6 Habits of Remarkably Likeable People. When you meet someone, after, "What do you do? " you're out of things to say. You suck at small talk, and those first five minutes are tough because you're a little shy and a little insecure. But you want to make a good impression. You want people to genuinely like you. Here's how remarkably likeable people do it: They lose the power pose. I know: Your parents taught you to stand tall, square your shoulders, stride purposefully forward, drop your voice a couple of registers, and shake hands with a firm grip. It's great to display nonverbal self-confidence, but go too far and it seems like you're trying to establish your importance.
No matter how big a deal you are you pale in comparison to say, oh, Nelson Mandela. Clinton takes a step forward (avoiding the "you must come to me" power move); Mandela steps forward with a smile and bends slightly forward as if, ever so slightly, to bow (a clear sign of deference and respect in nearly every culture); Clinton does the same. You meet someone. The attention paradox. Online, where you can't buy attention as easily as you can with traditional advertising, most commercial media has the imperative of interestingness built in. The assignment is to make it viral, make it something people will watch or click on or even better, share. This is hard for mass marketers, marketers who are used to making average stuff for average people and promoting heavily in media where they can buy guaranteed attention.
And so, we see organizations buying likes and pageviews, pushing for popovers and popunders and all sorts of new ways to interrupt online. Smart advertisers, though, are realizing that they have to make content that people decide is worth watching. Some have become very good indeed at making media that's so entertaining that we not only want to watch it, but spread it. A squadron of singing ferrets might make your video spread, but that approach isn't going to cause the action you seek.
And, alas, you have to do both. REJECTION. Social Media Networks are Powerful Market Research Platforms. We typically think of social media sites such as LinkedIn as places for networking and sharing ideas, which is certainly their primary function. Over time, however, sites like LinkedIn (and to varying degrees other networking sites) have developed an enormous global reach. The sheer size of LinkedIn’s membership has resulted in the creation of groups on nearly every topic imaginable and discussions within these groups touching on thousands and thousands of subjects.
This “user” created content has propelled networking sites and LinkedIn in particular into a realm, which transcends networking. A listening opportunity for market researchers has emerged and not just for passive listening. The opportunity to conduct active listening (a.k.a. market research studies) is possible. Here are three ways to access marketing information from LinkedIn: Discussion Groups Discussion groups offer a wealth of content.
Of course, you can start your own discussion threads within a group. Answers Polls ? The danger of starting at the top. When making a b2b sale, the instinct is always to get into the CEO's office. If you can just get her to hear your pitch, to understand the value, to see why she should buy from or lease from or partner with or even buy you... that's the holy grail. What do you think happens after that mythical meeting? She asks her team. And when the team is in the dark, you've not only blown your best shot, but you never get another chance at it. The alternative is to start in the middle. It takes longer, it comes with less high-stakes tension and doesn't promise instant relief. But it is better than any alternative.
Starting in the middle doesn't mean you're rushing around trying to close any sale with any bureaucrat stupid enough to take a meeting with you (or that you're stupid enough to go to, thinking that a sale is going to happen.) No, starting in the middle is more marketing than sales. You don't get this reputation as an incidental byproduct of showing up. The Disciplined Pursuit of Less - Greg McKeown.
By Greg McKeown | 10:00 AM August 8, 2012 Why don’t successful people and organizations automatically become very successful? One important explanation is due to what I call “the clarity paradox,” which can be summed up in four predictable phases: Phase 1: When we really have clarity of purpose, it leads to success. Phase 2: When we have success, it leads to more options and opportunities. Phase 3: When we have increased options and opportunities, it leads to diffused efforts. Phase 4: Diffused efforts undermine the very clarity that led to our success in the first place. Curiously, and overstating the point in order to make it, success is a catalyst for failure.
We can see this in companies that were once darlings of Wall Street, but later collapsed. Here’s a more personal example: For years, Enric Sala was a professor at the prestigious Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. What can we do to avoid the clarity paradox and continue our upward momentum? How to Go Viral (The Art of Going Viral with Psychology) The web is a busy place… it’s become tough to get noticed I think that’s why so many folks have become obsessed with the idea of “viral” content.
