Why attention is an important resource and how it might be costing more than you realise.
Attention Is Expensive Spend It (and Earn It) Wisely
Open your phone and scroll for thirty seconds. Somewhere between a meme about cats and a breaking-news alert, you’ll feel it—a tiny mental tug. That tug is expensive. And if you’re a solo business owner, you’re not just paying the cost—you’re often competing for it.
Attention might not show up on your bank statement, but it behaves a lot like money. You can spend it, invest it, waste it, or have it stolen. What’s changed in recent years is that this quiet currency—your focus—is now the main battleground for business.
Big brands know it. So do the platforms. And whether you realise it or not, so do you. Because when you’re trying to grow a small or solo business, attention is both the resource you need and the one you’re using up. If you don’t understand its value, you’ll keep paying more than you earn.
Let’s fix that.
Attention 101
Once upon a time, attention was easy to come by. A medieval farmer could spend an entire afternoon watching clouds. These days, our minds are more like Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo, flashing, crowded, noisy.
The moment attention became scarce, competition arrived. Apps, ads, influencers, inboxes—everyone’s bidding for the same tiny sliver of your mental bandwidth. The result? An arms race of persuasion autoplay videos, countdown timers, “only 1 left,” dopamine loops, streaks, badges, FOMO.
Why? Because every pause, click, or hover becomes data. That data powers the algorithms that decide what to show you next. It’s not random—it’s business. The better they get at holding your gaze, the more they profit.
This is why the most successful companies of our time aren’t always the ones making the best products. They’re the ones capturing and monetising attention most efficiently. Free platforms aren’t really free. They’re harvesting your focus, then selling it to advertisers.
💡 When the product is free, you’re not the customer. You’re the deposit.
Here’s where it gets relevant, you’re not just someone being targeted. You’re also a business trying to earn attention. And unlike the big players, you can’t afford to waste it—or chase it at any cost.
A Small Business Owner’s Guide to Attention Economics
You don’t have a 50-person team or a bottomless ad budget—but you do have something powerful: trust. A small group of people already pay attention to you. Your job is to protect it, respect it, and grow it. Here’s how.
1. Be Strategic, Not Noisy
You can’t out-shout Nike. Don’t try.
Big brands can afford to spray content across every platform, knowing 99% won’t land. You can’t. You need to pick your spots. Choose one or two channels where your people already hang out (and not just online) and get good at being relevant, not just present.
✅ If you sell hand-dyed yarn, Pinterest and a weekly email will beat scatter-shot TikTok trends every time.
2. Always Price the Ask
Before you post, email, or DM, ask yourself:
“To pay attention to this, my customer must give up ___.”
If the answer is “60 seconds and zero stress,” great. If it’s “their lunch break and a portion of their will to live,” bin it.
Solo businesses win on micro asks. Quick, clear, no heavy lift required. Respect their headspace as much as their time.
3. Make Deposits Before You Withdraw
Think of attention like a bank account. If you keep withdrawing (asks, promos, ‘click here’), they’ll hit unfollow. But if you consistently make deposits—useful content, little wins, honest connection—you’ll build credit.
✅ Deposit: A 45-second reel showing 3 ways to style their recent purchase.
✅ Withdraw: A caption that invites them to your weekend market stall.
When deposits exceed withdrawals, people don’t feel sold to—they feel looked after.
4. Treat Each Customer Like a Corner Booth Regular
Big businesses automate. You personalise. That’s your edge.
Remember their name. Reference their last order. Send a voice memo instead of a canned DM. These things don’t scale, and that’s exactly why they work.
✅ Send a thank-you video using their name
✅ Use email subject lines like: “Saw this and thought of your last order…”
You’re not shouting across a stadium. You’re chatting in the corner booth. Use that.
5. Engineer Quiet
Not every moment needs to be filled.
Attention fatigue is real. Sometimes, the best marketing move is to shut up for a bit. Too much yap and sell sell sell get’s tiring for your audience.
That silence? It earns you more attention next time you show up.
6. Measure the Right Things
Forget vanity metrics. Follower counts don’t feed your family. Instead, track the stuff that shows real engagement:
- 💬 Reply rate (do people talk back?)
- 📌 Save-to-like ratio (is your content useful?)
- 🔁 Time between purchases (are they coming back?)
These numbers tell you whether you’re earning attention or just renting it.
7. Respect Your Own Attention First
This one’s crucial.
If your own headspace is scattered, your business will be too. Guard two time slots every day:
- One for deep work on your business
- One for deep rest from it
That’s it. Everything else flows better from there.
The Bottom Line: Stewardship Beats Shouting
You don’t need to go viral. You need to go valuable.
The big players pay to interrupt. You get invited in. When you treat your customer’s attention like treasure—and protect your own—you’ll build more than sales. You’ll build trust, loyalty, and longevity.
🪙 Attention isn’t traffic you drive. It’s trust you steward.
Spend it wisely. Earn it humbly. Protect it fiercely.
Attention Summary for Small and Solo Business Owners
- 🎯 Be strategic, not noisy—focus your content where it matters
- 💸 Always price the attention ask—make it worth their time
- 🤝 Deposit value before making an ask
- ☕ Treat customers like regulars, not data points
- 🔕 Schedule quiet—don’t flood the feed
- 📊 Measure real signals, not vanity metrics
- 🧠 Guard your own attention to serve others better
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