Are You Deepening the Relationship, or Just Maintaining the Connection?

Nikki wore a homemade costume to a Jurassic Park movie with six other grown adults, and it turned into the clearest lesson she's got on the difference between a business that deepens relationships and one that just maintains connections. This is a Nikki Talks solo episode about why "nurture" quietly became a task on your to-do list, and how to turn it back into something your clients actually feel.

What you'll hear in this episode:

• The Jurassic Park dinner her brother engineered on a freezer-aisle budget, and the one laminated detail that made seven grown adults feel like they were inside the night instead of just attending it.
• The driving-range conversation with her friend Catriona that reframes every touchpoint in your business: are you deepening a relationship, or just maintaining a connection?
• Why a "quietly satisfied" client is a warning sign and not a win, and the shift from completed transactions to emotional connections (the customer who would return).
• Signature Moments: how to design the highest-stakes, highest-reward moments in your client journey through adaptation, not automation.
• Five questions you can run on your own business right now, from the first twenty-four hours after the yes to the newsletter that's secretly all about you.

If you've ever crossed "nurture" off a to-do list and felt absolutely nothing, this is the episode that shows you what to do instead.

Connect with Nikki on Instagram: instagram.com/iamnikkimck 

The Would Recommend Standard is a free guide to the five principles behind businesses people can't stop talking about. 

Grab it here: theopsshop.biz/wouldrecommend-standard 

A Spark Session is a 90-minute strategy session where you and Nikki dig into your client experience and figure out exactly where it's working and where it isn't. 

Book yours here: theopsshop.biz/sparksession 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

