My Visit to TVS School TUMKUR on 31st May 2014

Purpose of th Visit : Training Delivery on the Title “BLOGGING”

Target Audience : TEACHERS

Objective : Creating Interesting Bloggers

6 Words to Remove From Your Vocabulary

Words are powerful things. Consider the various ways they can influence your personal or company brand: A blog people actually want to read, content marketing that lures thousands of new users to your products or services, an authentic voice that gets people interacting with you on social media, succinct business writing that saves time and eliminates uncertainty. Wield them skillfully and words can be some of your most powerful assets.

 

They can also be your undoing. Here are a handful of words and expressions to remove from your vocabulary:

 

Actually and But

 

Carolyn Kopprasch, chief happiness officer at Buffer, recently opined that when it comes to customer service these seemingly innocuous words can put distance between you and your customers. She gives these examples:

 

    Actually, you can do this under "Settings."

 

    Sure thing, you can do this under "Settings!" :)

 

The first sentence implies the customer was wrong about something, and you never want to elicit that sentiment.

 

As for "but," look at the difference removing it makes, she points out.

 

    I really appreciate you writing in, but unfortunately we don't have this feature available.

 

    I really appreciate you writing in! Unfortunately, we don't have this feature available.

 

It's a subtle fix that makes your message more positive.

 

Just

 

No matter the context, this one smacks of negativity. Consider phrases you might hear and how someone might interpret them.

 

    "Just a minute." Your priorities are somewhere other than helping me.

 

    "Just do XYZ." You think I'm having a hard time figuring this out.

 

    "I'm just an intern." You think your power or influence is limited, in which case it certainly is.

 

Blogger, speaker, and consultant Matt Monge takes special issue with the latter example. "You're not just your position. You're an integral part of your organization," he writes. "You're an individual with goals, dreams, abilities, and ideas. You can be a motivated, empowered, positive, valuable member of the team if you just decide to put forth the effort and work it takes to be those things."

 

Always and Never

 

These are classic weapons wielded in relationships that show up in the form of "You always do XYZ" or "You never do ABC." Really? Every single time? Think hard about it--do the behaviors that bother you the most truly happen without fail?

 

"Never" can also be unduly limiting. Even if you think something will never ever happen, voicing your negativity can discourage others from contributing ideas that could solve a problem.

 

Should

 

Everyone has things they could be doing differently but "shoulding on yourself" isn't going to propel you to action. Not only will a self-inflicted guilt trip lead to balking, dwelling on your shortcomings can quickly spiral out of control and result in negative and counter-productive self-talk.

 

"'I should be [doing something more] leads to 'Man, I lack discipline' which leads to 'What's wrong with me?' which leads to 'Maybe I don't have what it takes ... why do I even bother ... I should just quit now ...'" says psychologist and master violinist Dr. Noa Kageyama. "And pretty soon we're sitting on the couch watching reruns of The Office and eating a six-pack of Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches."

 

Instead of "should" Kageyama advises using a phrase that's more specific and solution-focused. For example, you could tell yourself that next time you'll spend five minutes on the behavior you've been avoiding before doing anything else. Or, "This afternoon I will spend 20 minutes [searching online] for ideas that might make [this activity] more interesting and challenging in a motivating way," he suggests.

 

14 Tactics for Reading People's Body Language

1. Look for a lack of crinkles around the eyes to detect a fake smile.

Making a genuine smile--also known as a Duchenne smile--is nearly impossible to do on command. It's why family photos tend to look so awkward. 

The smile, it turns out, is all about the crow's-feet around your eyes. When you're smiling joyfully, they crinkle. When you're faking it, they don't. 

If someone's trying to look happy but really isn't, you won't see the wrinkles.

2. Raised eyebrows are often a sign of discomfort.

In the same way that real smiles shape the wrinkles around your eyes, University of Massachusetts professor Susan Krauss Whitbourne says worry, surprise, or fear can cause people to raise their eyebrows in discomfort. 

So if someone compliments your new hairstyle or outfit with their eyebrows raised, it may not be sincere.

3. If their voice goes up or down, they're likely interested.

Whether you know it or not, your vocal range shows your interest.

"Once a conversation begins, besotted women slip into sing-songy voices," Psychology Today reports, "while men drop theirs an octave." 

4. If they mirror your body language, the conversation is probably going well.

When two people are getting along, their postures and movements mirror each other's. When your best friend crosses her legs, you will, too. If you're on a date that's going well, you'll both be making the same goofy hand gestures. 

This is because we mirror each other when we're feeling a connection, says positive psychologist Barbara Fredrickson.

5. Eye contact shows interest--both positive and negative.

When you look at someone in the eyes, it sets an arousal state in the body. 

"How that arousal is interpreted, however, depends on the parties involved and the circumstances," writes Claremont McKenna College organizational psychologist Ronald E. Riggio. "Being stared at by a stranger who appears large or ominous can be seen as a threat and elicit a fear response ... However, the gaze of a potential sexual partner causes arousal that can be interpreted positively--as a sexual invitation." 

6. But if they look into your eyes for too long, they might be lying.

In an attempt to avoid looking shifty-eyed, some liars will purposefully hold their gaze a touch too long, so that it's slightly uncomfortable. 

They may also stand very still and not blink.

7. An expansive pose signals power and a sense of achievement.

How people hold themselves is a big clue as to how they're feeling. Harvard professor Amy Cuddy finds that expansive poses increase testosterone and confidence. If they're leaning back and relaxed, they feel powerful and in control. Similarly, research shows that even people born blind raise their arms in a V shape and lift their chins slightly when they win a physical competition.

On the other hand, a low-power pose--seen when someone closes up and wraps their arms around themselves--increases cortisol, a stress hormone. 

8. Crossed legs are usually a sign of resistance and low receptivity, and are a bad sign in a negotiation.

Out of 2,000 negotiations videotaped by Gerard I. Nierenberg and Henry H. Calero, the authors of "How to Read a Person Like a Book," there wasn't a single settlement when one of the negotiators had their legs crossed. 

