Many of our modern values (success, positivity, greatness etc) can actually make us more insecure & miserable. The way to be happy and fulfilled, Manson says, is to not give a f*ck about everything we’re told to care about. Instead, get clear on what truly matters, focus your choices on those few priorities, and accept that in spite of that, you’ll still make stupid mistakes and suffer occasionally.He takes on the traditional self-help books, claiming that they reinforce the idea within you that you are not good at something, which leads to a “feedback loop from hell”.

What does it mean to not give a f*ck?

Here’s a paradox: the more you pursue the positives, the more negative you’ll feel. Those who desperately want to be rich, worthy or happy will only end up feeling poorer, more unworthy or unhappy. On the other hand, the more you accept the negatives in your life, the better you’ll feel.We’re surrounded by so many messages about being positive that we tend to feel bad for feeling bad. Manson calls this the “feedback loop from hell”. A false positive desire turns into a negative thought or emotion. This thought or emotion then triggers a chain reaction of other negative thoughts and emotions.

The Feedback Loop from Hell

To break the cycle of negativity:<ol><li>ACCEPTANCE: The pain of honest confrontation is what generates the greatest trust and respect in your relationships. Mark invites us to think of our self-awareness as an onion. And to imagine our rational self as a disappointment panda.</li><li>ACTION: Action creates the motivation, not the other way around. To get out of a rut, doing something, no matter how small is the way fwd. Mark refers to this as the Do Something Principle. </li></ol>

Breaking the Feedback Loop from Hell

Self-awareness is like an onion, with many layers that can be peeled back to reveal deeper insights about us:<ol><li>The outermost layer is our public self. This is the self that we present to the world, and it is crafted to project a certain image. </li><li>Our private self, that we know ourselves to be. This layer is often more complex and messy than our public one, and it includes things that we are ashamed or afraid of.</li><li>At the bottom are our core values, beliefs & motivations. These layers are often hidden from us, and it can be difficult to access them.</li></ol>Happy peeling!

The Self-Awareness Onion

Disappointment Panda is a fictional bear who has the superpower of telling people the harsh truth about themselves. Manson uses Disappointment Panda to represent the part of ourselves that is afraid of failure, rejection, and disappointment."Disappointment Panda would be the hero that none of us would want but all of us would need. He'd be the proverbial vegetables to our mental diet of junk food. …He'd be the one who tells us the truth, even when we don't want to hear it."Mark Manson argues that we need to embrace Disappointment Panda and learn to accept the harsh truths about ourselves.

Disappointment Panda

"If you want the rewards, but not the struggle, you don’t really want it."

The principle states that the best way to overcome procrastination and make progress towards your goals is to simply take action, no matter how small.We often get stuck in a cycle of inaction because we're waiting for the perfect moment or the right amount of motivation to strike. However, action breeds motivation. When you take action, even if it's just a small step, you start to feel a sense of momentum:<ul><li>Don't wait for the perfect moment. Just start.</li><li>Break down your goals into small, manageable steps.</li><li>Reward yourself for taking action.</li><li>Don't be afraid to fail.</li></ul>

The Do Something principle

"Action isn’t just the effect of motivation; it’s the cause of it.”

<ul><li>TAKE RADICAL RESPONSIBILITY. No matter what happens in your life, you can always choose how to react. </li><li>EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. The only way to grow is to realize that your perspectives, knowledge, and even your values/beliefs aren’t absolute—they can always change or be proven wrong. </li><li>FAIL FORWARD. You should go for process-oriented values, and how to handle pain and fear to keep moving forward.</li><li>GET COMFORTABLE WITH REJECTION. Learning to say and hear “no” </li><li>CONTEMPLATE YOUR MORTALITY. Thinking deeply about death helps us to put our adversities in context and to appreciate life. </li></ul>

The 5 Counterintuitive Values for a Good Life

As we know that problems are inevitable, trying to avoid them makes no sense. Complaining about them and playing the victim card is also not going to help you in any way.So instead of being controlled by your problems, it is wiser to take responsibility and control them. When facing the problem, instead of crying over it and complaining that why problems always come in your way, think about its solution. Taking the responsibility for your problems don’t only make you stronger, but it also makes you smarter.

TAKE RADICAL RESPONSABILITY

Uncertainty is a part of life, and we need to learn to embrace it. Mark Manson argues that trying to control everything in our lives is a fool's errand, and that we will only end up feeling stressed and anxious.Manson says that the best way to deal with uncertainty is to accept it. This doesn't mean that we have to like it, but we do need to accept that it's a part of life. Once we accept uncertainty, we can start to deal with it in a more productive way.

EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY

When we fail, we often have a choice. We can either give up and let the failure define us, or we can learn from our mistakes and use them as an opportunity to grow. Failing forward is about choosing the latter. It's about embracing failure as a part of the learning process and using it to become better.To keep in mind:<ul><li>If someone is better than you at something, then it’s likely because she has failed at it more than you have.</li><li>If we’re unwilling to fail, then we’re unwilling to succeed.</li></ul>

FAIL FORWARD

Learning to say and hear “no” can actually improve your life in 2 key ways: <ol><li>When you make a commitment to something, you must say “no” to something else. This doesn’t tie you down, but frees you from trivialities so you can focus on what’s most meaningful (e.g. deepening a relationship or mastering a craft);</li><li>To build healthy relationships, both parties must be able to say “no”, thrash out their differences, establish their boundaries and take ownership for their own problems: only then can true understanding trust and acceptance be established.</li></ol>

LEARN TO SAY & HEAR NO

If you fear death (or are preoccupied with ensuring that people remember you after you’re gone), you won’t be able to live fully.However, if you’ve confronted your mortality, can accept your life as a passing grain in the timelessness of the universe, and can focus on contributing to a wider cause that will outlive you, then you’ll find true peace and happiness, and become free to live each day to the fullest.

CONTEMPLATE YOUR MORTALITY

Mark Manson is the bad boy of self-help. Really enjoyed his ideas

#1 New York Times BestsellerOver 10 million copies soldIn this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger cuts through the crap to show us how to stop trying to be "positive" all the time so that we can truly become better, happier people.For decades, we’ve been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. "F**k positivity," Mark Manson says. "Let’s be honest, shit is f**ked and we have to live with it." In his wildly popular Internet blog, Manson doesn’t sugarcoat or equivocate. He tells it like it is—a dose of raw, refreshing, honest truth that is sorely lacking today. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is his antidote to the coddling, let’s-all-feel-good mindset that has infected American society and spoiled a generation, rewarding them with gold medals just for showing up.Manson makes the argument, backed both by academic research and well-timed poop jokes, that improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to stomach lemons better. Human beings are flawed and limited—"not everybody can be extraordinary, there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault." Manson advises us to get to know our limitations and accept them. Once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties, once we stop running and avoiding and start confronting painful truths, we can begin to find the courage, perseverance, honesty, responsibility, curiosity, and forgiveness we seek.There are only so many things we can give a f**k about so we need to figure out which ones really matter, Manson makes clear. While money is nice, caring about what you do with your life is better, because true wealth is about experience. A much-needed grab-you-by-the-shoulders-and-look-you-in-the-eye moment of real-talk, filled with entertaining stories and profane, ruthless humor, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is a refreshing slap for a generation to help them lead contented, grounded lives.

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

problemsolving

Problem Solving

books

Books

meditation

Meditation

Mark Manson (born 1984) is a professional blogger, entrepreneur, and former dating coach. Since 2007, he's been helping people with their emotional and relationship problems. He has worked with thousands of people from over 30 different countries. He regularly writes and updates his blog at: www.markmanson.net

Mark Manson

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

Thoughts are hidden; we don’t see them. The only way we can imagine that thoughts are there and that they cause behavior is if we have a theory.

Outward conversations express only part of what the stakeholders discuss behind closed doors. Effective sales professionals seek inclusion in these conversations. They do so by becoming an active participant in the problem-solving process.They focus less on product features and more on understanding the customer’s take on the challenge or goal at hand. Earning access to the hidden dialogue means rising to the status of a trusted advisor by sharing insights that draw on their previous experience.

Explore the Customer’s “Hidden Dialogue”

Theory of mind reminds us that others can suffer from misperceptions.Sales professionals must be aware of differing perceptions. Customers are performing more solution research independent of the sales professional.As a result, it’s easy for the customer to develop a false understanding of the challenge and the best path forward. Therefore, sales professionals must first know what the customer knows, then help the customer align with the real nature of the business challenge.

