Best Articles

Marketers should strive to deliver something of real value to prospective customers before attempting to close the deal. Building up goodwill with well-orchestrated “jabs” of value sets up the “knockout punch.”

Think of it this way: Jab, jab, jab … right hook! Or: Give, give, give … ask!

Round One: The Set-Up:   Understand the power and reach of social media.  Far too many marketing executives fail to harness its full potential to tell compelling stories, and connect with customers.

Round Two: Jabbing with

The November 2013 IPO made billionaires  of three  of Twitter’s original four founders – Ev Williams, Jack  Dorsey  and Biz Stone. But it’s been a bumpy  road.  Co-founder Noah Glass was kicked out of Twitter in 2006.  Jack  Dorsey  was removed as CEO in 2008,but came roaring back in 2011 as executive chairman. Ev (who was turfed as CEO in 2010) and Biz are no longer involved with day-to-day operations at Twitter.

Odeo: Where It All Began

The four came together at

We all get why being happy is better in life, but is it really a business advantage? Absolutely.

Unhappy employees take more sick days, while happy employees are more motivated, committed and creative. Happy people make more money than their counterparts and they make better leaders.

Make Yourself Happy

We can actually manipulate our happiness level. Proven ways include; meditating, anticipating enjoyable activities, surrounding yourself with things that make you feel good, and spending money on experiences especially with other people.

We can  also

You’ve got great  ideas to improve your company…but the people you manage seem hesitant to execute

on them. Why is it so hard to get them to take action?

The problem  is that your people spend so much  energy doing their day-to-day jobs just keeping the operation afloat that they have  little time or mental  energy to execute on anything  new.

So how do you overcome this hurdle in the midst of the whirlwind of competing priorities? Through  four core  disciplines: focus, leverage,

Is it possible to be more successful by actually doing less? Yes, says leadership expert Greg McKeown – provided you choose to do only the most important things and apply yourself to these activities with total focus.

Although you may be capable of doing many  things,  most things in life don’t really matter. It’s your right to choose which ones to do and eliminate  the rest by following this…

Three-Step Formula

Explore and evaluate your options. Create the time and

There are many potential challenges of an encore career – including ageism, adjusting to a lower status, getting back to learning, and taking orders from a younger boss.

The challenges can seem daunting…but there are also opportunities galore.

Discovering What You Want to Do

Consider why you want an encore career. Is it to earn  money,  have  fun, add fulfillment, create mental stimulation, stay active and healthy, make your mark or leave a legacy?
Consider aspects of your persona. Are you a doer, a

In the late 1970’s researchers discovered that a particular  shade of pink had a calming effect on people. Soon  after, drunk tanks  and even  some colleges visitors’ locker rooms were being  painted pink to try to take advantage of this fact.

Marketing and psychology professor Adam Atler shares the profound  effects  that hidden cues like color have  on us, so we can  mitigate  their effect or use  them to our benefit. According to Atler, these cues tend to reside in three

If you think difficult conversations can’t  be made easy, you’re  not alone.

It turns out there  are only 3 types. Diagnose which type you’re  in so you can  change it from being  emotionally taxing to a “learning conversation” where  problems get solved.

Three Types of Difficult Conversations

The “What Happened?” Conversation

Centers on who’s right, and who’s wrong.

The solution  is to shift from a blame-focused to a solution-focused conversation.

Acknowledge your own contribution  to the issue first – preventing other  party using it

as a weapon.

Authors Chip and Dan Heath help us make better decisions with their four-step process known as WRAP:

Widen Your Options:   Choices are rarely black-and-white so consider multiple alternatives. When life offers you “this or that” choices, always remember that the right answer might be “none of the above.”

Reality-Test Your Assumptions:  Innovative business leaders, like the late Steve Jobs, understand the power of testing assumptions. Rather than spending months planning the perfect product, they have their design team hack together a quick

In the story of David and  Goliath,  a simple  shepherd boy manages to defeat a gigantic  well-armed soldier.  This story has  long served as a metaphor for the weak winning an “improbable  victory” over the strong.

But according to Malcolm Gladwell,  this interpretation is wrong.  Instead, challenges and  obstacles can  actually  give underdogs a winning advantage.

The Advantages of Disadvantages (and the Disadvantages of  Advantages)

We tend  to assume that  the weak  person,