Psychologically, crossed legs signal that a person is mentally, emotionally, and physically closed off--which may mean they're less likely to budge in a negotiation.

9. A "cluster" of gestures shows a real feeling of connection.

Attraction isn't communicated through one signal but a sequence.

Neuropsychologist Marsha Lucas has a good one to watch for: "After making eye contact, she looks down a bit, gathers or otherwise preens her hair, and then looks up at you while her chin is tipped."

10. If they're laughing with you, they're probably into you.

If someone is receptive to your humor, they're likely interested in you.

Evolutionary psychologists say that humor plays a pivotal role in human development. It serves as a way of signaling a desire for a relationship, be it platonic or romantic.

11. A clenched jaw, tightened neck, or furrowed brow shows stress.

All these are "limbic responses" associated with the limbic system in the brain. 

"Emotion, spotting and reacting to threats, as well as assuring our survival, are all heavy responsibilities of the limbic system," says former FBI counterintelligence agent Joe Navarro. "The bus leaves without us, and we are clenching our jaws, rubbing our necks. We are asked to work another weekend, and the orbits of our eyes narrow as our chin lowers."

Humans have been displaying discomfort this way for millions of years, Navarro says.

12. Expansive, authoritative postures show leadership. 

Whether they're innate or learned, there are a number of signals and behaviors people use when they feel that they're a leader, or at least are trying to convince you that they are.

They include holding an erect posture, walking purposefully, steepling and palm-down hand gestures, and generally open and expansive body postures. 

13. A shaking leg signals a shaky inner state.

"Your legs are the largest area of your body," University of Massachusetts professor Susan Whitbourne says, "so when they move, it's pretty hard for others not to notice." 

A shaky leg signals anxiety, irritation, or both, she says. 

14. Crossed arms can signal defensiveness, depending on the context.

It's easy to seize on body-language cues, but it's important to be aware of the context. While crossed arms typically indicate that someone is closed off, people are also more likely to cross their arms when it's cold and when their chair doesn't have an armrest. 

Be aware of the environment before making a decision or changing strategy based on these types of behaviors.

 

 

11 Techniques for Connecting With Your Remote Team

Team Meetings:

1.  Create a regular schedule and stick with it. Avoid the temptation to have impromptu meetings with those who are under your same roof.

2.  Incorporate rituals into your virtual meetings like quickly sharing High's/Low's since your last meeting to get warmed up and create a window into your team's world.

3.  Ask for input from those who are remote first, then canvass the in-person team members to avoid falling into the "out of sight, out of mind" syndrome.

4.  Send all documents in advance so everyone is (literally) on the same page.

Electronic Meeting Tools:

5.  Use various tools to engage the remote employee in the conversations.  Google Hangouts, Skype,  GoToMeeting and other on-line collaboration tools allow your team remain intellectually and visually connected.

6.  Consider having everyone attend electronically if your team is only partially remote to level the playing field.

Face-to-Face Time:

7.  Periodically bring your entire team together. This also creates a fun team ritual (e.g., a quarterly or annual meeting).

8.  There is no substitute for another as powerful as face-to-face interaction, so be intentional with your agenda to facilitate "connection time."  It could range from a structured team activity to completely unstructured time just to talk over a meal.

9.  Do not cram your agenda so you strangle any chance for your team to really connect during breaks or really delve into issues that bubble up during a meeting.

Personal Touch:

10.  Remember, you live in a high-tech world, but leadership is still a high-touch job.

11.  Tame your technology. It's great to send emails, texts and IMs to your remote team, but if you really want to get the best from them, give the best of yourself with an occasional handwritten note of appreciation or a grateful voice message. Going old school can get you new, improved results.

 

 

7 Simple Secrets of the Best Presentations

1. Never lecture.

At home, a lecture is what happens when your parents catch you misbehaving. (Boring.) In college, a lecture is what happens when you've got a dull professor. (Really boring.) In business, a lecture is what happens when a presenter uses slides as talking points.  (Deadly boring.) Don't ever force people to listen to you read your slides.

2. Appeal to emotion.

The purpose of a business presentation is to bring the audience members from their current emotion state (usually skeptical or uninterested) to the emotional state where they'll make a favorable decision (one hopes they will be excited and ready to take action). Therefore, structure your presentation as a journey through series of emotions, rather than a series of facts.

Example 1:

1. Fearful. (Draw their attention to a problem.)
2. Relieved. (There is a solution to that problem.)
3. Trusting. (They believe that you and your company are credible.)
4. Convinced. (They're ready to take action.)

Example 2:

1. Amazed. (Draw their attention with something they didn't know.)
2. Curious. (They see why your idea is interesting.)
3. Inspired. (They see why your idea is revolutionary.)
4. Activated. (They're now crazy anxious to be part of it.)

3. Tell stories.

Great presentations are always a collection of stories. A story might be something as short as an explanation of how you arrived at a particular statistic or an entire five-​minute-​long business anecdote.  As long as they're relevant and concise, these stories will create the emotional response you're seeking.

4. Use signposts.

In real-​world journeys, signposts guide you to your destination ("Smallville 10 Miles") or tell you when you've arrived ("Welcome to Smallville!").  In business presentations, signposts are slides that contain facts, graphics, or tables that either point to where you want your audience to go or tell it when it has arrived.

5. Keep it simple.

People pay attention to stories that are relevant, so buttress your stories and signposts with easily understood but pertinent facts that are quantifiable, verifiable, memorable, and dramatic. People also shut off their brains when confronted with complexity, so never put up a slide or show a video that's not immediately and easily understandable.

6. Get personal.

Select one person in the audience and speak directly to that person. Pretend that everyone else is just overhearing what you're saying, as at a party. Every time you move to another segment of the presentation, switch to a new person. This makes each person in the audience feel as if you were talking to him or her personally, even if you "target" only a few people.

7. Use the 20/20 rule.

Cut your presentation to 20 minutes or fewer and rehearse your presentation 20 times or more. 'Nuff said.

