Saturday

Answered the bell today after a small mental battle with myself when the alarm went off. Like always, happy I got up and went after I was done.
Was chatting with Lucho today and it got me thinking about reputation management and commerce in the age of the web.
There was a time when a person stayed in one place, worked a craft, or a trade, and traded with some other people who also stayed in one place. Over time, if that person did a good job for fair value word got out. And so, when the people in that place needed the service or trade that person provided they knew where to go. Sometimes that person would be the only provider of their service in the area where they lived and sometimes they would've. And in the cases where they folks had choice, people, as we are prone to do, would include other criteria besides the purely rational factors for choosing a service provider and go with the person they liked the best, or who was most like them. The idea that who you are and what your brand is were separate would have seemed like new age nonsense then. And if I'm being candid, it kinda seems like nonsense now. A person didn't work at building a brand. They worked at their craft and the brand evolved from that.
Small town, web store, major corporation same rules.
Be something, do a good job, repeat as necessary. Simple.