I was in a traffic jam in the morning, trying to find the best possible route to an appointment I had! Athens can be a difficult place to circulate sometimes, especially when the weather is not good (as was today). Anyway, I was in my car, looking in front of me the traffic lights and a terrible bottleneck!

Slow a Little Bit,to Move Forward

The cars were at a halt while nothing moving around and no one could do anything, but waiting! But wait, actually, was the solution, because after just two successions of the traffic lights, what originally seems impossible was actually solvable!

In traffic as in business, you should always be aware of the small details around you and the environment you operate in! Your first reaction usually is not the best one!

In a place where everyone is in hurry, it is logical, that everyone would converge quickly to a place of no option at all (if everyone wants to be to his/her job quickly, and there are a lot more people in the same venue doing the same, a lot more people may delay his/her job! Soon the aggregation of these single, small singular decisions – going faster to his/her job – end up to a bottleneck with limited offers for movement left to anyone!).

Why, because, in a perfect world, where no traffic jams and other similar animals live, speed should not be a problem! The traffic lights would be well tuned, the conditions of the roads would be optimal, everyone should respect the other person in the road, and everyone would have gained some more time, by waiting normal time. The net result would be that everyone would win at the end (their time and their patience, if not something else)!

But the world is, not, usually, a perfect place and usually many people they want to get an advantage over the rest. They employ shortcuts; they expect the other people ought to wait in favor of them; they are too much arrogant or selfish to leave other people to precede them or to provide them an edge; they believe that the important things are the things only they are doing (and deserve!); and many more wrong beliefs that end up creating a terrible problem to other people and society!

The same things, behaviors, and concepts apply as well to business! Some people and companies, they want to gain a leverage over their competition, and they destroy the market.

Check, for instance, the many “Internet marketers“ trying to sell things using unsolicited emails, for “leveraging“ their niche markets. The net result of such actions is that the people become more warned about the bad offers and the bulk of these e-mails (and the offers contained within) results to your e-mail spam folder or to your recycle bin. And the problem is that sometimes good and valuable offer end up in the junk, due to such behaviors!

Spamming was never a substitute for real sales and affiliating marketing has nothing to do with fill in the mailbox of the people trusting you their e-mail address with anything you need to sell or promote! It is bad marketing and certainly is a bad business!

Sometimes you are winning not because you are the quicker, but because you genuinely want to help people with a certain problem or situation. Sales are about trust, and this is something it is cultivated and tested over time!

There is no such thing as quick sales without a community of people interested for your activities and your products and like to “tag along” you just for the continuous value and respect you provide to them!

Question: Do you think that you should slow a little bit, to move forward, or not? What would you do to do the things differently? Please comment here!