This post is going to be jumping around a few ideas but I figure you can make do. Here are a few things that I notice that I want to to point out to my audience.

I call this the follow the leader approach. When you are at a red light with a “no turn on red” sign most likely you will wait for the light to turn green before you turn. Amazingly, all it takes is the person in front of you to disregard the sign and that completely alters any existing rules. It’s the follow the leader mentality. If they did it, then I can do it too. It’s like the game lemmings where they all just start falling off the cliff. I think our society is filled with millions of people who can’t make up their mind so they just follow the leader. It’s really an amazing concept and I’m sure there have been tests and experiments to really look into this concept but I’m just fascinated by it. My guess is the “leader” is usually a successful person and the followers are your average Joe.

I’d like to discuss giving people business because of relationships. This is a thought that any successful business knows. Make your customers comfortable and try to create a relationship so they will give you repeat business. I was buying a running watch and I knew I could give the business to a local running company who I’ve shopped at for years. They opened at 10am and it was 9am so I decided to try Dick’s Sporting goods. I honestly felt like a traitor by not buying from my local store. I had this human feeling of preferring to help out a local company rather then give my business to a corporate chain. This feeling is going out the window in today’s business environment to a certain degree. The success to business is to have people WANT to buy from you.

A form of bad business is tricking people into watching video’s with links. For some reason I don’t like watching video’s on the web for news. If I want to see sports highlights I’ll watch sportscenter on the TV. I hate when I click on a link expecting to see an article and I get duped into watching a video. There’s something about being kept for the duration of the video that I just prefer an article. If I’m not into the article in the first 10 seconds I click out. When I see a 90 second clip, I feel locked in. I don’t mind if you tell me it’s a video but I don’t like finding out I got tricked into one.