4 Stages of Marriage (Or 4 Stages of Job Life Cycle)

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 | No Comments

“Wizard Academy faculty Jean Carpenter Backus says there are 4 stages of marriage:

1. Infatuation
2. Disillusionment
3. Power Struggle
4. True Love

People who have been married a long time always smile and agree.

It seems to me the same 4 stages occur in the average employee’s perception of their job.

Things usually work out if you can just hang on.

Hang on.”

Source: Monday Morning Memo’s Rabbit Hole

When Should You F@#%ng Use Profanity

Saturday, May 23rd, 2009 | 6 Comments

1. An Experiment of Banning Profanity

As some of you know – my Dad is into trading of diamonds. A diamond traders office is kind of like a stock brokers office. You get to hear a lot of profanity because of the stress that the deals bring with them.

So a couple of months back, my Dad made a rule in the office: anyone* who utters a profane word has to pay up Rs.100. The Rs.100 goes to charity.

*Anyone except my Dad. My Dad has to pay up Rs.500.

The result?

When you have to pay attention to a few of your words, you tend to pay attention to all of your words!

Brokers who come to the office now “think and talk”. Fewer arguments. More attentive folks. Better deals. Happy ending.

2. An Experiment of Using Profanity

Psychologists Cory Scherer and Brad Sagarin run an experiment. They gather a group of people and divide them into 2 groups. And make both the groups watch a 5 minute video of a persuasive speech.

For group A, the speaker uses a tame swear phrase “Damn it!” once during the speech. For group B, the speech is exactly the same, except the swear phrase is omitted.

Once the speech is over, participants are asked about their attitudes toward the topic addressed in the speech. The result? Folks in Group A rate the speaker as being more passionate than folks in Group B do. Folks in Group A also rate the video to be more persuasive overall than folks in Group B do!

Occassional obscenity persuades people!

3. So Should We Use Profanity Or Not?

• I’ve been a big fan of the late Gary Halbert ever since I read his website. I recall the impact the dual instance of f@#%ing profanity he used had on me. Made me perceive him as being a no-bs guy (which if you listen to a few guys in the know – wasn’t exactly true).
• I also recall being in Buda, Texas – listening to Roy H. Williams speak. And he utters a single f@#%ing obscene word to amplify a point. Makes the whole room nod and smile. And makes me realize that he is the best god darn speaker I’ve ever head.
• And one of the few bloggers I follow – Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz – uses profanity like a drunk sailor – or like a smart strategist to distinguish herself from the drones in the over-crowded make-money niche.

But

• On the other hand, the no-profanity rule in my Dad’s office also shows me how not using profanity helps create a better stress-free atmosphere.

So my verdict is…

Action Summary

• Use profanity when people least expect it. Don’t use profanity if everyone uses it.
• Yes: do what others don’t (expect you to do).

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Tony Hsieh’s Unified Happiness Theory

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 | 2 Comments

Tony Hsieh Unified Happiness Theory is not entirely settled. It involves establishing balance among four basic human needs:

1. perceived progress,
2. perceived control,
3. relatedness,
4. and a connection to a larger vision.

Source: The Zappos Way of Managing

Value of an Agent

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 | No Comments

Most people – including me – only evaluate 2 things while working with someone:

1. Do they know their stuff?
2. How much do they charge

But if you focus on only these 2 factors, you won’t find the best people out there. You’ll usually end up hiring the lowest cost service providers. And your projects will suffer.

To find the best folks out there, measure 4 factors. Not 2.

1. Do they know their stuff?
2. How quickly can they do their stuff?
3. How many errors do they usually make?
4. How much do they charge

Never make a money based decision without taking the time factor into consideration. Never hire someone without knowing how quick they can be.

Tagline Hack: How To Create Powerful Tag Lines in 7 Minutes

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 | 4 Comments

Nike has misguided thousands of entrepreneurs. “Just Do It” is the most popular tagline and has helped sell gazillions of tshirts. And so, when entrepreneurs sit down to create a tagline for their own venture, they think of creating something short and snappy like Nike’s Just Do It.

Big Mistake.

Why? Because you ought to realize that there are 2 kinds of tag lines:

Type 1: Money Makes The Tagline

These are the taglines that don’t mean anything on their own. The message is fluffy and unfocused. And it seeps into the associative memory of the masses only after millions of dollars have been spent in repeating the tag line over and over again.

Eg:

• Have It Your Way (Burger King)
• Just Do It (Nike)
• Believe In Something Better (U.S. Cellular)

These are the taglines that are meaningless and interchangeable. Burger King could do just as well with “Believe in Something Better” too. These taglines are function-less (except for selling more t-shirts – HA!)

Type 2: Tagline Makes The Money

These are the taglines that are relevant to what the company is doing. These taglines convey a benefit. And are meaningful. They don’t make people go ho-hmm. These are the taglines that actually help a company position itself and carve out a bigger piece of the pie for themselves!