When something takes off, it’s fun to watch… but are there any commonalities between those things that seem to take-over the internet for a short while? There’s got to be… right? Luckily, you no longer have to guess, because today, I have the research that will show you. How To Push People’s Buttons I’ve just finished re-reading the book Buzz Marketing, authored by a guy named Mark Hughes. Mark was known as the VP of marketing for Half.com back in the day, and was famous for… get this, convincing the town of Halfway, Oregon to rename itself Half.com! Yes, he got a town to agree to name itself after a website. Apparently, this guy knows a thing or two about creating buzz!
In his book, he outlines the six buttons he’s found in his marketing research and experience that always seem to get people fired up, when presented in the right way. Ready? 1.) Yowza! How to Email Busy People (and Not Be Annoying) If you want to get in touch with influential people (aka: BUSY people), you need to know how to email them. Despite the buzz around social media, far more people use email to communicate than any other online medium1, and business today still gets done over email, not through tweets. Today, I’m going to show you the elements of the PERFECT outreach email, and how you email busy people the right way in order to make things happen.
You’ll also get exact scripts and email screenshots to journalists that landed me big features (worth 200,000+ hits). That said, let’s dig in! Why This is Important to Know Knowing how to write outreach emails might seem like a “no-brainer” or maybe even an unnecessary skill to have, but I can assure you the opposite, on both accounts. If you’re serious about networking and building your platform/personal brand, you MUST know how to email important people, and important people are busy people.
Avoiding the Dreaded Trash Bin (“Bin-bound” Outreach) 1.) 2.) 3.) 1.) A.) Starting a Business - Two Paths to Starting a Business. There are two paths to starting a business and while both paths may end up at the same place, with you running a successful established small business, one of the paths is a lot harder traveling than the other. If you choose to travel the first path to starting a business, you've decided to start a business based on your wants.
That is, you've decided that you want to do a particular thing, such as open a book store or provide Web site design services, and/or that you want to do this thing in a particular place. Often people have very good reasons for choosing to go this route when starting a business. They have regular jobs or family obligations that tie them to a place, or possess a set of skills that they want to capitalize on. Many successful small businesses have been started because someone became passionate about a particular product or service (including mine)! If the first three rules of real estate are "Location! Location! Jim's Marketing Blog. By Jim Connolly I want you to imagine you have a very special box, which you place on a table in front of a prospective client or customer. You explain to the prospective client that the contents of this sealed box, will be of so much value to them that once they have it, they will wonder how they ever managed without it.You tell them that other people are using what’s in that box, and they love it so much that they write to you and thank you.You then tell the prospective client that the price for what’s in the box, is a fraction of what it’s worth.
You then ask them: Would you like to see what’s in the box? Their eyes widen as they lean forward and say: Yes please! So, what’s inside the box? As a business owner, your job is to develop a product or service that fits inside that magical box. In order for it to fit inside, your product needs to be able to deliver on those promises you just made, so when a prospective client sees it, they want it.
Let’s work together and grow your business. Having Trouble With Series A Funding? Posted on Sunday, Dec 2nd 2012 There is a lot of talk right now that Series A funding has gotten difficult for the tens of thousands of entrepreneurs who have received angel financing over the last 18 months. Some data from PEHub: According to the University of New Hampshire’s Center for Venture Research, the number of active angel investors topped 300,000 last year, up 20 percent from 2010. The ranks of the matchmaking service AngelList also swelled, with 2,500 investors joining the community last yearalone, most of them in the last six months.
(When AngelList got its start in the spring of 2010, it listed 80 accredited investors.) A study from UNH shows that angels put a fresh $9.2 billion to work in the first half of this year, a 3.1 percent increase over the same period in 2011.Meanwhile, the number of firms that are actually investing is dwindling, despite the best efforts of partners to save face. Well, it doesn’t have to be so. We’d like to help. The cycle of customers who care. Organizations that grow start by selling their services and products to people who care. These organizations are staffed by people who care making something that demands "caring-about" for people who have chosen to care. It can be colored shoelaces or vinyl records or handmade medicine balls. These aren't for everyone, and they require effort to find, to buy and to maintain, but for those that care about the cutting edge or innovation or style, they're perfect.