Overcome the Customer’s Misperceptions

Value is subjective. What matters to one customer will be irrelevant to another. To provide relevant value, sales professionals need a clear understanding of the customer’s goals. These goals fit into one of three categories: make money, save money, or reduce risk. The sales professional must first acknowledge that their information is different from the customer’s information. Moreover, the sales professional must continually track the customer’s information

Bring Relevant Value

<ul><li>Sales professionals must remember that their information and beliefs differ from those of the customer.</li><li>They must take the next step of asking questions to help narrow this gap</li><li>Remember that this process never ends because the customer's notion of value changes throughout the buying process and across the numerous stakeholders involved.</li></ul>

Relearning Theory of Mind

Discover how understanding the "theory of mind" can positively impact your conversations with customers by improving your understanding of their perspective

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

How "Theory of Mind" Drives Effective Selling

Ikea has an enviable position in the struggling retail landscape. As of 2021, it boasts:<ul><li>~$47.6B USD in annual retail sales</li><li>458 stores in 61 markets</li><li>775m store visits + 5B web visits per year</li><li>225k global employees</li></ul>It’s estimated that 60% of Ikea purchases are <a href="https://blogs.lt.vt.edu/bit5414/2012/03/20/the-ikea-layout-and-impulse-buying-a-case-study/">impulse buys</a>. And Ikea’s own creative director has <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYKUJgMRQ7A">said</a> that only 20% of the store’s purchases are based on actual logic and needs.

The Retail King

Ikea sells meatballs and lamps under the same roof. It has been described as both “Disneyland for adults” and “a nightmare hellscape.” And the idea of spending an afternoon stuck in a one-way maze — then going home and assembling your own bookcase — isn’t exactly appealing.But these eccentricities are intentionally engineered to get you to make unplanned purchases, and come back for more.

A Unique Retail Model

In general, retailers design their stores with 3 goals in mind:<ul><li>Intelligibility: Easy to understand the floor plan</li><li>Accessibility: Easy to navigate</li><li>A clear visual field: Exposure to products and the lay of the land </li></ul>Most companies use store layouts that give customers the freedom to explore at their own will.Commonly used configurations — grid, racetrack, freeform, and spine — don’t have defined routes: You can wander down any aisle you please, in any order you want.

The Normal Store Layouts

The unique one-way labyrinth design of Ikea: Forces wider product exposure: At most retail shops, customers only lay eyes on ~33% of all the items for sale; Ikea’s layout herds shoppers past its entire catalog.Creates a false sense of scarcity: When shoppers pass by items they’re on the fence about, they’re inclined to just put them in the cart because they don’t want to backtrack through the maze later on.Creates a sense of mystery: Every 50 feet, the path breaks left. Shoppers never know what’s around the next turn, stoking their desire to continue exploring.

Breaking All Layout Rules

Ikea has mastered the use of a psychological principle called the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruen_transfer#:~:text=In%20shopping%20mall%20design%2C%20the,susceptible%20to%20making%20impulse%20buys.">Gruen effect</a> — when the layout of a store is so bewildering that it makes you forget the original reason you came there, leading to impulse buys.You get lost in a maze, and then are surrounded by nothing but ever-changing fantasies of what your life could be like. It’s like you can walk into a magazine advertisement and pick up the dishes, sit on the couch, try out the desk chair. It’s very tactile and participatory.

The Gruen Effect

Strategically placed mirrors: When you catch a glimpse of yourself in an Ikea room, you’re primed to believe you belong in it.Contextual positioning: Rooms are set up exactly as they would be in a natural setting. Familiarity encourages purchasing. “Bulla bulla” (dump bins): Ikea places overstuffed crates of dirt-cheap products (plush toys, slippers, pillows) along the route to reinforce the idea that its products are a good deal.

The Small Tricks Of Ikea

Something else you’ll likely see at play in Ikea is decoy pricing: when a retailer throws a less appealing option into the mix to make other products seem like a better deal.Let’s say there are 2 cabinets for sale: a $40 budget unit, and an $80 unit with more premium materials. Ikea might create a 3rd unit — one that offers neither the low price of the budget unit, nor the premium materials of the pricier unit — to make the others look better.Studies have shown that the decoy effect can increase retail sales by as much as 14%.

The Decoy Effect

Ikea often follows a “price first, design later” philosophy: It starts with a price target — say $6.99 for a new stool — then reverse-engineers the design process to meet that goal.And once an Ikea product hits the shelves, the company is militant about maintaining or even reducing, its retail price.Researchers at Boston University and the Wharton School studied hundreds of Ikea catalogues in 6 different countries between 1994 and 2010 and found that many of the company’s products get cheaper over time.

Affordable Prices

The main ingredient of the company’s affordability is a technique called flat packing.The company reduces manufacturing, logistics, and fulfilment costs by disassembling items and fitting pieces together in a box as tightly as possible. “We hate air” is a common mantra at Ikea: Every pocket of space is accounted for and minimized.Ikea designs products with manufacturing and transit in mind from the get-go. They design products for the realities of the supply chain, rather than having to make sacrifices for it.