Eg:

• When your package absolutely, positively has to get there overnight (Fedex)
• The milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hand (M&Ms)

And the best one of all:

• Fresh Hot Pizza in 30 Minutes or Its Free (Dominos)

In a minute, we will deconstruct Domino’s tagline and see how we can create similar taglines that work for our ventures. But before we do that, we need to know:

Whats The Purpose of a Tagline?

1. To get your right people to say “Tell me more”
2. To convey your USP (unique selling proposition) and distinguish yourself from the crowd

Definition of USP – by Rosser Reeves

1. Each advertisement tagline must make a proposition to the consumer. Not just words, not just product puffery, not just show-window advertising. Each advertisement tagline must say to each reader: “Buy this product, and you will get this specific benefit.”
2. The proposition must be one that the competition either cannot, or does not, offer. It must be unique?either a uniqueness of the brand or a claim not otherwise made in that particular field of advertising.
3. The proposition must be so strong that it can move the mass millions, i.e., pull over new customers to your product.

Ok – back to deconstructing the Dominos tagline.

Fresh hot pizza in 30 minutes or its free.

Dominos Does Three Things With Their Tag Lines:

1. Tells us what they offer that is different than their competitors (fresh hot pizza in 30 minutes)
2. Tells us how they take care of the downside (or its free)
3. Tells us nothing else.

The 3rd rule is the most important one. People try to stuff a lot into a short tagline. Or they try to make it funny or cute. Or they try to add alliteration to it. Doesn’t work. Leave all that stuff away from the tagline.

The 2nd rule is important but optional. Not everyone can convey their risk reversal guarantees in the tagline itself. But if you can add it in your tagline, it becomes very powerful.

3 Questions To Ask Yourself:

1. What do you offer?
2. How is your offer different than others in the market?
3. How do you take away peoples risk of taking you up on the offer?

Answer these 3 questions and the tagline should form automatically for you.

Once you have the answers down, all you now have to do is convey them in one short sentence.

Action Summary:

• Don’t aim for cute or snappy for your taglines. If you don’t have the advertising muscle, you should not go for meaningless taglines.
• Instead aim for adding your USP in your taglines.
• Let your taglines simply convey what you offer and how you make people trust you by getting rid of their risks. Let your taglines convey nothing else.

Twitter Reading Habits

Saturday, April 11th, 2009 | No Comments

1.

Before the interwebs became popular, people read newspapers in 2 different ways.

• 70% people read each and every word of the articles once they got past its headline.
• 30% people scanned the articles. They didn’t read all the words – just picked up on the first sentence per paragraph to get the jist of it.

(Sharp readers will find that this 70:30 ratio is very close to the information gathering Sensing:iNtution ratios of the MBTI personality tests. Empirical tests show that 73% of people are Sensors and 27% are iNtuitive.)

2.

The interwebs changed peoples reading habits. The deluge of information is enormous. There is so much to read that people stopped reading complete sentences. Studies show that only 30% of people read all the words of an online article or a blog post. And 70% are scanners! We’ve seen a complete reversal of newspaper reading habits!

3.

People often ask me how do I keep up with 10,000+ Twitter followers!

Usually – these are one of the 50% of people on Twitter who read each and every tweet. (The other 50% on Twitter don’t read all the tweets.)

My answer to them is: I’m a scanner.

I don’t force myself to read everyones tweets. My intention with using Twitter is not to know what each and every person I follow is doing all the time. Rather, I use Twitter as a patterning tool. Any news that is hot and timely will be talked about and ReTweeted by more than one person. And so – even if I don’t read all the tweets, if the information is value worthy – I will get to read about it on Twitter (with very few exceptions)!

My prediction: the 50:50 ratio on Twitter of people reading all the tweets vs people scanning their tweets is going to change to about 30:70 too. Give a bit more time and we will only see about 30% of Twitterers reading all their tweets.? But this won’t mean the other 70% is missing out on much.

How To Be Indispensable

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 | 4 Comments

What Should You Do To Make Yourself Indispensable?

There are 4 factors that go into making you indispensable.

1. Make Your Own Ideas Obsolete

Apple has more than a 75% share of the MP3 players market. And no one has been able to challenge their iPods. The reason is simple: Apple does what their competitors ought to do. They make their own products obsolete.

First came the iPods. Then they reduced the size with iPod minis and iPod nanos. Then they added more space for music in the iPods. Then they came up with video iPods. Its been a constant re-invention process. And thats why no one has been able to challenge Apple’s dominance. Because Apple acts as its own competitor. And comes up with better products before others.

Peter Drucker spent more decades than anyone else in the world constantly re-inventing the principles of management.

Seth Godin is always on the cutting edge of marketing. He stays just slightly ahead of the curve.

