I am most definitely what you would call a “people person.” I love being around people, and nothing energizes me more than mixing it up with buyers, brands and others at ECRM Sessions. In fact. I get really antsy between trips when I am at home stuck behind my computer. Fortunately, I have a few close friends and family members I get to see regularly in-person.
On the work front, I owe most of my professional growth to relationships. I haven’t been on a formal job interview in the past 30 years; my past several jobs came from someone in my network (I probably wouldn’t have this job if I had to formally interview for it)!
Which is why the new book by Emily Page really resonated with me. Titled, “People Rich: Build Relationships That Change Your Life,” it draws on research in economics and neuroscience to show why real human relationships may be the most undervalued asset you will ever hold, and why the ability to connect with people effectively can take your personal and professional lives to new levels of success.
Many of you already know Page as a CPG growth coach and Founder of Start to Sold, and as a packaging design, branding and supply chain expert with Pearl Resourcing. Her book is a culmination of her experience working with thousands of CPG Founders and retail buyers over the years, and studying the impact that deep meaningful relationships have on their businesses and overall well-being.
People today are more digitally connected than ever before. We scroll through social feeds, exchange brief messages, and manage personal and professional networks from our phones and computers. Yet beneath this veneer of constant accessibility, we are growing increasingly isolated, and this isolation can hurt us in many ways.
People Rich addresses this challenge head on, with some actionable steps readers can take to better connect and build relationships with others. I sat with Page to discuss some key takeaways from her book, and you can watch our full video interview below!
Confronting the ‘Global Connection Recession’
To understand why authentic connection has become a rare advantage today, one must confront what Page terms the “connection recession” – a state where people are connected to everyone, but close to no one.
Hours spent interacting in-person have declined sharply across family, friends, and clients. Rather than sharing physical presence, people spend hours consuming digital entertainment and watching other lives on screens. “We don’t build real relationships or feel deeply connected to people that we are just watching, because we’re not investing in those relationships, the time, the care, the interest,” says Page.
The statistics reflect this shift. A quarter of millennials report having zero close friends, while nearly half of Gen Z report having no close friendships at all. Furthermore, roughly forty to fifty percent of American adults acknowledge feeling lonely during the week.
For business leaders, this reality carries heavy implications. Take the retail industry, for example. Digital platforms can handle basic coordination, but they cannot build the trust required to survive supply chain disruptions, negotiate retail placement, or build lasting partnerships. Without deliberate effort to cultivate face-to-face rapport, digital habits will continue to erode human trust.
The Hard Currency of Soft Skills
In business culture, operational efficiency and product specifications often take priority, while relationship management is dismissed as a “soft skill.” However, Page contends this viewpoint is fundamentally flawed. Major purchasing decisions – even at the retail chain level – are made by individual people influenced by likability, trust, and perceived character.
Page recalls a candid conversation with retail category buyers at a recent ECRM Food & Beverage Session in Dallas who managed shelf placement for major supermarket chains. When asked what truly drove their purchasing decisions, their answer was unequivocal: product quality is necessary, but likability decides the deal.
“The truth is you can have a great product, but if you have a jerky person selling it I’m not going to buy, one of the buyers told me,” says Page. “There is money and value within the power of our relationships. Our people skills are just as important to our business and they can be worked on and they impact our financial wellbeing.”
Mediocre products frequently stay on shelves because the vendor built genuine trust, while superior products fail because the seller alienated the buyer. Moreover, Page notes that commercial success without interpersonal depth is deeply unfulfilling. “If you want to have a life you actually enjoy, one you consider worth living, we should also be pursuing relationships with the same kind of vigor,” she says.
The VSM Framework: Value, Study, Master
Rather than leaving relationships to chance, Page codifies connection into an actionable three-part methodology: the VSM Process, representing Value, Study, and Master. This framework approaches interpersonal skill as a learnable discipline rather than an innate trait.
Value
The foundation is Value. Drawing from neuroscience, Page explains that the brain cannot alter habits without first recognizing the importance of the goal: “Valuing is just the recognition of value,” she says. “There is no additional action required except to realize and study the value of something.”
Because our brains chase immediate dopamine hits from devices, we must consciously affirm that human connection impacts our health, career, and stress levels before entering any interaction.
Study
The second stage is Study. This step requires stepping outside your own agenda to understand what the other person values. Most professional meetings stumble because people focus exclusively on what they want to extract. Page advocates reversing this dynamic.
