Author: Bengt (Page 7 of 18)

Fascinate F-score test

After watching How to Fascinate – Sally Hogshead I was fascinated and curious about the seven fascination triggers.

I found the F-score brand personality test which gives you your primary, secondary and dormant triggers out of the seven fascination triggers.

  • Passion
  • Rebellion
  • Alarm
  • Mystique
  • Power
  • Prestige
  • Trust

The test was free and gives you interesting information which is valuable when you work on creating and maintaining your brand, whether it’s your personal brand or your business brand.

How to Fascinate – Sally Hogshead

The newsletter “Outside the Lines” from Michael Bungay Stanier listed “8 Brilliant Videos You Should Watch”. The video that really caught my attention is TEDxAtlanta – Sally Hogshead – How to Fascinate (Video is below).

In today’s world of 9-second attention spans, our introductions mean more-than-ever before. Sally Hogshead reveals the seven triggers of fascination and how to get others to fall in love with your ideas, instantly.

Sally Hogshead starts with “All markets are like online dating markets” and talks about our short attention spans of 9 seconds (the same as a goldfish). Her main message is the seven fascination triggers.

Every day, intentionally or not, you’re using fascination triggers to persuade people at work and home. Whether you’re pitching a new client, or inviting a friend to lunch, or lulling a cranky toddler to sleep, you’re using triggers to elicit a certain response.

At YouTube there’s also Sally Hogshead: Keynote Speaker on Innovation | Marketing | How to Fascinate. It’s a promotional video but it includes interesting pieces from some of her presentations.

Video: How to Fascinate – Sally Hogshead

Simon Sinek talks about Trust

I came across a video with Simon Sinek, the title “If You Don’t Understand People, You Don’t Understand Business” sounded interesting enough to check it out. What I got was 30 minutes of a really interesting talk where Simon talks about trust (a favorite topic of mine), fullfillment, takers vs givers and also “make it about them, not about you”. It’s time well spent!

You can either watch it on this page or, if that does not work, at Simon Sinek: If You Don’t Understand People, You Don’t Understand Business.

Video: Simon Sinek

Simon Sinek: If You Don’t Understand People, You Don’t Understand Business from 99% on Vimeo.

Do You Have A Problem In Your Life?

This flow chart turned up in many places, I don’t know the original source. It’s a simple way to describe how we should deal with problems. It reminds me of the Serenity prayer.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

There’s no need or use to worry about things we can not change.

Aim High!

The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.
Michelangelo

The goals we set should be high enough to require an effort, even take us outside our comfort zone, and be worth achieving.

I’ve seen this quote before, today it turned up in “The Element – How finding your passion changes everything” by Sir Ken Robinson. That’s a great book.

Decide and Act

Jim Connolly posted What everybody ought to know about achieving their goals. It’s a great post, part of it goes like this:

The reality is that you don’t need to buy goal setting products. You simply need to know what you want and to make the decision to do everything you can, to make it happen.

Jim also posted What everybody ought to know about achieving their goals on Google+ where I took part in the discussion. One commenter wrote:

Someone once asked Dan Kennedy what the secret to life and business was. He held up an index card with one word written on it: ‘Decide.”

I think that is just part of what it takes so I wrote:

I think the “Decide”-card is only half the story. The other half is “Act”.

Jim summed it up in a comment in his blog:

Looking at the comments here and those on Google+, regarding this post, there’s a common theme.

Make the decision.
Do the work.

It may not sound very sexy, but it works.

Another comment on Jim’s post at the blog says:

I’ve discovered through those past tough weeks that most of us are “blind”, we don’t achieve our goals because we don’t see them.

That’s where a coach is helpful, they see things we can’t see ourselves since we are too close.

How to attract the best clients and the highest fees

Jim’s Marketing Blog is a new favourite of mine. Jim’s posts are often short but his posts make me think about the topic in question. That’s a good way to move your business forward.

Today I found his series about How to attract the best clients and the highest fees, a topic that is highly relevant to many of us (me included).

How to attract the best clients and the highest fees: Part 1 is about developing a uniquely valuable service.

I’m sure you have heard the saying; everyone in business is a problem solver!
The suggestion is sound. It confirms the fact that every business exists, to solve at least 1 problem. The bigger the problem, the fewer people there are who can solve it, and the more money they can charge for providing the answer.

How to attract the best clients and the highest fees: Part 2 is about the difference between what people pay for and what people buy.

Smart business owners understand that people pay for the product or service you offer, but they buy the experience.

How to attract the best clients and the highest fees: Part 3 is about the commercial value of originality.

If you want to attract the best clients and the highest fees, you need to understand the commercial value of originality.

Read more in Jim’s posts and while there, subscribe to his blog.

Pomodoro Desktop Timer

Tomighty is an excellent desktop timer tailor made for when you use the Pomodoro Technique.

The Pomodoro Technique is a simple way to boost your productivity when performing mind-consuming tasks. It helps you keep yourself focused while reducing mental exhaustion

Tomighty has as default 25 minutes for the Pomodoro work-session, 5 minutes for the short break and 15 minutes for the long break. You can change this if you want but it works really well.

Just start the clock for a Pomodoro, focus on your work and 25 minutes later the timer goes off. Select a short or long break, I suggest you leave the computer during the break. Once the break is over the timer goes off again and it’s time for another Pomodoro.

Read more about The Pomodoro Technique – manage your attention.

10 Rules to Reverse the Email Spiral

The Email Charter is a great idea.

We’re drowning in email. And the many hours we spend on it are generating ever more work for our friends and colleagues. We can reverse this spiral only by mutual agreement. Hence this Charter

The rules are these, they are explained more at the site.
1. Respect Recipients’ Time
2. Short or Slow is not Rude
3. Celebrate Clarity
4. Quash Open-Ended Questions
5. Slash Surplus cc’s
6. Tighten the Thread
7. Attack Attachments
8. Give these Gifts: EOM NNTR
9. Cut Contentless Responses
10. Disconnect!

Follow as many of those rules as possible and the (email) world will be a better place.

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