Most businesses missunderstand attention.

We all want attention for our businesses. More people seeing the website, more people noticing the posts, more people opening the emails. It makes sense. If nobody notices us, it's pretty difficult to sell anything.

But I think a lot of businesses misunderstand how attention actually works.

We assume we get attention by saying more, posting more and being louder. So we cram more information onto websites, post because the calendar says we should and constantly try to find another way of getting ourselves in front of people.

The problem is, everyone else is doing exactly the same thing.

Your customer isn't sitting there waiting for your next piece of marketing. They're scrolling through hundreds of messages every day while dealing with work, family, emails, WhatsApp, Netflix, news and everything else fighting for a tiny piece of their brain.

You're not just competing with businesses that do what you do.

You're competing with distraction.

And I think that's an important distinction.

Attention isn't the same as being seen

Someone seeing your post doesn't mean you've got their attention.

Someone landing on your website doesn't mean you've got their attention either.

You've got their attention when something makes them stop.

Maybe you said something they weren't expecting. Maybe you described a problem they've been struggling with. Maybe an image made them feel something. Maybe you simply spoke to them like a human being instead of another business trying to sell them something.

That's why I'm much more interested in relevance than noise.

You can reach 10,000 people who couldn't care less about what you're saying, or you can reach 100 people who think, “That's exactly what I'm dealing with.”

I know which audience I'd rather have.

Respect people's attention.

I think businesses sometimes behave as though people owe us their attention.

They don't.

If somebody gives you 30 seconds of their day, you've earned an opportunity. Don't waste the first 25 seconds telling them how wonderful your company is.

Get to the point. Understand why they're there. Give them something useful, interesting or thought-provoking.

And don't be frightened of saying less.

Sometimes one strong sentence will make somebody think more than five paragraphs of perfectly polished marketing waffle ever could.

That's really what attention is about for me.

Not shouting louder.

Not desperately trying to be everywhere.

Just understanding people well enough to give them a reason to stop.

So here's something worth thinking about: if somebody gave your business ten seconds of genuine attention today, what would you do with it?