Studying another person means uncovering what excites them, recognizing the friction they avoid, and identifying ways to support their objectives. “The study part is actually taking off your perspective and putting on their perspective,” says Page. “What motivates Joe? What would bless Joe?”
Master
The final stage is Master. Relational mastery is an ongoing practice rather than a static accomplishment. Just as a martial artist refines a technique through continuous drills, mastering human connection requires sustained effort and adaptability. Enduring partnerships are the compound result of intentionally planted seeds.
The Compound Interest of Small Moments
A widespread misconception is that meaningful relationships are forged through dramatic breakthroughs. While shared crises can create rapid bonds, Page insists that lasting relationships are built through an accumulation of small, consistent moments.
“Every relationship is built from a formula,” Page says. “They’re small little moments, so small, they almost feel like kismet. But really it’s the accumulation of these small moments that are what the foundation of a real relationship are.”
In business, these micro-investments determine whether a buyer views a founder as an interchangeable vendor or an indispensable partner. Page compares this to dining at a restaurant: a positive impression rarely comes down to a flawless meal alone. Instead, it hinges on how the staff manages small interactions – apologizing gracefully for a delay, accommodating a request, or respecting the customer’s time.
Taking time to chat beyond business transactions, remembering personal details, and following up reliably create a compound effect. Trust compounds quietly across dozens of everyday touchpoints.
Be Interested, Not Interesting
When entering sales meetings or networking events, professionals often assume they must impress the room by displaying intelligence and rattling off credentials.
Page learned early in life that this approach backfires. Attending fourteen different schools as a child, she had to master cafeteria social dynamics simply to make friends. Although many assume her interpersonal ease is natural extroversion, Page views it as a learned skill developed through constant practice: “Desire to connect is not the same thing as skill, and skill is learnable.”
Her initial attempts to impress peers taught her an essential lesson: bragging and self-promotion repel people, leaving listeners bored and emotionally distanced.
The turning point came when Page redirected her focus outward: “The truth is you just need to be interested,” she says. “The most magnetic people are interested, curious about you, what motivates you, what makes you excited, the shared common ground.”
This insight is equally relevant in business pitches. Buyers quickly tire of hearing founders boast about product features. Genuine interest focuses on how the product helps the buyer solve shelf-space challenges, hit margin targets, or serve their shoppers. Demonstrating genuine curiosity will always outperform trying to be interesting.
The Three Levers: Questions, Energy and Affirmation
To translate genuine interest into tangible connection, Page identifies three practical behavioral levers: curious questions, engaged energy, and active affirmation.
Curious questions
Curious questions serve as the gateway to understanding what the other person needs. Instead of jumping directly into a presentation, an effective communicator asks open-ended questions about current hurdles, upcoming initiatives, and expectations. Asking thoughtful questions demonstrates respect and provides the context needed to offer real value.
Engaged energy
Engaged energy provides the physical, nonverbal confirmation of your presence. Page explains that interpersonal dynamics depend heavily on emotional projection. Slouching or speaking with flat intonation sends an immediate signal of disinterest.
By contrast, sitting up, gesturing naturally, and bringing vocal enthusiasm signal commitment to the conversation. Page likens this to someone speaking excitedly about a personal hobby – their enthusiasm is infectious and authentic. “The energy that you give is a nonverbal cue for your magnetic polarity,” she says. “It’s like that invisible power that we have to express our attention and our desire to connect.”
Active affirmation
Active affirmation validates the other person’s perspective without falling into hollow flattery. It involves acknowledging their challenges, validating their insights, and affirming their priorities. When people feel heard and supported, conversational defensiveness disappears, creating space for authentic collaboration.
Psychological Flexibility and the ‘Thought Hat’
A significant barrier to connection is intellectual rigidity. Drawing from economics and neuroscience, Page notes that the human brain conserves cognitive energy by sticking to established viewpoints. When faced with conflicting opinions, we experience cognitive dissonance – an uncomfortable sensation that prompts us to dismiss opposing perspectives and defend our initial stance.
To help clients overcome this biological resistance, Page introduces the “Thought Hat” exercise. “Think about this thought like a hat,” she says. “You can take it off and you can put it on. The process is like putting on a different personality, putting on a different mindset, putting on a different vibe.”
This mental flexibility allows professionals to explore another person’s point of view safely without feeling that they are surrendering their own values. In sales, when buyers reject an emerging brand, founders often assume the buyer fails to understand the market. By putting on the buyer’s hat, founders can examine the decision through inventory turnover, risk management, and limited shelf space.
