Just A Few Simple Words Of Encouragement
Just A Few Simple Words Of EncouragementOn Easter Sunday Laura and I ran our first running race together. We've been going for regular runs every second night for a few months now and Laura, who had never run before, has been getting fitter and fitter.
I thought it might do her confidence a whole lot of good if we entered a race - that way she could see how fit she was, how she would do in a race and generally get the feel of a race.
We entered a 8 km Fun Run at a place called Sanctuary Cove here on the Gold Coast.
Brendon & Laura before the big race
The gun went off and off we went. 8 kms over a essentially flat course with 5 or 6 decent hills. Laura did well - she ran the whole way which was goal # 2 of 2 (finishing was goal # 1).
Going Up Hill Number 5
As we were going up hill number 5 I was encouraging Laura - "C'mon Laura, you're doing well" sort of stuff.
A lady we passed called out "Keep going Laura. I wish I could keep up!"
Further into the run a few more people said to us "Going well, keep going."
Towards the end we caught a guy about 100 metres from the finish and he called out a cheery "I was trying to beat you guys."
Laura and I kept up the pace and beat him by about 10 metres. He came over and said to Laura "Too fast for me!"
3 People We Didn't Know
3 people we didn't know gave us a little encouragement. Just a few kind words here and there. But the impact is huge.
Laura now feels very confident in doing more races. She knows it's not a scary, competitive things. It's just going for a run with some nice people.
Even though we finished near the tail of the field..... that didn't matter.
Even though our time was quite slow..... that didn't matter.
It's always about people. If the people had of been mean to us then Laura wouldn't want to have gone in more races. Because the people were nice and friendly, Laura is keen to see them again.
It's The Same In Business
It's the same in business. Communicate with your customers. Be nice to them. Offer words of encouragement and people will return.
It's that simple.
And yes, during the race I had to jump up 3 times saying "Up, Up and Away!" That Superman T-Shirt gets a comment from the kids everytime!
Cheers
Brendon
[ comments ]
I always wondered why you use a blog for your companies website. I have some theories but will you explain?
My understanding is that you have focused on the clients problems/desired and how you can address these issues and avoided discussing your companies capabilities.
I'm desiging my companies website and find it takes a lot of courage to do this. It seems easy to talk about our expertise because that is what is most comfortable.
In surveying our competitors, most take the latter route so something must be working for them. What i'll probably do is follow your route talk about our expertise in other media (eg. direct mail)
We do generate a lot of enquiries from our web site mainly because (according to our research) we're seen as experts. Which is what we are.
I've used the blog for 2 years now, but think it's time for a change. It has tended to lose it's focus as I've gone along and incorporated too much info for web deevlopers marketing their business.
I've just set up a site at www.brendonsinclair.com for that niche.
I'll keep the blog here (we'll transfer over the relevant posts only and delete them from Tailored.com.au), but it will be a click away from the Home Page.
So we'll be redesigning the Home Page - not much of a change, just seperate it into 3 sections - and testing to see how effective that is.
I'm not too sure how much work other web developers get from their sites, but the current version of this site has been the most effective for us over 7 years.
We'll see if we can't beat it with the new design.
Thanks again
Brendon