Anything But Business as Usual

Last Monday, my friend Nichole Elizabeth Demeré forwarded me an email from one of her favorite companies, Greetabl -- it's an online company that specializes in little thoughtful gifts you can send to a friend having a bad day, a business contact or client. They're basically a dollop of delight in a pretty package. But that was not what this email was about.

It wasn't a "How We're Protecting You from Covid-19" form email either. Refreshing, right?

Hey there Greetabl Insider, 

Brittany from Greetabl here (you might recognize my name from Greetabl's marketing emails). If you saw Joe's note on Medium over the weekend, you know that Team Greetabl has cleared our calendars of all scheduled meetings and we're reaching out to our people to see if they want to talk. About anything. 

There's a lot of uncertainty right now and social distancing can get lonely FAST, so I just wanted to let you know I'm here to talk. No sales pitch, no agenda; just a virtual coffee meeting to talk about whatever's on your mind. Drop some time on my calendar if you want to chat. 

Best,

Brittany

Director of Marketing

Brittany, Director of Marketing, was open to talking to anyone, about anything. No sales pitch, no agenda.

So I scheduled a call. Tuesday morning, I hopped on Zoom with a fresh mug of tea and talked with Brittany, a super lovely human who is also working from home in cozy sweaters. And we talked about everything -- trying to find toilet paper in the apocalypse, how we've seen some businesses forgetting to check the appropriateness of their automated emails (Hey Southwest Airlines, it might be time to stop with the flight deals for now!), and how other businesses are rising to the occasion in unexpected ways.

By doing things that are completely different from what they normally do.

By offering to help, meaningfully, in whatever ways they can, even when it is not part of their 'sales funnel' at all.

Today, I'm going to share with you some real-world magic. The magic of people stepping outside their boxes, their comfort zones, their preconceived notions of "this is what we do," or "this is what we can do, and can't do" and asking themselves, honestly: "What can I do to make someone else's life easier right now?"

And not one of those answers involves peddling an app or an upsell.

Case in Point #1: Restaurants turned Neighborhood Groceries

Eclipse Chocolate in South Park, the neighborhood literally South of Balboa Park in San Diego, is one of my favorite brunch spots. But, with the mass closing of restaurants, they shut their doors, only to reopen their doors as a grocery store for hard-to-find items. Using their suppliers, they have restaurant-sized 25lb bags of flour for sale, giant wheels of toilet paper, eggs in 30-packs, yeast and butter by the pound, and fresh produce. They cleared out their dining area and replaced it with grocery shelves, and you can order any of their pantry staples for pick-up.

Many restaurants have gone to pick-up or delivery-only. But restaurants using their suppliers to help their communities? That's really special.

Case in Point #2: Entrepreneurs giving it away

I met Tomás Puig and his wife Anna in Palm Springs, at a Yes & Yes Yes conference of mostly-Bay-Area tech people who wanted to connect on quirkier, more personal levels. Anna was heavily pregnant with their son at the time and still managed to look like Snow White incarnate, and Tomás and I talked about cooking until the desert heat sent us all cannon-balling into the deep-end of the pool.

Since then, Tomás has founded Alembic, an 'angel investment' company that, essentially, grows other companies. But, on March 24th, Tomás announced Alembic doing something completely different.

Hey Alchemists,

Like all of you I have been concerned with the state of our local community amid the pandemic.

In efforts to assist we have contracted a medical mask factory in China and arranged for all production to go straight to local medical providers in San Francisco.

By doing this we can, in our own small way, help people that save lives by blocking profiteering and guaranteeing resources go straight to health centers.

Alembic has purchased, and shipped via DHL, the first (1000) 3M n95 masks and (1000) surgery cloth masks to be delivered to UCSF and local charities. (Arrival in 2-3 days)

We have also arranged and connected UCSF and One Medical directly time the source. They are now able to procure (4000) 3M n95’s and (20,000) surgical masks per week to ship directly from factory.

I know we all are trying to work hard and stay efficient but we can’t stand by and do nothing. I hope this gives you all some solace that we will be engaged not just in our own business but the world at large.

I've seen so many entrepreneurs give generously over the past two weeks, sacrificing income, time and sleep to do so.

Like Saira Gangji, a freelance workplace investigator and HR professional in Canada who helped 31 companies last week tonavigate the quickly-changing terrain of transitioning office workers to remote workers. For free.

Like Nicole Comis, an executive life coach who's offering daily EFT sessions to help people cope with the fear and anxiety around the pandemic. When that isn't one of her services, just something she's found personally useful.

Like Tim Stanek, fellow copywriter and professional musician who has been giving weekday piano performances on his Facebook page. In April he's offering free piano lessons for all levels. I just can't get enough live ragtime in my workday.

Like Rebecca Tracey, who in the middle of her Uncaged Life launch, took time to amplify the many generous offers made by her followers in her Instagram stories (including mine - thanks Becca!).

And so many others. I wish I could list them all here.

I believe in radical generosity, and I have never seen more radical generosity than I have in the last two weeks.

I would also like to give a special thank you, on a personal note, to Rachel Alexandria. Not only is she sharing a bunch of free feel-better, function-better resources on her website and social media, she actually came by to give me three rolls of toilet paper.

That, my friends, is radical generosity.

I would love to know what Radical Generosity you've seen from businesses, entrepreneurs, and humans in general. If you've got a story, send it my way!

Until then, stay healthy, stay hopeful, and help however you can.