10 Rules of Building a Successful (and Fun) Family Company

1. Personal Assessments:  Who Are We?  The quality of interaction determines the success or failure of the family business. It requires each family member to be able to answer the question "Who are we?"  Each person should know what personality style he or she and his or her family members leans toward.  These include Personal Power, People Power, Team Power, and Quality Power. Once there is an understanding of each person's personality styles, family members must learn how to adapt to minimize friction and maximize efficiency.

2. Goal Setting: Company vs. Personal. One critical criterion for company goals is that they motivate all generations within the family business. The potential disconnect between generations is easy to make and must be realized and resolved before "buy-in" can be attained. Each person must write down and share his or her personal and business goals for specific time frames. Palubiak suggests six months, 12 months, and 36 months.

3. Corporate Mission: Common Purpose. Family businesses have a greater need to create and implement a clear, compelling, unifying company mission statement. This is owing to the complex patterns of relationships and behaviors in these companies, especially between family and nonfamily employees.

4. Employee Partnership: A True Benefit. You need good people to grow. They must run the business as if it were their own. The potential for partnerships with employees at family businesses is critical because of the shared sense of commitment and requirement for respect between all individuals. To eliminate the common "us against them" attitude, use empowering job titles, be clear about what is expected, ask them for feedback and ideas, and inform everyone regularly on company performance.

5. Employee Feedback: A Direct Link. The employee (family member or not) is the ultimate link between management and the customer. The ability to communicate openly, regardless of whether one is related to the family that owns the business, is absolutely essential. Obtaining employee feedback can be designed in a free-flowing format or structured on a more formal basis, such as being facilitated by a third party using a process known as Employee Perception Assessment.

6. Organizational Chart: Who and Where. Who is doing what, and who should be doing what? Who reports to whom? Who is accountable for what? You must visually display the organizational chart for each member of the family business to see and easily understand. Reevaluate this chart every year. When family members are put in jobs they are not suited for, it erodes the family dynamics.

7. Building Strengths: Education and Coaching. Many family-owned businesses do not have adequate systems in place, and the people who work at those companies aren't being properly coached to be managers/leaders. Often, the first generation simply doesn't trust its kids and isn't supporting their growth and development. This causes an urgent and unmet need to educate and coach the younger generation to become the next leaders of the company. Kids shouldn't be allowed to just wait for their parents to retire. They must know the ins and outs of the company.

8. Business Growth Strategies: The Direction. You must analyze the market and select the right races to compete in. The only way for any business to survive in today's dynamically changing marketplace includes keeping pace with radical social, technological, and other disruptive changes. Too often, the older generation is caught in its old ways and won't adapt to the realities the younger generation can see.  There are three primary growth strategies family businesses can choose to focus on, which include:

1. Intensive growth--market penetration, market development, product development

2. Integrative growth--backward integration, forward integration, horizontal integration

3. Diversification growth--concentric diversification, horizontal diversification, conglomerate diversification 

Empowering the younger generations to do competitive/marketplace analysis will help you choose which growth strategy(ies) to implement.

9. Business Plan: The Implementation. It's impossible to implement a vigorous growth plan for your family-owned business without a sense of communal buy-in. Palubiak suggests family members (and other employees) carefully review and assess progress toward key strategic goals once every 90 days. It's impossible to overstate the importance of establishing and holding to a pattern of 90-day review and assessments. Then, benchmark against your company and competitors. These key performance indicators, or KPIs, and flash reports are really team-building tools and help all generations within the company work efficiently and effectively toward the strategic goals. Finally, leverage your professional team (accountant, financial adviser, attorney, banker, etc.) to help support your business plan and strategic goals.

10. Celebration: Pop the Cork! Many family businesses don't find enough reasons to celebrate in the workplace. If your family employees' achievements and hard work are not being celebrated in the workplace, then how do you think they will feel at home/family get-togethers? Celebrating once a year, such as a holiday party, is not enough. Try the 90-day rule again, and focus on celebrating hard work and achievements for those 90 days. A brief, informal one-on-one conversation with your son or daughter acknowledging him or her for a job well done is incredibly important. 

These simple actions will tremendously enhance both your personal and business life! These 10 practical tactics will help any family company (or even any nonfamily company) focus on what's important and do the work to assure growth and success over a sustained period. Now it's your turn.

What are your challenges in running a family business, and which tactics do you focus on? Please let me know your comments and questions in the Comments section below.

10 Times You're Better Off Saying Nothing at All

1. When the other side in a negotiation starts debating against itself.

Sometimes people get into a spiral of bad negotiating tactics. They wind up outsmarting themselves--perhaps making an offer and then rejecting their own offer because they think you won't take it. Imagine a customer who opens a conversation by saying that he understands you can't cut the price on your product before asking for some smaller concession--and then maybe even convincing himself that even that's too much to ask for.

For a fun, extreme example of this in action, see this video from The Princess Bride. Often your best move in that situation is to keep your mouth shut and simply stay out of their way.

2. When you've asked a question.

We all know these people, right? They ask questions but can't wait for you to finish so they can offer their own viewpoint. Sometimes they don't even bother waiting and instead try to hurry you along with verbal cues--"uh-huh, uh-huh, right, right, right..."

When they asked for advice, what they really meant was, "Let's fast-forward to the part where I tell you what I think, instead." Don't be like them. To paraphrase baseball great Yogi Berra, you can observe a lot by watching, and you can also learn a lot by listening.

3. When the other side misunderstands (and you don't have a duty to talk).

A lawyer once told me about selling a client's company. To make a long story short (lawyers love that phrase), the negotiation went much more smoothly than she'd expected. Eventually, she realized this was because some whiz-kid M.B.A. on the other side of the table had made a simple math error. That led him to overestimate vastly how much money the acquiring company would likely make after the deal was done.

The lawyer was overcome with apprehension, until she realized the right thing to say: nothing at all. That way, she wouldn't be breaching her duty not to misrepresent facts to the buyer, but she also wouldn't do anything to scuttle her client's deal. The moral of the story is that you don't always have an obligation to correct someone else's mistakes.

