text when a phone call would’ve actually meant something.
Technology can make a business faster. It cannot make a business felt. And here’s the kicker nobody wants to admit: feelings are what people remember, not your response time.
You can have the fastest chatbot on the planet. If it doesn’t make someone feel like a human being was on the other end, you built a very efficient way to lose customers.
Small Actions, Huge Impact
Here’s what got me. DiJulius proves over and over that the smallest actions carry the biggest weight. Not the grand gesture. The tiny one you almost talked yourself out of doing because it seemed too small to matter.
I see this every single day running Window Ninjas.
Our techs walk the property with the homeowner before the job starts, then walk it again after. Five minutes on the front end, five on the back. Doesn’t sound like much. But that’s the exact moment a stranger on your roofline becomes someone you’d hand your house key to.
Our phone agents don’t read robotic scripts either. We built rapport right into the script itself, on purpose, because a live human voice answering the phone is getting rarer than a polite driver in a Wilmington traffic circle. And rare is valuable.
Then there’s the one that gets me every single time. The day after a job, a real person calls just to say thank you. Not a text. Not one of those “please rate your experience” emails you delete before you finish reading it. An actual human, on the phone, saying thank you for trusting us with your home.
None of that is complicated. All of it is psychology. DiJulius nails something here that I think about constantly: it was never really about the walk-through, or the phone call, or the script. Those are just the vehicle. The real product is the feeling. Seen. Respected. Cared for. That feeling is the entire business, whether you’re cleaning windows or running a Fortune 500.
FORD Is Gold
If you take one thing from this book, take this. DiJulius lays out a framework called FORD. Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams. Four categories that hand you a map into anyone’s actual life, instead of the small talk everybody defaults to about the weather.
Turns out I was already doing this without a name for it. Asking a franchisee how their kid’s season is going. Asking a customer what brought them to town. Asking Melisa about the trip she’s been dreaming about since before our kids could drive. Apparently that’s FORD. I’ve been running on instinct for twenty five years and didn’t know it had a name.
Now I use it on purpose, everywhere. With franchisees, it tells me what’s really going on in someone’s life, not just their P&L. With customers, it turns a job site into an actual conversation instead of a transaction with a squeegee attached. At home, it reminds me the people closest to you deserve the same intentional curiosity you’d give a total stranger you’re trying to win over.
That’s the head turner in this book for me. We’ve all been building rapport by feel our whole lives. DiJulius just handed us the instruction manual, and it works on everybody. Your team. Your customers. Your spouse. Your kids. Even the in-laws, if you’re feeling ambitious.
This Book Should Be Required Reading for Society
I don’t throw this around lightly. This book shouldn’t just sit on a business shelf next to the leadership books nobody finishes. It should be required reading for how we treat each other, full stop. Marriages, friendships, parenting, leadership, customer service, it all runs on the same principle. People don’t remember what you did. They remember how you made them feel. And the psychology behind that is more powerful than any app, algorithm, or AI tool Silicon Valley will ever ship.
Give More Than Expected, Every Time
Anyone can meet an expectation. That’s the bare minimum, and the bare minimum doesn’t get talked about at dinner parties. The people and businesses we talk about for decades are the ones who gave something nobody was expecting. A walk-through nobody required. A phone call that opens with someone’s kid’s baseball season instead of an invoice.
That gap, between doing the job and building the relationship, is where DiJulius says the biggest competitive advantage left in business is hiding in plain sight.
I believe that completely, and I’d bet my squeegee on it.
Where This Leaves Me
I picked this book up expecting a customer service refresher. Instead it handed me a mirror and a mission. It made me look at every interaction in my business, and honestly my whole life, and ask one uncomfortable question. Am I building a relationship here, or just checking a box?
So here’s what I’ll leave you with. Where has convenience quietly replaced connection in your own life? And what would change if you ran your own version of FORD on purpose, starting today, with the people who actually matter?
Golden Squeegees: 4.5 out of 5
Read this one. Then buy a second copy and hand it to someone you care about. Trust me, they’ll notice the difference in how you show up.
Follow my journey at gabesalinas.com, subscribe on Substack, and connect with me on social media.
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