This is the one I was telling you about. It is the You will not believe this play so that I just found literally obsessed. I sent this link to literally everyone I know. Their biggest. I'm telling everybody about this. Tell them I sent you is my favorite. This one is girl. 10 out of 10 would recommend. A few months ago, I put on the brightest yellow rain jacket I could find, a sassy Hawaiian shirt, a pair of large glasses, and my very best chaotic disaster IT guy energy. And I went to the movies in this costume with six other fully grown adults also in costume. Our group was going to see the new Jurassic Park movie, and we were all dressed up as Jurassic Park characters and in one case, a dinosaur. We wore these costumes. We had laminated Jurassic Park visitor passes. We ate Jurassic Park themed food. And this random evening has now become one of my favorite friendship stories. I personally spent the whole night as Dennis Nedry saying, uh uh, you didn't say the magic word to literally anyone who would make eye contact with me. And that night at the movies is the best example I've got of a difference almost every business owner blurs. And that is the difference between deepening a relationship and just maintaining a connection. Welcome to Would Recommend. I'm Nikki McKnight, a customer experience and operations strategist and founder of the Ops Shop. And this is the show about the businesses that customers can't stop talking about and what they actually did to earn it. Today is a Nikki Talks episode. It's just me, the story of a very nerdy evening, and of course, a question I want you to be able to answer by the time that we are done. And the question is this are you deepening a relationship or are you just maintaining a connection? So sit with that one because most of us in life and in business are doing a whole lot more maintaining than we think. Let's go. So this whole story starts the way that most great things start: a text. In this case, it was from my brother, and it was him saying, Okay, July 6th, dinner in a movie, there will be DIY costuming. It is mandatory. And that was that was it. No other explanation, no further questions. Just show up, play along, and trust the bit. Uh, he was surviving, uh, he was surprising his wife, aka my best friend, with the new Jurassic Park movie. She's a huge Jurassic Park fan. It's her favorite movie. She can quote all of it. Uh, and somewhere between the idea of we should go see the new Jurassic Park movie and the actual invite, my brother Chris decided a movie was not going to be enough. So he built a world. Now, let me walk you through what he actually built because I all of this is just it was it was thought out. It was not accidental, which again, that's that's what we really try to aim for with experience. So, first the text. This is not my brother asking if people wanted to dress up. He's making the costumes mandatory. And he didn't poll anybody, he just created this world and said, if you want to come, this is what it is. The costume is the price of admission. You either committed or you didn't. And because everyone was committed to it, the room changed. The vibe was good before the evening ever really got started. Then there was dinner, and our chef friend Nat made this entire Jurassic Park-themed meal. Part of it was the Chilean sea bass from the original movie, plated exactly, like the film. But she also made dinosaur-shaped nuggets, and there was a mashed potato mountain with gravy waterfalls. Uh, there was also a cocktail with grenadine standing in for dinosaur blood, and the this entire meal experience really was part Michelin and part lunchables, and ultimately it was perfect. And then here's the detail that makes me laugh and it kind of blows my mind every time, which was my brother created these Jurassic Park visitor passes. He laminated them. He went to my parents' house and he stole their laminator. And onto the visitor pass, he embedded the actual QR code from the movie ticket, and the visitor code number was our seat number. And he did this because he just really wanted to see if the QR code would scan when we got to the theater. Spoiler alert, it did. Um, nobody asked him to create these badges. Uh, it served zero practical function, really. It was just totally unnecessary, but so whimsical. And it was so fun. And it was one of the biggest things that made all of us feel like we are like, we are inside this moment and not just attending it. And I think the best payoff of the evening was we walk up to this theater in St. Catharines, this pack of costumed elder millennials, and this teenager who's taking tickets looks up at us and she she grins and she says, I don't know what this is, but it's awesome. So, really, that that that grin was the whole point of the evening that a stranger with zero context was feeling the thing that my brother came up with. And that's the whole episode. No, it's not. It's just kind of the theme for the episode. So, you know, a few weeks before this dinner, I was at the driving range with my friend Katrina, and we're there talking about adult friendships, the way you do when you're standing around, you know, catching up. And Katrina had told me about this article or something that she had read that was about adult friendships. And she said that most of the time when we see the people we care about, we're just updating each other. Here's what's new with me, here's what happened at work, here's how the kids are doing, here's what I'm doing this weekend. We're not making new memories. We're not deepening anything. We are just literally maintaining a connection. And I am so familiar with this. It's the how are you? Good. You good? What's new? Not much. And it's a loop. It is the coffee catch up that covers the same ground as the last coffee ketchup. It's polite, it's comfortable, it's completely forgettable. Maintaining a connection just keeps the line open. Deepening a relationship is the Jurassic Park dinner. And these are two very different things, and we can often mistake one for the other. And of course, businesses run on that same loop. Thanks for buying. Here's what's to expect. Let me know if you have any questions. This is all maintenance, right? It's it's polite, it's necessary, it's technically fine, and it is as flat as a parking lot. It keeps the line open. It does not make anybody feel anything. So here's where I want to put a name to what is actually happening because this sits in the center of how I think about remarkable client experiences. And there's a shift that I take clients through, and it's this idea of moving from completed transactions to emotional connections. A completed transaction is maintenance. They paid you, you delivered, everybody's satisfied, the invoice is closed, and satisfied sounds awesome until you realize what it actually looks like on the ground, right? It looks like a client who is satisfied. It's it's polite, it's thank you. There's nothing more. There's no complaints, but they're not necessarily raving either. They get what they paid for, and they are gonna likely feel zero pull to come back or to tell soul about you. This is the maintenance zone. It's the how are you good loop with a receipt attached. But that emotional connection, this is the deepening. It is the client who is genuinely delighted and past that, the one who feels genuinely moved and can't imagine going anywhere else. That's the client who comes back. That's the client who becomes the person raving about you at a dinner party. This is the customer who says, I'd return, I'd buy again. Which, if you get enough of those people in a room, you're eventually creating a community that says, huh, yeah, I'd I'd amplify that person. I would talk about them. I would recommend that person. And the mechanism that gets you from one to the other, it has a name too, and I call them signature moments. And a signature moment is the deliberate design of the highest stakes and highest reward moments in your client journey. It's not every touch point, it is the ones that actually carry an emotional weight. And here's the important part customer journey, client journey, it's not about automation, it's about adaptation. It's it's there is a difference and it's small, but it's about making the things that you should scale scalable and making the things that can't scale easy to do so because you already know exactly where the moments are. So my brother's QR code visitor pass is a signature moment. The mandatory costume was a signature moment. The sea bass plated like the movie was a signature moment, and none of them were really expensive. But like most things I talk about in the show, they were done on purpose. So for the rest of this episode, I want to hand you five questions you can hold up against your own business. And every one of them is a version of this theme of at this moment, am I designing an emotional connection or am I just completing a transaction? Am I deepening a relationship? Or am I just maintaining a connection? Five questions. Question number one right after the yes, are you sending a receipt or are you sending a visitor pass? So think about the first 24 hours after a client