Marketing Lessons from Travelling in Europe
Part One: Sagrada Família (Barcelona, Spain)
The Sagrada Família, a strikingly beautiful Roman Catholic church in Barcelona, Spain is probably most well known for being a work in progress, despite construction beginning 130 years ago.
The reasons for this rather protracted development are many and make for an interesting read if you care to do a little Googling. But when I visited the church in the Summer of 2012 what struck me most is that despite being around 20 years away from completion…
The church is STILL open for business.
And has been for quite some time.
You can visit the Crypt, the museum, the gift shop, even walk up into the towers, with all the proceeds going towards the ongoing construction costs.
Not only is this smart business, it’s also a very good lesson for online business owners.
If you own even the slightest streak of perfectionism then you’ll be familiar with the challenge of launching a new product or service. The goal may be to keep everything under wraps until it’s 100% finished but the problem is that this mythical day of completion never actually arrives.
And, of course, your creation cannot make you a single cent until you make the decision to open for business.
Aiming to create the best possible product is a good thing. But allowing perfectionism to cajole you into delaying the release for an unreasonable amount of time risks commercial disaster.
Far better, then, to focus on one small piece of your project, work on it until it’s “good enough” and then release it into the wild so that your customers can use it, send you feedback and, crucially, provide you with some income that can be invested into the overall development.
The Sagrada Família will continue to receive awe-struck visitors even after the project is completed. But if they hadn’t had the smarts to open for business already, then they may have been looking at another 130 years of construction time.
And online visitors have a short attention span. You’re lucky if you can keep their attention for 130 days, let along 130 years.
So why wait?
Ps. Are you looking for some guidance with your own online business? I can help reach your goals. Click here to learn about my internet marketing consulting service.
Don’t wait till it’s finished. If it’s already good enough, let people know about it.