How Prices At Ikea Stay Affordable

In a 2011 Harvard Business School study, researchers divided subjects into 2 groups: One was given pre-assembled origami, and the other was given paper to build their own origami. At the end of the experiment, subjects were asked how much they’d pay for the creations.The result: Those who built their own origami were willing to pay nearly 5x more than the non-builders.The researchers dubbed this the Ikea effect: a cognitive bias wherein we place a higher value on items we build ourselves, regardless of the quality of the end result.

The Ikea effect

In the 1950s, manufacturers noticed that powdered cake mix sales were suffering. All the consumer had to do was add water. But this process was too easy: It removed the effort and emotion from baking. When manufacturers <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20171027-the-magic-cakes-that-come-from-a-packet">took out the egg powder</a> and made consumers add their own fresh eggs to the mix, sales went back up.

The Cake Mix Story

Ikea may be a home furnishings store, but it also reels in ~$2.4B in food sales per year (~5% of its overall revenue).To put that into perspective: If you were to look at Ikea’s food operation as a stand-alone entity, it would rank as one of the 50 highest-grossing food chains in the world, right above IHOP.A typical Ikea has 2 dining options that can accommodate 600+ diners at a time:<ul><li>A Swedish food market on the main floor that serves up meatballs, gravlax salmon, and other Scandinavian entrees.</li><li>A bistro near the exit that slings hot dogs, cinnamon buns, pizza, and other fast-serve favourites.</li></ul>

Ikea The Food Court

The real objective of selling cheap food at the furniture store is to reinforce Ikea’s low price profile.A person might not know if $500 is a good price for a couch, but they surely know that $0.99 is a fantastic deal for breakfast. The idea is that customers will associate Ikea’s low food prices with the store’s other offerings.Ikea might be selling some of that food at cost, or even at a loss. But it’s worth it to lose money on scrambled eggs if it means helping them sell more couches.

Selling Cheap Food

The home furnishings giant enlists a maze-like layout, cheap food, and crafty psychology to get you to fill up your cart.

business

Business

How Ikea tricks you into buying more stuff

Given the crowded content marketplace, it makes sense to refresh your perspective and consider new content types. You can more closely match what content formats your audience prefers to consume today or what content types will surprise and delight them. But to make successful choices, you must go old school and base them on your audience, your goals, and your brand identity.

Freshen up Your Content

A guestographic is a guest infographic. It features both images and text and is published on or linked to from different websites. Guestographics are often created in collaboration with other brands for a specific purpose. It can be their content and your design or your content and their design. It is an effective way to build brand (or content) awareness and establish stable connections. For the publishing site, it also can produce quality backlinks to help its SEO strategy.

Guestograhics

You may have guessed from the name that instructographics is a long-forgotten child of infographics. They are becoming a popular way to explain complex data in an easy-to-digest format. Instructographics tell people how to do something, and work well for step-by-step instructions or other how-to guides. They are only limited by your creativity and have a higher potential for sharing the content.

Instructographics

Storyboards are a visual sequence of useful information such as text, images, design, and illustrations. It allows the viewer to visualise the whole story frame by frame. Creating a storyboard is a good way to organise any type of information that needs a systematic approach.

Storyboards

Carousel posts on social media are becoming a more attractive content type for marketers. On Instagram, they earn higher average engagement rates (1.92%) than single photos (1.74%) and videos (1.45%). Creators who used all 10 carousel slides available experienced average engagement rates as high as 2%.

Carousel posts

Artists, graphic designers, or people good with a marker draw on a whiteboard to successfully explain a point, process, or product in a visually attractive way. As they create, the video camera is tracking their every move. Some companies use this type of content for corporate video training because they can have a stronger impact than reading a handbook or watching someone read from a script. But you don’t have to limit it to training videos. Whiteboard content can work for almost anything that can be illustrated.

Whiteboard Videos

Using your computer screen and microphone, you can show and narrate the content. Screencasts work well to show how to do something or solve a problem step by step. Screencasts also can save time by answering the most important questions asked over and over.

Screencast videos

To avoid boring your audience, you need to give them a reason to yearn for or engage with your content. Augmented-reality experiences can immerse them into the story, offer gameplay, or provide an additional narrative.  Social media networks are good resources to access this AR technology.

AR-powered storytelling

Ephemeral content, also known as time-restricted content, is a great way to help your brand stay fresh for your target audience. The visual content’s short life span (up to 24 hours) taps into your followers’ FOMO (fear of missing out) on something interesting. Instagram and Facebook Stories are the most popular examples because they disappear a day after they’re posted. This style of content is especially useful for taking followers behind the scenes, reading the room, seeing what people are talking about, etc.

