February 10, 2026
Reach out. Say Hello.
“Mary hasn’t been to one of our programs this year?”
“For some reason, we never work with Willie Farms.”
“The Community Advance group has yet to call us about our community vitality opportunities.”
“The Smiths, the new family in town, have not called us to find out about 4-H.”
We have all uttered things like this a time or two, and we often wonder why the person or group hasn’t taken the time to reach out to us. We are public servants that want to work with them, so why don’t they call?
We then start piecing together a story to explain their absence. Don’t they know how much knowledge we have that can help them?
Any person who has ever had basic sales and or customer service training understands where the fault in this dynamic lies. Theodore Roosevelt, among others, once said, “No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”
With that in mind, how could anyone realize how much we care about them if we never reach out to them?
If a person or group have stopped attending our programs, or have never used our services, or are new to the area – it’s our responsibility and imperative to reach out to them and see how we can serve or better serve their educational needs.
Here are some suggestions to combat this problem.
Make two lists. On one, list all the people and organizations you would like to work with but never have. On the other, list all of the names of the people and organizations you used to work with but no longer do. Your PDC or advisory group could help you with these lists.
Then, once a week (perhaps daily if you are new to Extension or the area), reach out to a person on each list. Say hello, introduce or reintroduce yourself, share a little about what you do as an extension professional, and ask how you can be of service to them.
You may not get an answer to that last thing, and it may take a few discussions to get to something of significance. Nevertheless, keep following up. Once you have proven to them that you care, you will get that significant answer. When you follow up on that, you will have a new or renewed extension devotee!