Basic Principles - Getting attention

I’ll admit it… I’m a bit of a name dropper. One of the principles I learned when I was reading “Winning with People” by John Maxwell is this:  a great way to get someone’s attention is to compliment them in front of other people while they’re standing right there with you. It raises a person’s self image to be complimented, especially when it’s in a public forum. And it gets their attention in a favorable way.

On the internet, this practice is terribly easy. Blog authors are interested in generating traffic… and although my blog is still very young, I endear myself to other authors by freely using their names, talking about their projects or successes, and linking to their pages. I do this without expecting favors or consideration… and it’s the reason I’ve been able to coax heavy-hitting blog authors like John Chow, Darren Rowse, and Yaro Starak to visit my page in it’s first month of existence. I’ve made several interesting connections with other bloggers as well using the same principle.

In general, a successful business has got to capture people’s attention if it plans to stay successful… and if you’re doing business on the web, the same general people priciples still apply. Blogging is a “high-tech” business, but I believe it’s important not to forget that it’s a “high-touch” business as well. What’s the last thing you’ve done in your business to build people up and capture their attention?