4. When you don't have any idea what you're talking about.

Silence is awkward. As a result, people often rush to fill it. I used to use this tendency to my advantage when I was a trial attorney taking depositions in civil cases. Sometimes, I'd ask a witness an open-ended question, and even though the witness's tone of voice suggested he'd finished his answer, I'd just continue to wait expectantly, as if anybody with half a clue would understand he had to keep it coming. Sometimes, the witness would keep going and dig himself a bigger hole.

You never have to fill a silence, especially when you don't have anything useful to fill it with. (In those cases, it's true: Everything you say may well in fact be used against you.)

5. When you need someone else to get the credit.

As President Harry S. Truman once said, you can accomplish just about anything if you don't care who gets the credit. Sometimes, that means staying quiet just long enough for someone else to think of your solution and propose it as his or her own.

6. When you are bragging, as opposed to sharing.

This one is among the scourges of social media. Go on Facebook, for example, and sometimes it seems as if everyone you know is eating well, taking amazing vacations, running marathons, and enjoying storybook relationships.

Is all of this about social sharing or social bragging? If you find you're leaning toward the latter with the things you talk about, maybe it's time to be quiet.

7. When your comment is more about you than the other person.

Suppose your co-worker Sally is excited for her plans for the weekend. You catch yourself ready to tell her about a better place than what she's planned or why she should take her trip on another weekend--maybe when the weather is better, when the traffic will be less hectic, or when she'll have fewer competing commitments.

Aw, that's really nice of you--as long as you're sure your comments are truly intended to improve her experience or offer good advice. If there's a chance you're commenting out of jealousy or pride, however, maybe you'd be better off zipping it.

8. When you want someone else to grow.

This is a similar point to when you want someone else to get the credit for a good idea. If you have a second grader in your family, chances are you could do her homework for her without much effort. But what would be the point? You want her to learn and grow, which means she has to be the one to come to the conclusions on her own.

The same thing is true in many other circumstances. Instead of leaping forward to answer a thoughtful question that you know the answer to, sometimes it makes sense to hold back and let others figure it out.

9. When you are clearly boring people.

I admit it. I've got what's called "the Irish gift of gab." I enjoy telling stories. My wife laughs at how often I seem to wind up telling total strangers the story of how she and I met and got together. It's a good one, though! You see, we'd gone to college together and dated for a while, but then broke up...

OK, I'll hold off on it for now, and that's the point. Most of us can tell when we're holding court for an audience that simply couldn't care less. In that case, cut it short, wrap things up, and stop talking.

10. When you begin a speech.

I love this example, and it's something I first put into practice when arguing appeals in court.

Whenever I give a speech, I try to start out with a long, uncomfortable pause. Doing so puts the audience ill at ease for a moment and gets them rooting for you. They worry that you've lost your notes or that you're about to keel over from a panic attack. That way, when you start talking, you'll have at least a few of them on your side, happy that at least you haven't made them witness an embarrassing meltdown (h/t, Winston Churchill).

 

 

6 Ways Supersmart People Succeed

Here are six ways your supersmart competitors are working to gain advantage over you. See if you can rise above their level and defeat them.

1. They do their homework. I am constantly amazed at how many companies and people take on projects and endeavors with little research or testing. No one wants to end up with analysis paralysis, but these days, basic research requires very little time and effort. Supersmart people will spend a reasonable amount of time on the Internet or talking to the right people before formulating and advocating theories. In any given conflict, having facts and data can easily sway those on the fence and shorten an argument. A single hour of research can create provide a tenfold return in terms of efficiency and productivity.

2. They keep their ego in check. A healthy ego is certainly important to be a strong leader, but it should not be engaged at the expense of great ideas or respect from your opponents. So often I see people wrapped up in the idea of being right rather than successful. Supersmart people know there is little glory in winning the battle of ideas, only to fail because it was a poor idea. They always look for others who bring smart ideas and plans to the table and happily defer so they can learn and become smarter. That being said, they rarely give way to people who just spout ideas without practicing the previous idea. (See No.1).

3.  They reduce guessing. Speculation has its place in business and is often necessary, but as a primary form of execution, it will lead to failure more often than success. There are relatively safe ways to test almost any theory in short order.

Supersmart people will take a little extra time and effort to do as Jim Collins suggests and "fire bullets before cannonballs" so odds of success are greatly increased and resources are reserved.

4. They team up with other supersmart people. There is definite strength in numbers when competing for market share or even just a simple idea. Supersmart people know there is little glory in failing alone when you could have won together. That's why they build a network of other supersmart people whom they can consult and partner with for greater success. Having those resources at your fingertips can give you extra advantage over someone who has to find smart people just to get started.

5. They find the shortest distance from A to B. Time and effort are almost always major factors when competing. Even when you are just battling over ideas, too much time spent going around without getting to the point will result in lost audience and supporters. Supersmart people pride themselves on efficiency. They consistently look to find ways they can get their point across or make something happen better and faster even if the method wasn't their own idea. (See No. 2.)

6. They constantly gauge when to shift or quit. Once a path is set, people need to commit, but never to the point of going off a cliff. Blind momentum can sometimes be more dangerous in competition than just standing still. 

Supersmart people believe in constant measurement, because they know that even with the best research and planning, there are always variables that can change the situational dynamic. They work in a constant state of feedback and adjustment so they can create success no matter what fate sends their way. And as soon as total inevitable failure is on the horizon, supersmart people are the first to take responsibility and put on the brakes, even at great personal cost. That is because they know they can always work toward a smarter solution.

 

 

15 Ways to Find More Time to Think

1. Simply deciding to do it puts you ahead of the game.

Most of us never take the time to realize we could use some time to think.

2. Breakfast could be the most important meal of the day. 

One entrepreneur I talked to has taken to getting up earlier and is in his local coffee shop by 5 a.m. He says he always buys a newspaper, "so I won't look even weirder than I am," but he spends virtually all of his time just staring into space. "The key, I find, is not to distract myself with things like checking email or voice mail, or making 'to do' lists," he says. "I just sit and think."

3. First things first.

Intriguingly, others I talked to also tried to carve out thinking time early in the day. But they do it before breakfast. Typically, they said, the first thing they used to do was check email and skim the headlines.  Now, they are putting that off, until they have spent some time thinking about their most important objectives.

