Real life only happens once, You can't rewind and play again.

A few days ago I boarded a ferry for the short trip to visit a new customer on the Isle of Wight. The sky was a hundred shades of blue and the water was calm. I stood on the top deck and thought. Wow.
I could see for miles, the sea and the sky looked beautiful. The flat path of the ferry stretched behind the boat and into the distance.I could hear the gulls and the lapping of the water. I felt a cool breeze on my face , the movement of the boat and was suddenly an excited small child again.
I don't know why the moment was so special. I have seen movies of more spectacular sights and been to some amazing places in the past but this was here and now.
Real life happens only once. You can't rewind and play again. Take in the experience and then the moment is gone. There are some things that remain. The memories of the sights, the feelings,the sounds and the experience. People can describe some thing or show me a film but I am the only one who can have the experience.
That experience will change my perceptions, perhaps for the rest of the day, maybe longer. On some level this is what this site is about. Changing how you are inside so that you react differently to things on the outside. Every experience changes things slightly and real life only happens once. This is what makes it so intense and why it is so much fun.
What does this have to do with your business? Glad you asked.

It doesn't matter how much fancy PR a big company uses, when your customers interact with you then you will get 100 times the attention because it is in real time with a real person. No chance to pause, fast forward, rewind or change channels. You have a much bigger chance to change their perceptions, so that they remember you. Communication is two way so you can really be of service to them by giving them exactly what they want.

Try to do something every day that inspires you and makes you come alive. Your business will have more energy, but more importantly you will have a wonderful life.

A charm of goldfinches, build it and they will come.

I have lived in this house for for over 20 years but have never seen a goldfinch in the garden. During the very cold weather at the start of January I put out a new type of bird feeder and suddenly there are goldfinches in my garden all day long. The seed is a type that finches particularly like so I'm not surprised that having found it they have stayed. I am amazed how quickly they found it in the first place.

When something happens in nature I will often look for an analogy in my business. It reminded me of the Waldo Emerson quote "Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door". This is attacked by many marketing people as they say that however good your product no one will know about you or where to find your door. This may have been true in the past but search engines have changed the game. In the last year at least 50% of my business has come from people who found the company using a search engine. We have spent a lot of time experiencing the business like a customer so that the website tells the story in their language. When they search for what they want our website is there waiting for them

The finches are out there but you won't see them until you have exactly what they want. It is the same with customers, keep refining what you do based on customer feedback and as it gets better and better the customers will find you. Just make sure that your website provides the necessary signpost.