The Little Red Train that can…

Today I’m on a little red train in the French Alps. It’s a great example of Victorian engineering, and really simple technology that still works brilliantly. Why is that relevant? Watch this to find out…

Transcript:

Hi, and welcome to another episode of BaranovTV, designed to demystify the world of accounts and tax and to help your business grow.

Today we’re in Chamonix, and we’ve just come off the train that you can see behind me. We’ve been up to Montanvert which is a stop at the top of this cog railway, where you have the most amazing views up to areas around Mont Blanc.

It’s been absolutely glorious and as you can see the weather here is fantastic today, but what I wanted to really say is that this railway is really old. It’s Victorian technology and it’s a cog railway. It’s got two rails, one either side, and at the center it’s got what is known as a cog rail, and that is actually what pulls the train up the mountain. So it’s really old technology.

And really there’s a message there for all of us business owners, because we don’t always need to be looking for the latest thing.

We don’t need to be necessarily to be doing Facebook Ads, we don’t need to be automating the hell out of our businesses. We need to be thinking about the basics, and the traditional methods of business that really can pay dividends.

It’s keeping in touch with customers, it’s picking up the phone, it’s doing a really good job. So, all of those things STILL really make a difference to businesses, and they can really make your business thrive.

As business owners we very often think about the newest, the best, the new shiny product, that’ll make ‘the difference’ to our business. But, we often look at those at the expense of our existing and the traditional methods.

Really this message is really just about thinking about those traditional methods rather than the new, bright and shiny. Think about your ‘cog railway’, and what the equivalent is in your business, and whether that can make a real difference to you.

As you can see the railway is now back in motion, it’s going back up the mountain to pick up the next group of tourists. I’m going to head back down into Chamonix and find a nice drink, and I’ll see you all very soon.