4. Simplifying. 

Stress and needless distractions ("Where the heck did I put that file?") detract from your ability to think.  Each of the people I talked to said they were taking steps to become even more organized. One of the ideas I particularly liked: creating an agenda for the following day--with all the necessary supporting materials at hand--before they turned off their computer at night.

5. Talking out loud.

This one particularly resonated with me, because I do it all the time, to the puzzlement of my wife and kids. I talk to myself and others do, too, when they are trying to reason things out.

6. Reinstating the lunch break.

Because we are busy, there is a natural tendency to work through lunch, or to grab a quick sandwich or salad at your desk, if you are not meeting with a client. Successful entrepreneurs said that even 30 minutes away from the office in the middle of the day often spurred new ideas. Intriguingly, many said eating alone triggered new ideas.

7. Relaxing before taking a break.

Coming up with ideas in the shower, or while taking a nap, really does seem to work, according to the people I talked to--although they were quick to add a twist. They said the best ideas came to them when they weren't stressed. "If I am worried about something, that's all I concentrate on in the shower," said one woman. "Now, I try to be stress-free before I step into the tub. It doesn't guarantee I will get a new idea, but it seems to increase my chances."

8. Shake up your routine. 

I found this one interesting. One of the reasons people say you are able to generate more ideas in the shower is because the task of showering is so routine. Since you do it by rote, your mind is free to wander. No one I talked to disagreed with that theory, but they said they noticed that they got more and different ideas when they were doing something out of the ordinary, such as seeing a movie in the middle of day or taking a break at an unexpected time.

9. Exercise.

Many people said they did their best thinking while exercising. The kind of exercise itself didn't matter, but running and biking were the two things mentioned most often.

10. Building in a break.

Within a five-minute drive of her house, one of the entrepreneurs told me, is an upscale gym and a place where "I can grab something healthy to eat. I have made it a point to budget an hour a day to take advantage of both places, and I refuse to check email or voice mail during that time."

11. Fly first class. 

People used to say they used their travel time up in the air to think. But with packed planes and smaller seats, that option has become more difficult. One option: Fly first class whenever you can, said one of the men I talked to. "It's about equivalent to what coach used to be about 30 years ago," he said. "I find it helps."

12. Schedule it.

I have my doubts about this one, but several people I talked to swear by it. They block off 15 minutes every day--in the middle of the day--that is labeled "Thinking" on their calendar.

13. In praise of dead cell phones.

"I would have never believed this one if it hadn't happened to me," one of the people told me. "I was driving to a client meeting four hours away and my cell-phone battery died and I didn't have a car charger. After about 20 minutes--20 long minutes of panic and withdrawal pain--I came to appreciate the fact that I was not about to be interrupted. I am still not great about turning off my phone for long stretches, but I try."

14. Silence in any form is seen as good. 

Lots of entrepreneurs prize the moments--whenever they occur in the day--when they can simply block out noise.

15. The old ways still work. 

I was curious, so I asked about the idea of taking some time off--a long weekend, perhaps--where you tried to do nothing but contemplate what's important. Everybody I talked to endorsed the idea and then promptly said they can't remember the last time they did no work over three consecutive days.

 

 

15 Ways to Find More Time to Think

Let's talk about the 15 ways you could carve out more time to think, ideas suggested to me by some of the most successful entrepreneurs I know.

1. Simply deciding to do it puts you ahead of the game.

Most of us never take the time to realize we could use some time to think.

2. Breakfast could be the most important meal of the day. 

One entrepreneur I talked to has taken to getting up earlier and is in his local coffee shop by 5 a.m. He says he always buys a newspaper, "so I won't look even weirder than I am," but he spends virtually all of his time just staring into space. "The key, I find, is not to distract myself with things like checking email or voice mail, or making 'to do' lists," he says. "I just sit and think."

3. First things first.

Intriguingly, others I talked to also tried to carve out thinking time early in the day. But they do it before breakfast. Typically, they said, the first thing they used to do was check email and skim the headlines.  Now, they are putting that off, until they have spent some time thinking about their most important objectives.

4. Simplifying. 

Stress and needless distractions ("Where the heck did I put that file?") detract from your ability to think.  Each of the people I talked to said they were taking steps to become even more organized. One of the ideas I particularly liked: creating an agenda for the following day--with all the necessary supporting materials at hand--before they turned off their computer at night.

5. Talking out loud.

This one particularly resonated with me, because I do it all the time, to the puzzlement of my wife and kids. I talk to myself and others do, too, when they are trying to reason things out.

6. Reinstating the lunch break.

Because we are busy, there is a natural tendency to work through lunch, or to grab a quick sandwich or salad at your desk, if you are not meeting with a client. Successful entrepreneurs said that even 30 minutes away from the office in the middle of the day often spurred new ideas. Intriguingly, many said eating alone triggered new ideas.

7. Relaxing before taking a break.

Coming up with ideas in the shower, or while taking a nap, really does seem to work, according to the people I talked to--although they were quick to add a twist. They said the best ideas came to them when they weren't stressed. "If I am worried about something, that's all I concentrate on in the shower," said one woman. "Now, I try to be stress-free before I step into the tub. It doesn't guarantee I will get a new idea, but it seems to increase my chances."

8. Shake up your routine. 

I found this one interesting. One of the reasons people say you are able to generate more ideas in the shower is because the task of showering is so routine. Since you do it by rote, your mind is free to wander. No one I talked to disagreed with that theory, but they said they noticed that they got more and different ideas when they were doing something out of the ordinary, such as seeing a movie in the middle of day or taking a break at an unexpected time.

9. Exercise.

Many people said they did their best thinking while exercising. The kind of exercise itself didn't matter, but running and biking were the two things mentioned most often.

10. Building in a break.

Within a five-minute drive of her house, one of the entrepreneurs told me, is an upscale gym and a place where "I can grab something healthy to eat. I have made it a point to budget an hour a day to take advantage of both places, and I refuse to check email or voice mail during that time."