says yes to you. What do they actually receive? So for most founders, the honest answer is an invoice confirmation and a calendar link, which correct and fine. It's also the client experience equivalent of thank you for coming. The exits are on your left. The window right after the yes is one of the most underused real estate in your entire business. The emotional temperature is at its highest. They're excited, maybe a little nervous, but they're definitely wondering if they made the right call. So whatever you put in that window sets the register for everything that follows. It is one of your highest reward moments, which makes it prime signature moment territory. The receipt completes a transaction. The laminated visitor pass builds the connection. And what you do here doesn't have to cost anything. It just has to say, I thought about you before you even got here. So ask. I'm not judging it, right? That, but that email, that message is the how are you good, you good loop in written form. It's maintenance. And it's gonna put the work back onto them, the other person, to give you a reason to matter. Now compare that to, hey, you mentioned the board presentation was this week, how'd it land? It's the same effort, honestly. It's it's wildly different messaging. One says, I'm keeping this line open, the other says I was actually listening. And if you go back to my episode about Flemings and surprise and delight very early on in the show, this is the espresso martini that my dad still talks about that happened because one bartender remembered a throwaway comment and acted on it. It's a signature moment built out of adaptation, not automation. The detail that only you remember is deepening. So ask when I reach out between the big moments. Am I checking a box or am I proving that I remember? Question three. This is probably my favorite, and also one I know I have fallen victim to, which is the nurture email. Does it leave them updated or does it leave them known? Here is the trap with newsletters and nurture sequences. And it's honestly it's one of the reasons why a few years ago I just stopped doing my newsletter because I was like, they're just a status update in a trench coat. Here's what I've been up to. Here's my new offer in case you missed it. Here's a tip. I already posted in three other places and just had ChatGPT rewrite it for LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. It's just you at a party telling everyone what you did at work. It maintains a connection. It does not deepen the relationship because it's all transmission and no reception. So the reader finishes it knowing more about you and feeling nothing about themselves. So the nurture that actually connects flips the camera around. It makes the reader feel seen. It makes them feel like you wrote it after watching them try to solve the exact same thing they're stuck on. You still sent an email, but it had a completely different felt experience. It is the difference between someone narrating their vacation and someone handing you a photo of you having a great time. So ask when someone finishes my email, do they know more about me? Or do they feel more understood by me? Question four is the gift and the touch point. Is it for everyone or is it for this one person? And this I think gets to the heart of my model because signature moments are about treating each customer as an individual and not as a cohort. Most client appreciation is a branded mug. And honestly, I have nothing against a branded mug. I've gotten some really good ones. But it's also not the mass happy holidays from the team email. Or it's the swag box that every single new client gets from you. There's nothing wrong with any of those, but a gift that would land exactly the same for every single client isn't really for any of them. It's maintenance that you can buy in bulk. It says, I contacted you. It does not say I saw you. And coming back to the QR code visitor passes. It worked precisely so well because it was for us that night in on the joke and couldn't really be used beyond that. Deepening relationships lives in specificity. It's one detail that could only belong to this person. It could be a reference to their kids' hockey tournament, a line that calls back to something they said during their sales call. It's a resource pick for their exact mess and no one else's. And that is going to beat a $100 generic gift every time. And honestly, it's usually going to cost a fraction of it. So the thing to ask is, would this land the same for every client on my list? If yes, I'm maintaining. If it could only be for this one person, I'm deepening. And we're getting to the last question. Your content and your community. Are you broadcasting at people or are you building a world that they want to step into? So this is my brother's equivalent of the mandatory costume principle. A lot of us treat our audience like a bulletin board. We post to stay top of mind. We broadcast. We show up in the feed so that the almighty and evil algorithm remembers that we exist. This is maintenance. It keeps the connection technically alive and it keeps everyone at arm's length. My brother didn't like broadcast a movie night. He built a world and made a costume at the price of entry. And the wild thing about a when you create a good world is that people want to opt in. They reply, they dress up, they bring the bit further than you did. They become a part of the thing instead of just an audience for it. In your business, that looks like an inside joke that your people are in on. It's a ritual, only your clients understand. It's a name for a thing that makes someone feel like a member instead of a follower. You're not necessarily trying to reach more people. You're trying to make the people you've got feel like they're inside something. Because that's what turns an audience into a community. And a community that would amplify you. So ask, are you broadcasting at your audience to stay visible? Or are you building a world they actually want to step into? All right. Five questions, one shift, receipt or visitor pass, checking in, remembering, updated or known for everyone or this one person broadcasting or building a world. Every single one is the same move. You're taking someone from a completed transaction to an emotional connection. That is the paradigm shift. From maintaining the connection to deepening a relationship. No longer quietly satisfied. They're genuinely moved. And here's the freeing part, I think, the same thing the Jurassic Ditter taught me. None of this is a budget problem. The laminated passes, my brother made, cost sense. The nuggets came from the freezer aisle. The costumes were held together with hope and hot glue. And it might not have been elegant, but it sure as hell was fun. What it required was intention. Like all things with experience. Somebody who sits down and asks, what would make these people feel like they're inside this, not just at it? And then built one specific, maybe unnecessary, on purpose moment. It all comes back to design. It all comes back to decisions. And these are available to every founder listening right now. So here's your one thing before this next episode. Pick a moment in your experience where you know, if you're being honest with yourself, you're just maintaining the just checking in, the generic welcome, the newsletter that's really just about you. And I don't I don't want you to overhaul it. I just want you to find the one degree past expected. The version where a client or a reader finishes it and thinks, not that was nice. Not what a what a well what a well-structured and professional email. But they think that was different. Who does that? That is your signature moment. What is your laminated QR code visitor pass to Jurassic Park? You don't have to build it today. Just name it. Because the businesses worth talking about aren't the ones that did more than everyone else. They're the ones that designed one specific moment on purpose for the person actually in the room. The QR code visitor pass worked because someone wondered if it would. And that's the spirit behind this. That's it for this episode of Would Recommend. If it had you thinking about your own client experience, the most useful thing you can do is send it to one founder friend who maybe is stuck in maintenance mode and doesn't realize it. That's how this show grows. One recommendation at a time, which honestly feels very on brand. If you want somewhere to start, the Would Recommend Standard is a free guide to the principles behind businesses that people can't stop talking about. Real brand examples in a your turn section, so you can apply each one to your own business. You can grab it at the link in the show notes. And if you want to actually design your own signature moment, a specific one that turns a quietly satisfied client into one who would return and rave. That's exactly what a spark session is for. 90 minutes, your real client experience, no fluff. We find where you're maintaining and we design where you should be deepening. And you can book that at the link in the bio. I'm Nikki McKnight. This is Wood Recommend, and I'll see you next week.