Ephemeral posts

2022 is the time to put fresh eyes on your #content types if you want to keep or attract an audience.

These eight content types can help you refresh your content and attract audiences that prefer visually oriented storytelling – Content Marketing Institute

Discover the world of business and economics.

economics

Economics

8 Fresh Content Types Every Marketer Should Consider in 2022 - Content Marketing Institute

Start your Christmas marketing campaign by setting the objectives. What do you want to achieve?<ul><li>Generate new leads?</li><li>Raise brand awareness?</li><li>Increase your sales?</li><li>Increase the subscriptions for your product?</li></ul> Once you know your objective, define and create your marketing message. Make sure you include calls to action.

Define your campaign objective

Before you start planning a campaign, analyse your target audience. Find out what they like and dislike and when they are active on social media. Use an analytics tool to analyse the graphics and create relevant content.

Understand your audience

Create a Christmas offer that will align with your objectives and audience. For example, create<ul><li>Discount codes</li><li>Gift certificates</li><li>Product packages</li><li>Reward features and loyalty bonuses for your clients</li><li>Free shipping</li><li>Specialised packaging</li></ul> Also see what your competitors are delivering on their website.

Create a Christmas offer

Polish your social media handles as these are the first ones that will help you attract your audience. <ul><li>Publish Christmas themed pictures, videos, contests, and other posts. Ensure to keep high-quality content.</li><li>Focus on your website and change the theme to an attractive festive one. Try to keep it simple yet stylish.</li></ul>

Spread the joy on social media

Providing information and content people are ready to consume is far better than a sales pitch. Create your brand awareness and increase visibility by organising interesting social media contents: <ul><li>Host a giveaway or collaborate with a business in a similar niche as yours.</li><li>Ask your audience to write a caption and win exciting prizes.</li><li>Ask them to share your brand in their posts or stories to win prizes.</li><li>Ask them to share their Christmas pictures with your products or services.</li><li>Try video ideas.</li></ul>

Christmas content ideas for social media

<ul><li>Was the campaign a success?</li><li>Were the objectives been achieved?</li><li>Did we increase our sales?</li></ul> Analyse your campaign to find answers to these questions.

Post-Christmas actions: Analyze and report

There are many things brands should do before seeing a perfect product campaign. This article provides a list of steps, tricks, and tips to follow to run a successful Christmas marketing strategy.

Here's a list of steps, tricks, and tips you must follow if you want to run a successful Christmas marketing strategy.

How to Plan Your Christmas Marketing Campaigns

Salespeople once needed big egos to succeed. They could convince strangers – their customers – to buy what they had to sell. For many salespeople, their gold-plated egos got them where they wanted to be in sales.
Today, a dominant, ain’t-I-great, overarching ego will kill you professionally. Salespeople now need something more and better: They need empathy. Being empathetic shows your prospects and customers that you care about them. It enables you to connect and communicate effectively.

Not Ego, But Empathy

Everything about sales has radically changed, including the context of sales – the selling process, the buying process and the customers. Selling has become much tougher. What worked for salespeople in the past won’t work today or in the future. To stay current, salespeople must change. This will help them become more productive and close more sales.Salespeople must become experts at understanding how and why people connect and, particularly, why their customers connect with them. They must help customers arrive at a state of mind where they are ready and willing to buy.

The Context Of Selling

The secret of sales success is being completely present – always fully in the moment – with your customers. This mental state is called “intentional consciousness” or “dispositional mindfulness.”  Being fully present implies exercising robust emotional intelligence. When you are fully present with your customers, you manage your attitude and control your behavior. You never inadvertently say or do something that could irritate or anger your clients. You never interrupt or speak over them. To win their approval and cooperation, you remain respectful and courteous.

The State Of The Moment

Salespeople aren’t saints. They’re human beings, full of human imperfections. But when they remain fully present with customers, salespeople set themselves up to manage their temperament and behaviors. Sometimes this requires changing your behavior and habits by using dispositional mindfulness. 
Veteran salespeople tend to have a well-developed comfort level with themselves. Normally, this is good. However, such comfort can become a double-edged sword that can lead to “unthinking arrogance” – the kiss of death when interacting with customers.

Human Flaws

Salespeople who want productive client relationships must eliminate any negative behaviour they might direct toward a customer, such as impatience or rudeness. This doesn’t require a radical personality transformation. It calls for “shifting into neutral.” For your customers to view you as a nice person simply stop being nasty to them. This doesn’t require any new, positive actions on your part. It simply means you must stop doing anything negative. If your customers argue with you, don’t argue back. If your customers criticize your firm, don’t engage with their provocation.