11. Fly first class. 

People used to say they used their travel time up in the air to think. But with packed planes and smaller seats, that option has become more difficult. One option: Fly first class whenever you can, said one of the men I talked to. "It's about equivalent to what coach used to be about 30 years ago," he said. "I find it helps."

12. Schedule it.

I have my doubts about this one, but several people I talked to swear by it. They block off 15 minutes every day--in the middle of the day--that is labeled "Thinking" on their calendar.

13. In praise of dead cell phones.

"I would have never believed this one if it hadn't happened to me," one of the people told me. "I was driving to a client meeting four hours away and my cell-phone battery died and I didn't have a car charger. After about 20 minutes--20 long minutes of panic and withdrawal pain--I came to appreciate the fact that I was not about to be interrupted. I am still not great about turning off my phone for long stretches, but I try."

14. Silence in any form is seen as good. 

Lots of entrepreneurs prize the moments--whenever they occur in the day--when they can simply block out noise.

15. The old ways still work. 

I was curious, so I asked about the idea of taking some time off--a long weekend, perhaps--where you tried to do nothing but contemplate what's important. Everybody I talked to endorsed the idea and then promptly said they can't remember the last time they did no work over three consecutive days.

 

 

11 Ways to Get Your First 1,000 Customers

Attracting a strong and loyal customer base is a matter of life or death for your e-commerce company. Ideally, adoption will snowball, and your startup's future will be bright and profitable. But how to make it happen?

Take some advice from Mitch Wainer, CMO of DigitalOcean, a cloud hosting site for developers. In two years, Wainer has expanded the company to 130,000 users through what he calls "growth hacks," which any online business can use. Here's how they work:

1. Acquire and understand 100 early adopters.

DigitalOcean attracted its first 50 customers by demoing in front of a New York tech meetup.

However you capture your first cadre of users, make sure to offer whatever you're creating or building for free in beta and then learn from your mistakes as quickly as possible.

"'Fail faster' is the motto, and that's going to allow you to adjust and find the success stories and work within those success stories," Wainer says. "You want to learn as much as possible about your first hundred users in the beginning."

When DigitalOcean was in its infancy, Wainer says, he would have phone conversations with early adopters and ask them a variety of questions, about their favorite foods and books, what kinds of blogs and websites they visited most often, as well as how they found DigitalOcean in the first place. The point? To come up with a blueprint of a typical customer to know how to target the rest of the 900 you want, or 199,900 you eventually want, using your products or services.

2. Allocate a small marketing budget, set goals, and diligently track your progress meeting them.

You may be bootstrapping, but getting the world to find and try your website or app isn't going to happen without at least a bit of investment. Set goals such as doubling your user numbers within 30 days or by a certain percentage.

"Whatever it is, you want to set targets and goals month over month, and you want to be tracking day to day," he says.

3. Offer promo codes to increase conversions.

They're highly effective in increasing user growth and engagement and can be distributed via banner and text ads as well as social media.

"Display advertising worked really well for us when we were building the first hundred customers," Wainer says. "We used BuySellAds.com and BuyAds.com to find relevant websites to place a banner ad on, and on those banner ads, we would offer a promo code."

4. Measure your conversions.

In the beginning, as you're accelerating, it's important to closely monitor every marketing campaign you set in motion as well as every tweak you make to your website to understand what's most effective in getting people to sign up or otherwise take an action you want them to take. To do that, Wainer suggests creating monthly key performance indicator (KPI) reports, an easy thing to do with a simple spreadsheet populated with data from Google Analytics as well your conversion data. For example, are people signing up with a credit card or only with an email and password?

"You want to build monthly reports to track your channels and your spend, and how many users came through that channel, and then the CPA (cost per action) for those specific channels," Wainer says. "For instance, if it's social media or if it's banner ads [that are] producing a high CPA, and then you find that retargeting generates a lower CPA, you might want to allocate your funds to retargeting instead of investing more money into social media."

Wainer says he uses Google Analytics URL Builder nearly every day to gauge campaign performance by creating a tracking link. To use it, you enter the URL for a page to which you want to redirect an ad, as well as the campaign medium, such as Google, Twitter, or Facebook, and whether it's cost per click, a banner, or an email. After assigning a name based on the campaign title, the tool creates a long URL you can shrink on a URL shortener such as bit.ly.

"You can create different campaigns with that link and add it to your Google Analytics account to understand how many conversions a campaign drove, and then make a decision on whether or not to scale that campaign or to cut back," he says.

5. Hire a writer and get serious about content marketing.

Providing quality content for free is a fantastic way not only to draw people to your website but to demonstrate your domain expertise. For example, DigitalOcean not only provides programming tutorials on its site, it also pays developers $50 per post to contribute content.

Wainer says startups should aim for about 20 posts per month that appeal to a typical customer. More of his advice:

• Create listicle BuzzFeed-type headlines involving numbers, such as "5 Ways to Do XYZ."
• Post longer content. Google likes 500-plus words.
• Use Google's keyword tool within AdWords to understand which key words generate high-volume traffic, high-search volumes, and low competition. Google Trends also shows which words people are searching for most at the moment.
• Include calls to action at the bottom of blog posts or articles, where they tend to get more engagement compared with other places on the page.
• Optimize headlines and meta descriptions with H1, H2, H3 tags (check out that link if you don't know what this means).
• Post content on other websites and include links back to your site.
• Consider including a user community on your site where people can ask and answer questions. "[At DigitalOcean] those questions become individual pages, so essentially we're having user-generated content on our website that gets indexed by Google and drives more traffic to our website, which again gets retargeted throughout the Web," Wainer says.

In short, you need to build a marketing engine that puts into motion a snowball effect.

6. Measure churn, cost of acquiring customers, lifetime value of customers, and more.

To get the next 900 users and beyond, it's important to measure as much as possible, including your monthly churn--which is the percentage of users who unsubscribe or stop using your service--a number that shouldn't rise above 10 percent, with 2 percent being an acceptable number, Wainer says.

Other things to measure: cost of customer acquisition (CAC), lifetime value of your customer (LTV), and the relationship between the two. Wainer says software as a service (SaaS) companies like DigitalOcean should aim for an LTV to be three times greater than a CAC.