You’ll never find someone retain their spot at the top of the pyramid if they don’t constantly innovate and make their own ideas obsolete.

2. Don’t be a Me-Too

Eons ago, there is a small town named Chelm somewhere in Europe. To bring order in the city, the people elect an impartial judge. One day, filled with rage, the town cobbler kills one of his customers.

The cobbler is bought up in front of the judge who sentences him to die by hanging. This is really bad news for the town. One townsman gains some courage to stand up and speak: “If Your Honor pleases, you have sentenced to death the town cobbler! He?s the only one we’ve got. If you hang him who will mend our shoes?”

“Who! Who?” cry all the other townsmen in Chelm together.

The judge thinks for a while, nods in agreement and reconsiders his verdict. “Good people of Chelm,” he says, “What you say is true. Since we have only one cobbler it would be a great wrong against the community to let him die. As there are two roofers in the town, let one of them be hanged instead!”

If you don’t distinguish yourself from others, you’ll be easily replaced.

So how do you distinguish yourself and stand out from amongst the crowd?

i. Do what others don’t. Be a contrarian. And distinguish yourself from the crowd.

ii. Polarize people. Don’t be a diplomat. Take a strong stand.

iii. Build your own USP.

iv. Don’t cover news. Because hundreds others will do the same. Instead analyze news. Give your opinion on the news.

v. Remember the peacock theory.

“Peacock theory is the idea that in order to attract the most desirable female of the species, it’s necessary to stand out in a flashy and colorful way. For humans… the equivalent of a flashy peacock tail is a shiny shirt, a garish hat, and jewelry that lights up in the dark?basically everything I’d dismissed my whole life as cheesy.” – Neil Strauss

Remember Dennis Rodman? For years, Dennis was a first class basketball player putting up impressive rebounding numbers on the scorecard. But he didn’t receive much publicity and hardly any endorsement contracts. That all changed when he coloured his hair red. By being bold and different, he instantly stood out from the rest of his mates. And made a fortune for himself endorsing products.

Dennis Rodman: Before & After - Hair Colour

My favourite blogger – Havi is more noticeable because she has Selma the Duck as her sidekick!

3. Have a Voice Piece

Benjamin Franklin was the most popular person of his generation. Even today, his face is on the US $100 bill – even though he was never the President of USA (all other US bills have the face of past presidents on them). The reason? Its simple – Franklin understood the power of having a voice piece.

He published extensively. And ran his own newspaper. And because of his voice piece, his thoughts were heard louder than anyone elses!

• Start a blog or a newsletter
• Publish a book

4. Network. Network. Network

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

“If you’re the best in the world at what you do – but no one knows it, does it make a difference?”

Just like Location is the make-or-break point for a piece of real estate property, networking is the make-or-break point for making you indispensable. Unless other people know you and start spreading the word about your expertise, you’ll never become indispensable!

i. First rule of networking: help others before you need help yourself. What can you offer to others that will help them?

ii. Thanking people is the easiest way of networking.

iii. Learn a trick or two from Paris Hilton: Why is Paris Hilton so famous?

iv. Get the current industry experts to endorse you. The way to create a magnet is by rubbing iron against an already existing powerful magnet. You can become magnetic and attract more folks by simply getting other magnetic personalities to give their nod to you!

Action Map:

Click picture to view an expanded chart.

Free Hosting Offer

Friday, March 27th, 2009 | 11 Comments

This Offer Is No Longer Valid.

I will give free hosting to people who are starting out with their online businesses. No catch. You just have to email me if you need it.

Why am I offering free hosting?

Its a good-deed thing.? I have been lucky and have found some very helpful people who helped me get where I am today. So this is my way of paying it forward. Nothing would make me happier than helping you get started with your online business.

Will the hosting be free forever?

Yes-and-no.

I will never charge you for hosting. But I will expect you to move your website to another host once you gain some momentum.

So if you start receiving more than 10,000 unique visitors per month – you should look to get your own hosting.? (By that time – you should be making more than enough from your website.)

This deal is not forever. Its only supposed to get you started without any hosting risk. But there is no specific time limit. It depends on your speed of success.

Rules:

• You can’t host a personal website or blog. This offer is to get you started with your online business.
• You can’t host a website on anything illegal.

Restrictions:

There are no restrictions right now. I will set you up with free hosting on my liquidweb servers.

But I may create a few more rules if I find someone abusing this offer. (For eg: if you email a million people per day or something.)

This Offer Is No Longer Valid.

On Hiring People

Thursday, December 18th, 2008 | No Comments

“I like to hire people who have two traits. They’re smart, and they get things done.” – Merissa Mayer

Focused Energy

Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 | No Comments

Put up a magnifying glass in front of grass. And the grass will start burning because the magnifying glass focuses the sun’s rays on the spot.

The sun on its own would never have burnt the grass even after a thousand years. You need focused energy to get going.