Stop Being So Nasty

Target your behaviour to fit each customer as you jettison these 16 bad habits: <ul><li>Failure to be present.</li><li>Unprofessional language or words that are confusing.</li><li>Selling past the close.</li><li>Selective hearing.</li><li>Contact without purpose or simply for selling.</li><li>Making superficial assessments.</li><li>Using tension as a tool.</li><li>One-upping your own customers.</li><li>Overfamiliarity with the customer.</li><li>Withholding passion and energy.</li><li>Not owning your own product or mistake.</li><li>Never having to say you’re sorry.</li><li>Throwing others under the bus.</li><li>Propagandizing the company line.</li><li>Wasting energy.</li><li>Obsessing over the numbers all the time.</li></ul>

Habits To Let Go

Don’t try to get rid of all your bad habits at once. Deal with your first group of bad habits, and then move on to the others. To determine the most glaring habits you want to address, become a detective about your personality. Note what comments people make about how you act and come across. Write down what you learn. Ask your family members and close friends to weigh in. Once you have a working list, select your group of three bad habits to focus on and fix. Recruit someone you trust to help you overcome them. Discuss your specific behaviour modification goals.

Getting Rid Of Your Bad Habits

Engage with a peer coach who will speak with you by phone daily or a few times each week for a few minutes about your self-improvement campaign, without giving you any “negative feedback.” Have your coach record your answers to specific questions on a regular basis, such as, “Did you work on the first set [of bad habits] today?” Offer similar assistance to your colleague. The coach can’t criticize, ask more questions, induce guilt or give feedback. The coach’s purpose is to support your success.

A Peer Coach

The rules of buying and selling have changed. In addition to being present, you must: <ul><li>“Ask” – Ask everyone you deal with for information, feedback, insights and opinions. </li><li>“Learn” – Salespeople who go out of their way to be proactive learners will gain a valuable competitive advantage.</li><li>“Follow up” – Like everyone else, salespeople must constantly ask others for essential follow-up. Without it, people can’t improve.</li><li>“Grow” – In sales, growth means personal and professional development as a routine activity. </li></ul>

Being Present To Win

<ul><li>Not having a personal touch will backfire as customers are loyal to salespeople and not the products.</li><li>Master the basic sales functions first.</li><li>Empathy matters.</li><li>Replace any bad habits with good ones.</li><li>Upgrade your skills constantly.</li><li>Strengthen your talents and stay current.</li><li>Focus on one thing at a time.</li><li>Do not waste time.</li><li>Everything can be harder than it looks.</li><li>Do not give in to distractions.</li><li>Take ownership.</li><li>Perform maintenance.</li><li>Don’t compare yourself with others.</li><li>Measure everything.</li><li>Change yourself, not others.</li></ul>

Universal Truths

Expert tips on how to tap into the human psyche and turn potential customers into actual ones

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

How to Sell Anything

How Successful Salespeople Take It to the Next Level

Your hard work is paying off. You are doing well in your field. But there is something standing between you and the next level of achievement. That something may just be one of your own annoying habits. Perhaps one small flaw - a behaviour you barely even recognise - is the only thing that's keeping you from where you want to be. It may be that the very characteristic that you believe got you where you are - like the drive to win at all costs - is what's holding you back. As this book explains, people often do well in spite of certain habits rather than because of them - and need a "to stop" list rather than one listing what "to do". Marshall Goldsmith's expertise is in helping global leaders overcome their unconscious annoying habits and become more successful. His one-on-one coaching comes with a six-figure price tag - but in this book you get his great advice for much less. Recently named as one of the world's five most-respected executive coaches by Forbes, he has worked with over 100 major CEOs and their management teams at the world's top businesses. His clients include corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Glaxo SmithKline, Johnson and Johnson and GE.

Your hard work is paying off. You are doing well in your field. But there is something standing between you and the next level of achievement. That something may just be one of your own annoying habits. Perhaps one small flaw - a behaviour you barely even recognise - is the only thing that's keeping you from where you want to be. It may be that the very characteristic that you believe got you where you are - like the drive to win at all costs - is what's holding you back. As this book explains, people often do well in spite of certain habits rather than because of them - and need a "to stop" list rather than one listing what "to do". Marshall Goldsmith's expertise is in helping global leaders overcome their unconscious annoying habits and become more successful. His one-on-one coaching comes with a six-figure price tag - but in this book you get his great advice for much less. Recently named as one of the world's five most-respected executive coaches by Forbes, he has worked with over 100 major CEOs and their management teams at the world's top businesses. His clients include corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Glaxo SmithKline, Johnson and Johnson and GE.