"Also, you want to understand...how many months it will take to pay back the CAC," he says. "The best SaaS businesses are able to recover their CAC between five to seven months."

7. Play with your pricing and website design.

Wainer says DigitalOcean was able to expand the number of users fourfold by AB testing call-to-action buttons, pricing models, positioning, messaging, and design. The important thing is to track the funnel of how users interact with your website--when they sign up with an email address, enter payment information, convert, and activate.

"You want to create this funnel and attach numbers to each layer of the funnel going down," says Wainer,  "and then basically you're going to build out [the] percentages [of] your conversion rates from when they sign up to when they activate with a payment profile."

8. Be aggressive with PR.

Wainer used his personal network to find a friend of a friend who could make an introduction to someone at TechCrunch, and then spent time selling the writer on an exclusive story that would announce a product launch.

"It catapulted our growth immediately," he says, "so we were signing up about 10 customers a day, and then after the release came out, we started signing up over 100 a day, so PR can really help spark a new level of growth for your business if you pair it with the right product release of the right announcement that's going to disrupt the market. So just work your network, and don't be afraid to cold email the writers that write about your industry."

9. Incentivize users with a referral program.

If you want your customers to become your salespeople, it's important to empower them with ready-made banner ads and materials that are easy to share on the Web and create referral links that generate more traffic for your website.

DigitalOcean also offers to pay customers who successfully promote the platform with credits for reduced-price subscriptions instead of cash, a strategy Wainer says helps keep costs down. His favorite referral automation tool: Ambassador, which has plans that start at $99 a month.

"Another great referral tactic is to create a contest to incentivize your users to generate more signups within a given time frame, like a 30-day period," he says. "At the end of the 30-day period, you can reward them with 2X or 3X commissions for the month. And maybe create a leaderboard for a little bit more of a competitive environment."

10. Target and engage with key influencers and ideal customers on social media.

DigitalOcean has used HootSuite and Sprout Social as well as Facebook and Twitter ads to get help doing this.

"[It's] understanding who your key influencers are in the industry, engaging with them, retweeting them, favoriting their tweets to get on their radar, reaching out to your user base with promo codes or incentives to sign up for your product online," Wainer says. "Actively participate in tweets and mentions in a timely manner. Engage with them, create conversations, create relationships, because those relationships build more awareness and spread via word of mouth your product or service."

He also suggests answering highly visible questions on Quora that are relevant to your industry or your business and position your company as a thought leader.

11. Use email marketing, but keep it simple.

DigitalOcean has used MailChimp and Campaign Monitor for help with email campaigns, but Wainer says the most important thing here is to keep emails and subject lines as simple and short as possible.

"An email with a subject line with just 'Thank you' works really well," he says. "A/B test every email. Focus on subject lines, add large calls to action at the bottom of every email to increase engagement. Include incentives such as a promo code."

The best time to send promotional emails? Midweek between the hours of 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. ET, when overall Web activity is at its peak.

Goodwill works well, too. Wainer says DigitalOcean has had success automatically sending customers who drop the service an email from the CEO asking for their feedback along with a note telling them their account has been auto-credited. In fact, during one 30-day period in which the company sent out 4,700 emails, 15 percent reactivated.

"It generated an additional $100,000 in annual run rate," says Wainer.

Clearly DigitalOcean is doing something right. The company--valued at $153 million--recently raised $37 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz.

 

 

10 Times You're Better Off Saying Nothing at All

I'm not referring here simply to the advice your mother might have given you about keeping your mouth shut if you don't have anything nice to say. Instead, think of the big moments when people come close to achieving goals, accomplishing great things, or even just developing good relationships and encouraging people to like them more. Sometimes, a simple slip of the tongue can set them back and destroy all they've worked for.

It's the same issue whether we're talking about negotiations, investigations, or plain old conversations. So, in the interest of preventing us from wishing wistfully that our mouths had been on Mute, here are 10 times when the sounds of silence are the best sounds of all.

1. When the other side in a negotiation starts debating against itself.

Sometimes people get into a spiral of bad negotiating tactics. They wind up outsmarting themselves--perhaps making an offer and then rejecting their own offer because they think you won't take it. Imagine a customer who opens a conversation by saying that he understands you can't cut the price on your product before asking for some smaller concession--and then maybe even convincing himself that even that's too much to ask for.

For a fun, extreme example of this in action, see this video from The Princess Bride Often your best move in that situation is to keep your mouth shut and simply stay out of their way.

2. When you've asked a question.

We all know these people, right? They ask questions but can't wait for you to finish so they can offer their own viewpoint. Sometimes they don't even bother waiting and instead try to hurry you along with verbal cues--"uh-huh, uh-huh, right, right, right..."

When they asked for advice, what they really meant was, "Let's fast-forward to the part where I tell you what I think, instead." Don't be like them. To paraphrase baseball great Yogi Berra, you can observe a lot by watching, and you can also learn a lot by listening.

3. When the other side misunderstands (and you don't have a duty to talk).

A lawyer once told me about selling a client's company. To make a long story short (lawyers love that phrase), the negotiation went much more smoothly than she'd expected. Eventually, she realized this was because some whiz-kid M.B.A. on the other side of the table had made a simple math error. That led him to overestimate vastly how much money the acquiring company would likely make after the deal was done.

The lawyer was overcome with apprehension, until she realized the right thing to say: nothing at all. That way, she wouldn't be breaching her duty not to misrepresent facts to the buyer, but she also wouldn't do anything to scuttle her client's deal. The moral of the story is that you don't always have an obligation to correct someone else's mistakes.

4. When you don't have any idea what you're talking about.

Silence is awkward. As a result, people often rush to fill it. I used to use this tendency to my advantage when I was a trial attorney taking depositions in civil cases. Sometimes, I'd ask a witness an open-ended question, and even though the witness's tone of voice suggested he'd finished his answer, I'd just continue to wait expectantly, as if anybody with half a clue would understand he had to keep it coming. Sometimes, the witness would keep going and dig himself a bigger hole.