Then, over time, many of these organizations start to make products and services that are carefree. The people who produce them care so much about what they're making that they get good at it, the design becomes simpler, the pricing becomes better, and more people use it. Until soon, the product or service is used by people who don't care so much about the original intent, they just want something easy and functional and available and cheap.
This is the classic diffusion of innovations process. Think General Motors, 1986. Coaches: It’s time to Button Up Your Branding | BrandTwist. In my brand consulting practice at BrandTwist I’ve been fortunate to work with a variety of coaches as clients: Life Coaches, Business Coaches, Distance Learning Coaches and even Art Therapy and Nutritional Coaches. Subscribe to posts like this → Although they represent many different areas of expertise, as a group I find coaches to be incredibly passionate and giving. As much as I’ve taught them about branding – I’ve also learned so much from them about the subjects they so passionately coach. Here’s another thing they have in common: They need some serious um… coaching… when it comes to branding. Tell Your Elevator Pitch in Two Flights not Twenty The most common issue I’ve observed among this group is that as giving people, they tend to want to give too much information about themselves, their backgrounds and their brand benefits.
Their brand elevator pitch – which should take up 2 flights and 2 minutes – tends to take about twenty flights and often up to twenty minutes. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Persuade vs. convince. Four questions worth answering. 75 Things I Learned on My Journey to 100,000 Twitter Followers. It was early 2009, and I was still working in the walls of corporate America. I setup an account with the friendly little blue bird, named Twitter. It was from that moment I saw the power of the tweet and what it had in store for my life. I didn’t think twice about the Twitter handle when I set it up. I knew I loved marketing, I am a nut and my name is Pam. 15 Years In Corporate and the Journey to Entrepreneurship I spent 15 years working in corporate at companies such as GE, Sun Microsystems, StorageTek, Hitachi Data Systems.
Although I was in charge of marketing, which included social, our CEO had a false belief he was the social media ninja. Even with the out of the roof results, we weren’t empowered to do what needed to be done with social to see results. It was those moments that pushed me to be an entrepreneur. After a few short months of working for the company I left to become an entrepreneur. It’s NOT about the 100k, it’s about the people More than crazy, tweeting fools! Harvest demand or create it? Search marketing harvests demand, it doesn't create it (ht to Drew at Dropbox). Most small businesses believe that they're too small to have an impact on the whole market, so they resort to picking the fruit that's already grown instead of planting their own seeds. It's far easier to wait until someone is ready to buy than it is to persuade them to buy. Except the answer isn't to poach demand at the last minute. The answer is to redefine the market into something much smaller and more manageable.
One last semi-related thought: Wenda Millard quotes a Mercedes Benz exec, "If the only time I show you a Mercedes ad is just before you're about to buy a fancy car, I've lost. " A last-minute swipe of purchase intent is a tactical win. Content Marketing: Be the Signal Instead of the Noise. BrandingBlog Radio: Roy H. Williams on The Desire for Instant Gratification | Roy H. Williams Marketing. Dave Young interviews Roy H. Williams August 16, 2011 Roy H.
Williams is the original Wizard of Ads and central hub of our consulting group. We had a good time chatting about the biggest mistake most business owners make when it comes to their advertising…The Desire for Instant Gratification. Before we got to the subject, we chatted briefly about Nebraska and his single sojourn through the state. We also talked about the extensive research he’s done on the new Pendulum book, due out in the 1st quarter of 2012.
I took this photo in May of 2004, shortly after he purchased land for Wizard of Ads. 10 “Must Know” Features on LinkedIn. A Piece Of Your Content Marketing Puzzle: Calendar Template. 7 Content Marketing Strategies For 2013. A bias for trust. How to Start a Podcast – Pat’s Complete Step-By-Step Podcasting Tutorial. Seth Godin! Community Building: How to Grow With the Power of People. How to build a stronger business! Do you follow these 3 keys to business success?