Marshall Goldsmith is an accomplished writer whose work has resonated with readers around the world. Marshall Goldsmith has published several books that explore a range of topics, from fiction to nonfiction, and has received critical acclaim for the ability to weave compelling narratives. Marshall Goldsmith's writing style is known for its depth and authenticity, and has earned quite a loyal following of readers.

Marshall Goldsmith

What Got You Here Won't Get You There

The most successful sales professionals in any organization are usually the ones that have consciously or unconsciously mastered the fundamentals I’m about to share with you. In my company Pure Green Franchise, I teach all our team members that there are no short-cuts, and in any communication, the battle is won before it even starts. If I ever hear a sales professional say he or she is going to “wing it,” I know that he or she is not prepared.Flawless execution of the following communication strategies is par for the course.

4 Golden rules of a Sales Pitch

Based on whom you are meeting with or talking to, you should cater your dialogue to that person's level.Refrain from using any fancy vocabulary and instead use more straightforward words. When dealing with C-level executives and high-level entrepreneurs, use more technical terminology. It’s really that simple. Be respectful of people by catering to your audience.

Know Your Audience

It is important to show up prepared for any meeting. Before a meeting with someone that you haven’t met, you should Google the person or look him or her up on LinkedIn to find out about his or her background, work history and where he or she went to college, and look for common ground like people or places that you both know. Using this knowledge strategically can help you develop rapport more quickly.If you are meeting with someone for a business meeting, you should know background information on his or her company in advance of the meeting.

Show Up Prepared

Erickson’s work on matching and mirroring is widely used in business settings. Mirroring or matching body posture helps build rapport. For example, if you are in a business meeting and someone is sitting back in his or her chair with his or her arms crossed, by subtly leaning back in your chair and crossing your arms, you can indirectly build rapport by speaking to the person's subconscious. By actively practising and gauging the results, you will be surprised by how well it works, and you will eventually start doing it naturally.

Match and Mirror

Imagine you are in the elevator with a person that can change the game for your business. You have a very limited window of time to take advantage of this opportunity.In just two sentences, you should be able to articulate what your company does and why anyone should care. Also, people can tell from your delivery if you are sincere in your message, and they are subconsciously judging whether you believe in your own pitch. While your pitch is just the start, people will decide if they want to do business with you based on your pitch.

Mastering The Elevator Pitch

The success of any pitch is won by sharpening the saw and not hacking away. 

communication

Communication

4 Powerful Communication Strategies to Win Any Sales Pitch

<a href="https://habitica.com/static/home" target="_self">Habitica</a> has done a stellar job of gamifying habit formation.The Good:<ul><li>Fun, RPG-like habit tracking. Lose health when you break habits, gain levels and EXP when you keep them. Buy equipment and items for your character.</li><li>Immersive features and add-ons. Join <a href="https://habitica.fandom.com/wiki/Guilds" target="_self">Guilds</a>, <a href="https://habitica.fandom.com/wiki/Party" target="_self">Parties</a>, <a href="https://habitica.fandom.com/wiki/Tavern" target="_self">Taverns</a>, etc., which are social groups/chats of people with common interests, and build habits together.</li></ul>The Bad:<ul><li>Punishment for breaking habits is too light.</li></ul>

Habitica 

<a href="https://www.rescuetime.com/dashboard" target="_self">RescueTime</a> is a time tracker that logs and visualizes the amount of time you spend on applications or websites.The Good:<ul><li>Accurate tracking on all major operating systems, phone OSes, and Chrome/Firefox. All of this data you’re seeing above is tracking my activity across all of my computers, all browsers, and cell phone.</li><li>Powerful, flexible timelines and scopes. The daily dashboard is the default, but you can zoom out to Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly reports.</li></ul>The Bad:<ul><li>Can’t block native apps</li></ul>

RescueTime

The To-do List App with loads of features.The Good:<ul><li>Recurring Tasks and Other Complex Scheduling. You can have tasks that recur every day, every few weeks, on specific days of the week, etc. It’s really flexible and powerful.</li><li>Tasks automatically move to “Today” on due date. You can set due dates on tasks, and they will automatically move into the “Today” list, making it useful for autopilot task doers like myself.</li><li>Next 7 Days Section.</li></ul>The Bad:<ul><li>Subtasks disappear when you mark them as complete.</li></ul>