You never have to fill a silence, especially when you don't have anything useful to fill it with. (In those cases, it's true: Everything you say may well in fact be used against you.)

5. When you need someone else to get the credit.

As President Harry S. Truman once said, you can accomplish just about anything if you don't care who gets the credit. Sometimes, that means staying quiet just long enough for someone else to think of your solution and propose it as his or her own.

6. When you are bragging, as opposed to sharing.

This one is among the scourges of social media. Go on Facebook, for example, and sometimes it seems as if everyone you know is eating well, taking amazing vacations, running marathons, and enjoying storybook relationships.

Is all of this about social sharing or social bragging? If you find you're leaning toward the latter with the things you talk about, maybe it's time to be quiet.

7. When your comment is more about you than the other person.

Suppose your co-worker Sally is excited for her plans for the weekend. You catch yourself ready to tell her about a better place than what she's planned or why she should take her trip on another weekend--maybe when the weather is better, when the traffic will be less hectic, or when she'll have fewer competing commitments.

Aw, that's really nice of you--as long as you're sure your comments are truly intended to improve her experience or offer good advice. If there's a chance you're commenting out of jealousy or pride, however, maybe you'd be better off zipping it.

8. When you want someone else to grow.

This is a similar point to when you want someone else to get the credit for a good idea. If you have a second grader in your family, chances are you could do her homework for her without much effort. But what would be the point? You want her to learn and grow, which means she has to be the one to come to the conclusions on her own.

The same thing is true in many other circumstances. Instead of leaping forward to answer a thoughtful question that you know the answer to, sometimes it makes sense to hold back and let others figure it out.

9. When you are clearly boring people.

I admit it. I've got what's called "the Irish gift of gab." I enjoy telling stories. My wife laughs at how often I seem to wind up telling total strangers the story of how she and I met and got together. It's a good one, though! You see, we'd gone to college together and dated for a while, but then broke up...

OK, I'll hold off on it for now, and that's the point. Most of us can tell when we're holding court for an audience that simply couldn't care less. In that case, cut it short, wrap things up, and stop talking.

10. When you begin a speech.

I love this example, and it's something I first put into practice when arguing appeals in court.

Whenever I give a speech, I try to start out with a long, uncomfortable pause. Doing so puts the audience ill at ease for a moment and gets them rooting for you. They worry that you've lost your notes or that you're about to keel over from a panic attack. That way, when you start talking, you'll have at least a few of them on your side, happy that at least you haven't made them witness an embarrassing meltdown (h/t, Winston Churchill).

 

 

The Delicate Art Of Managing Both Your Boss And Your Employees

Get what you need.

Tulgan says being effective at managing multiple levels within an organization requires getting what you need from your supervisors to do your job. That includes four key fundamentals:

1. Clear performance expectations, both broad-based and specifics such as goals, timelines, and rules.
2. Candid positive, informational, and corrective feedback.
3. Ongoing discussion about how to find the resources and people necessary to do the job.
4. Tracking of recognition and rewards.

Those cornerstones allow you to understand what’s expected of you and your team, communicate effectively about what’s going well and what need correction, and ensure you have the resources and people you need to get the job done. The last point ensures that any motivation or incentive structure is maintained and awarded as it is earned.

Adapt upward.

Just as you may need to change your management style for the different personality types who report to you, you need to be adaptable to your supervisor, says Florence, Mass. leadership and management consultant Roberta Matuson, author of Suddenly in Charge: Managing Up, Managing Down, Succeeding All Around. When you’re managing up, you’re “managing the way your boss wants to be managed, not the way you want to be managed,” she says.

Manage the way your boss wants to be managed, not the way you want to be managed.

If your supervisor is a just-the-facts type, skip the detailed background and get to the point. If he or she is going to pepper a broad-strokes approach with dozens of questions, then back up and give more detail from the start. By synching your approach with what your boss needs to function best, you’ll both get more out of the relationship, she says.

Be visible.

Matuson says you have to toot your own horn to be heard in a sea of cubicles. Put yourself in a position to have more contact and informal conversations with those above you. If your boss is leading a company-wide charitable initiative, volunteer. Is he or she heading up a new project team? Offer to be a part of it. You have to be your own advocate without being overtly self-promotional and working more closely with your supervisor is a good way to do that, she says.

But not enough of us do: A January 2014 survey by Ipsos Public Affairs and sales consultancy Sandler Training found that while four in five working Americans say the key factor in business success is to “sell yourself,” nearly two-thirds (62%) spend an hour or less each day doing so.

Think about the big picture.

Frederick W. “Bill” Smullen, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell and author of Ways and Means for Managing Up: Fifty Strategies for Helping Your Boss Succeed, says too many people don’t think beyond their immediate responsibilities. He says improving your influence and getting ahead requires demonstrating that you understand some of the larger organizational goals.

If you’re not being invited to meetings where decisions are made, you need to work on making yourself more valuable.

Think about your manager’s goals and what he or she needs to accomplish. How can you support those efforts, and help move the company closer to its goals? For example, if you’re pitching a new project to your supervisors, be sure to present its value for both your bosses and the company overall. When you do this on a consistent basis, more senior members of the organization are going to rely on you for information.

“That’s how you claim your seat at the table [of leaders]. If you’re not being invited to those meetings where important ideas are discussed and decisions are made, you need to work on making yourself more valuable to the people who are at those meetings,” Smullen says.

Engage your employees.

You need to be a strong conduit from your supervisors to your staff, even when it’s difficult or presents conflicts, Tulgan says. Being the person who says, “I don’t want to do this, but my bosses say I have to,” takes away your power and makes you look ineffective.

As you develop stronger relationships with your managers, work with them on messaging and positioning to present ideas and changes to your employees. When that’s not possible, use your own knowledge of what motivates your team to explain the situation and help them understand how it fits into the company’s goals. This helps them learn how to manage up, too.

“Sometimes, that means delivering bad news. Sometimes, that means saying, ‘Hey, I’d like to do this, but we can’t right now. I’ll keep going to bat for it.’ Sometimes, you have to say, ‘Things are changing again. It happens. Here’s how we’re going to get through it,’” Tulgan says.