Before the Internet, you didn’t really need to be that good. As long as you got the word out, and your product was acceptable, you would get a continual stream of business. It was too hard for customers to find a replacement.

Maybe a friend would mention an alternative, while you were sharing lunch. But otherwise it was pretty hard to find a good alternative, that wasn’t a big cloaked marketing push by yet another big company.

Today, great things are easy to find. Just search on Yelp, or put a question up on Facebook, or type in “(insert item name) sucks” in Google and you will find all the better alternative options.

Today, finding the best of anything is just one click away.

Therefore, the only way your business is going to succeed is if you are the world’s best. Number two doesn’t cut it anymore. Pretty good is pretty useless. You must be the world’s best to win clients. Period.

Now, don’t shoot the messenger. I didn’t make up the new rule. The customer did. You did.