Todoist

<a href="https://www.yourhour.app/" target="_self">YourHour</a> for Android and <a href="https://inthemoment.io/" target="_self">Moment</a> for iOS are two fantastic phone usage tracking apps that, unlike RescueTime, can block your phone’s native apps.<ul><li>The ability to actually block apps. I can’t stress how important this feature is. You can easily ignore notifications, but actually have the app blocked? That works wonders.</li><li>Granular trend tracking.</li></ul>The Bad:<ul><li>Long-term, strategic visualization weak.</li></ul>

YourHour (Android) & Moment (iOS)

<a href="https://www.getclockwise.com/" target="_self">Clockwise</a> is an intelligent calendar assistant for GSuite that can optimize your daily schedule. It moves meetings around to create more focus time for you (blocks of uninterrupted time for quality work). It even has slack integration.The Good:<ul><li>Recurring Tasks and Other Complex Scheduling.</li></ul>The Bad:<ul><li>Only for GSuite and Chrome</li></ul>

Clockwise

<a href="https://feedly.com/i/welcome" target="_self">Feedly</a> is an RSS feed dashboard and aggregator. Find, subscribe to, and organize all of your favourite news and information sources. It is great for content curators and bloggers.The Good:<ul><li>Powerful collaboration and sharing features.</li><li>Powerful feeds and dashboard.</li></ul>The Bad:<ul><li>No tagging or labelling capabilities.</li><li>Not much automation is built-in yet.</li></ul>

Feedly

For the last few years, I periodically struggled to stay motivated and consistent in all of my ventures. This led to a lot of experimentation with various apps and tools. This year was another…

6 Apps to Help You Thrive in 2020

<a href="http://www.thehoth.com/?ref=GrowthHackingIdea.com">TheHOTH </a>increased their opt-in rate by 844%.

Growth Hack #9:  +844% to opt-in rate

Newton increased their response rate by +156% just by making this super simple change.

Growth Hack #8:  +156% to response rate

Conversionvoodoo.com utilized their traffic (150,000 unique visitors) to get statistically significant results on what types of images drive the best conversions. Excited person, pointing to a CTA increases conversions by +6.25% 2. Excited person, holding a CTA increases conversions by +6.83%.

Growth Hack #7:  +6.83% to conversions

<a href="https://www.popcornmetrics.com/?ref=GrowthHackingIdea.com" target="_self">PopcornMetrics </a>increased its revenue by 367% in 12 weeks. They focused on helping their churned free trial users become successful in achieving their goals by using their product: deep 1-on-1s, tweaking code, feeding useful info, spending hours on Skype — whatever it took.

Growth Hack #6: +367% boost in revenue

In <a href="http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118908512/abstract?CRETRY=1&amp;SRETRY=0">a study </a>from the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, researchers found that waiters could increase their tips by 23 percent by returning to tables with a second set of mints.

Growth hack #5: How to increase your tips by 23%

<a href="https://msbfile03.usc.edu/digitalmeasures/jnunes/intellcont/Endowed%20Progress%20Effect-1.pdf">Researchers handed out </a>loyalty cards at a car wash. The cards offered a stamp for every car wash the customer bought. Half of the cards had spots for eight stamps , with a free car wash offered for collecting all eight. The other half had spots for ten stamps, but two of the spots came pre-stamped (oooooooo vs ooooooooXX) .

Growth hack #4: +178% more repeat business

First — get their Email. Everything else is later. But what if you need their name, surname, phone number, social profile, Website, credit card data? you can get the rest in the next step, or even later. The more fields, the lower the conversion rate. Niel Patel: 'This is the key to long lasting relations'

Growth hack #3: Little trick +26% to conversions

<a href="http://news.ualberta.ca/">The University of Alberta </a>increased email subscribers by 500% using a pop up survey by <a href="https://qualaroo.com/">Qualaroo </a>that asked anyone who spent more than 10 seconds on the site:

Growth hack #1: 10-second trick

<a href="http://www.gr8fires.co.uk/">Gr8tFires </a>— which makes wood-burning stoves and fireplaces — discovered that one of the biggest customer pain points is the cost of installation. <ul><li>They installed an exit popup. </li><li>In the popup they offered an installation calculator for free in exchange for an email address. </li></ul>

Bonus growth hack #11: +300% in monthly sales leads

These easy growth hacking tactics increased conversions, opt-ins, sales by up to 1,900%. Put them into practice in 2019.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

How "Theory of Mind" Drives Effective Selling

How Ikea tricks you into buying more stuff

8 Fresh Content Types Every Marketer Should Consider in 2022 - Content Marketing Institute

How to Plan Your Christmas Marketing Campaigns

Allison Cole