Being a little boy I was learning Spanish with a private teacher (I then followed the Spanish High-school here in Bucharest). I don’t remember much Spanish now, but I do remember one day of my lessons, because I said something that followed me through the years as a bad thing to say to someone.
Ok, so basically the Spanish teacher I had was quite excited in one weekend because she finished to translate a book into Romanian and also a little nervous because she needed a printing house to publish the book. As I knew she was a great translator, I wanted to say something great and somehow re-assure her that she will find a good printing house.
What I wanted to say was something like this:
“Don’t worry, nowadays there are a lot of printing houses for every niche in the market, so I’m quite sure you will find one that is going to be interested in your translated book”. Of course I was so young then and what came out was actually:
“Don’t worry, nowadays printing houses are printing every bullshit on the market, I’m sure it will print yours too”
You can imagine the silence that followed this statement. I think she understood probably that I wasn’t meaning what I said, but here we are, about 15 years later still remembering it.
Going on the small business entrepreneur level, chances are that you (the entrepreneur) are something else than a communication & PR specialist. So you are probably saying to your customer that “printing houses are printing every bullshit” but you don’t realize it yet. And you will spend 15 years remembering it.
When was the last time when you thought about the messages you are sending to the market through the way you advertise, the way you dress, your site look & feel or whatever?