The Attention-driven Business – Sustaining Your Market Position through Attention
Every enterprise lives and grows on attention. Your primary duty in business is to generate enough attention (with its corresponding ripple effect). Enterprises that pay millions of dollars in an advert to get attention know what they are doing. Like you know, businesses that blossom are those that have the highest attention. That is to say, businesses that have the highest attention have the largest share, and get RoA (Return on Attention).
There is a direct correlation between the amount of attention a business gets and the profit it enjoys. Whoever has the eyeballs leads the industry. Come to think of it, your commercial worth as an individual or as an enterprise is commensurate with the number of names ‘following’ you. Always remember that money flows where attention goes. Attention is where the real money is in the present business dispensation. But attention could be so scarce – so scarce that people can pay any amount wherever they can find it. And the more of it you have the more profitable your enterprise will become.
It’s not enough to generate attention; you must monetize it, and keep expanding your corporate attention-sphere. You don’t gather an audience and leave them moping or guessing when they have your attention; engage them by offering value to them repeatedly. If you fail to, someone else will. Why spend so much time to get attention without finding a way to convert it into money?
The underlining purpose of generating attention is to market and sell. If you have a bunch of people who follow you, or who have your attention with nothing to sell, you missing a huge business opportunity. You can have millions of people like your page, or have countless followers, how does it translate to money for you and your personal and corporate brand? Without the money, the attention is meaningless.
Enterprises should not stop at generating attention. They should also give their customers (and prospective customers) more reason to pay extra attention. When we fail to appreciate or reciprocate the attention the market gives us, we lose the market followership and support.
The new business platform, especially as portrayed by the emergence of the online community may explain this better. Such businesses thrive by generating attention and sustain their strong position by giving back the same. That’s why sites like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and the likes can afford to offer their services free of charge so as to control the attention-band, and hence make money in the process.
Everyone seeks attention but not everyone is willing to give it back. That is one of the mistakes a lot of enterprises make in the marketplace. If you will do a quick check, a lot of businesses had the attention before now but today, they have lost it. They lost it because they failed to give back the attention! While your business needs attention, it’s very instructive to give it back to those who gave it to you in the first place. It’s a two-way thing. This will keep the cash constantly flowing into your enterprise.
When you lose your key customers or have less than what the competition has, chances are someone out there is making them feel wanted than you. This could be likened to the same reason people change friends; they like the attention the new associate gives them. After all, you can’t receive a note from someone telling you that you are giving him or her too much attention. This could also be referred to as recognition. If you ever received any note, the fellow is telling you that he or she wants more of it.
The marketplace is not static but dynamic. Wisdom demands that we find ways not to lose whatever market position we may have attained. All thriving businesses are basically attention focused. Recognize those who make your business what it is today, and they will help you take it to where you want it to be tomorrow. It’s up to you to make your business happen!
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