Amazon has wrecked it for all the other online stores.

What they do is completely amazing.

It’s still hard to believe they offer free 2-day shipping when you have a Amazon Prime membership. I just ordered an HDMI cable for $6 and it’ll be here Monday – shipped for free.

That’s amazing.

But amazing doesn’t last forever.

While I do a majority of my online shopping through Amazon, often times when I’m shopping on another site I’ll find myself debating whether or not I really want the product when I see the shipping charges. About half of the time my mouse heads for the X in the right hand corner. It isn’t completely rational. I realize that shipping costs have to be paid and if I bought the item in a store I’d be paying for gas and time, but once you’ve bitten the hook of free shipping, it’s hard to let go of.

What is Amazing today will be expected tomorrow. What is expected soon becomes ordinary. What is ordinary becomes average.

The black and white TV was amazing. The first cell phone was amazing. Flying across the country in an airplane was amazing. Then it became ordinary.

Other companies have joined in with free shipping offers when you spend $75 or $50. The emails touting “FREE SHIPPING” seem to be coming a little bit more frequently over the past few months (especially from Threadless). Sure not everyone will be able to do 2-day free shipping (especially some of the smaller places), but I wouldn’t be surprised if more people at least worked out ways to offer free shipping.

The goal for businesses should be to not always play catch up.

For any business to survive, you’ll have to do things that are amazing. The aspiration is to do them when they’re still amazing and not when they have become ordinary and expected.

Connect with me on Twitter: @BenNesvig

Two years ago around Thanksgiving, my Mom read an article in the newspaper talking about a group of Chinese professors and students studying at the University of Minnesota who were looking for an American home to spend Thanksgiving at.  Eager to deliver an authentic Thanksgiving experience, my Mom invited over two Chinese students and a Chinese professor.

Thanksgiving was great and we inevitably asked them if there was anything they wanted to experience while in Minnesota. They mentioned the Mall of America and one or two other things.

Then someone mentioned seeing a professional basketball game.

With Yao Ming and the Houston Rockets in town, we thought a Timberwolves game would be fun. As it turned out one of the professor’s friends was a reporter in China and would be covering the game for a Chinese news outlet. The professor said he would be able to get me and my brother tickets to the game and possibly sit in the press area.

When we picked the professor up for the game, he had the tickets in hand, but informed us that his friend was ill and wouldn’t be there. This was a little disappointing since I assumed it meant we’d have to sit in the free tickets, which were about high enough to be in air space.

We walked into the Target Center and after passing through security, one of the first things we saw was the entrance for press and courtside ticket holders.

Without hesitation, the professor walked up to the lady guarding the entrance and said “Where is the Chinese press area? We are meeting someone.”

And just like that she pointed down the hall.

I felt a little bit of shock as we just walked through the press/courtside entrance sans anything more than a $10 ticket.

Then the professor asked another security guard “Where is the press area?” and he pointed us in the right direction.

I still couldn’t believe it.

We took seats in the press area, but were missing a chair, so me and my brother not wanting to draw any attention, since I knew we weren’t supposed to be there, each put one cheek on the chair.

This seemed odd to the professor, so he flagged down security and made sure we got another chair. Two minutes later we had another chair.

All of this was kind of shocking. He were me and my brother, 22 and 19 sitting in the press area when all we had were $10 tickets. Not one of us had a laptop or notepad like the other reporters. Yet, we ended up watching the entire game from the press box.

The lesson(s):

People buy confidence:

It’s not really what you say, but how you say it – one of the most important lessons someone can learn in sales. The security guard bought the professors tone, speech, and confidence. If he had approached her saying “We think we have a friend in the press area. Can we visit him?” we probably would have been denied.

People don’t know what you know:

They didn’t know that we didn’t belong there. It could have been an easy assumption, but because of the high degree of confidence from the professor, they didn’t question us. Sometimes too much knowledge can be burdening. It’s good to remember that not everyone knows what you know and where you’re coming from.

Right now I’m fighting the temptation for a second small piece of cheesecake. It’s 15 feet from me in the refrigerator and I’m hungry. That doesn’t make good math.

But then my mind interrupts my brain and I’m back to focusing on work.

Life is a continual struggle between the brain and mind. The brain is focused on the short term and seeks pleasure while the mind has the end in mind. If you just obey your brain, you’ll quickly be fat, jobless, and out of luck.

Being successful in any activity requires empowering the mind over the brain. The brain gets distracted, tired, lazy, craves safety, and always has a reason to delay doing something.

The mind focuses on what you really want.

The brain wants cheesecake. The mind wants to lose 5lbs.

The brain wants to put off publishing a blog post because it might not be ready. The mind publishes because ideas need air.

If you want to accomplish any of your goals it requires giving your mind priority over your brain.

Connect with me on Twitter: @BenNesvig

Last weekend while playing fetch with my dog, after a few throws he lost interest. Just holding up the ball and tossing it didn’t interest him anymore.  In an experience most people have been through while playing fetch with a dog, I picked up the ball and feigned excitement. My excitement got my dog excited and he took took off like a cannon when I threw the ball.

Often the action we want to invoke out of others is an action we must first express. Act happy, feel happy. Act sad, feel sad. Act excited, feel excited. What we feel and express then in turn influences how other people feel.

Great CEO’s and leaders at their best, connect with people on an emotional level.

Whenever Steve Jobs introduced a new product, the audience could feel his excitement and confidence, which in turn made them feel excited and confident enough to spend a lot of money on the product.

When trying to get someone to be excited about something, the first instinct is to think “What can I say that would excite them?” but what is far more effective is showing genuine excitement and enthusiasm. People won’t always remember what you say, but they’re far more likely to remember how you said it.

Going back to the fetch example. The one catch with showing excitement to transfer excitement is that you eventually have to deliver or it doesn’t work. You have to eventually throw the ball.

Connect with me on Twitter: @BenNesvig