Page also recommends using physical tokens to anchor desired mindsets. Linking a mindset to an object – such as a notebook, pen, or literal hat – helps anchor behavioral shifts, allowing professionals to step into an outgoing posture without compromising their authentic identity.
The Mechanics of Magnetic Alignment
Authentic alignment does not require identical backgrounds or personalities. Page highlights her own working relationship with me as evidence. Page views herself as an analytical supply-chain specialist, whereas she views me as an outgoing media host. Despite differing personalities, our relationship works because we share fundamental core values: continuous learning, an orientation toward service, and a desire to give more than they receive.
Page uses the physical principles of magnetism to illustrate this dynamic. Magnets attract metal because they share compatible physical properties. Similarly, authentic connection depends on discovering common ground: “Alignment happens when in the domain of life where you’re trying to create a connection, you share something in common and you’re aligned in the same direction,” she says.
In physics, super-magnets serve as premier electrical conductors because they allow current to flow without friction. Human alignment works the same way. When two individuals align around shared values and clear mutual objectives, relational friction vanishes, allowing collaboration to progress smoothly. Becoming a skilled connector means looking past surface differences to identify underlying shared values.
From Hawker to Helper: The Transformative Power of ‘Serve Energy’
The power of this mindset is demonstrated by Page’s early experience after acquiring Pearl Resourcing. Determined to secure packaging contracts, she invested her savings into a meeting space at an ECRM Session.
Believing sales was solely about aggressive pitching and competitive pricing, Page pitched every passing attendee on boxes, bags, and fulfillment efficiencies. The result was immediate rejection: potential customers avoided eye contact, looped around her display, and refused to engage. She finished day one without a single lead.
Analyzing what went wrong that night, Page realized her approach was self-centered: “I was selling a service that was not positioned as a service to them,” she says. “I was trying to magnetically pull them to me like a strong force with my might and my will. It didn’t work. It repelled people.”
On the second day, Page shifted her approach to pure “Serve Energy.” Instead of pitching wares, she walked the floor visiting other booths. She asked exhibitors about their meetings, supply bottlenecks, and immediate retail challenges. When one company expressed frustration over securing packaging samples in time for a major retail presentation, Page offered to resolve the bottleneck without requiring an upfront commitment.
By focusing on helping others, Page transformed the Session’s dynamic. The president of Haribo nicknamed her the “packaging princess” because she was constantly solving problems across the floor. That single day generated a $25,000 initial purchase order and laid the foundation for multi-year relationships worth millions. Shifting to selfless service transformed her business.
The Ultimate Success Formula: Luck, Preparation and Emotional Intelligence
Entrepreneurs often repeat the phrase that success occurs when luck meets preparation. While Page agrees that preparation is essential and luck is beyond our control, she argues that this formula is incomplete without a third, critical variable: Emotional Intelligence (EQ), which she describes as relational finesse.
Page views success as a multiplier equation rather than a simple sum. Preparation and luck provide the baseline, but emotional intelligence multiplies the final result. Without relational finesse, solid preparation and lucky breaks often fail to produce meaningful outcomes.
“There is a formula, which is you have to take action,” says Page. “It’s the preparation that we take in life where we do hard work. But there’s also this thing called finesse, and finesse is the way we do the action, and the finesse is transformative. You never get to control luck but if you also add your emotional intelligence, your ability to connect to the person, it’s going to increase all of the success that you already would’ve had.”
Page cites an example of an emerging founder at a retail conference who attended without finished products – possessing only an idea and a pitch deck. Seasoned professionals expected him to fail, yet retail buyers were captivated by his presentation. He connected through heartfelt storytelling and listened intently to buyer feedback. While business survival requires inventory fulfillment, his emotional intelligence opened doors that technical preparation alone could not unlock.
The One Million Thank-Yous Mission
At its heart, People Rich is not a manual of calculated sales tactics or networking tricks. It is an invitation to resist modern isolation and rediscover the value of human connection. For Page, the ultimate measure of her book’s impact is inspiring tangible acts of gratitude.
Her mission is to encourage one million people to reach out and thank someone who made their life richer: “Go text someone that really changed your life. Call them. Tell them, dang, you really did something for me and you made my life richer,” she says.
Becoming People Rich begins with recognizing that behind every purchase order, client contract, or casual conversation is a person seeking understanding and connection. By replacing self-promotion with genuine curiosity, embracing an attitude of service, and investing in everyday moments, professionals can build lasting relational wealth that outlasts any market downturn.