Category: Advice

Successful brands are instantly recognizable anywhere.

If you hear any snippet of the McDonald’s jingle, you know what it is.

If you see The New York Times from a distance, you know what it is even though you can’t read the title.

If you walked into your favorite bar blindfolded, you would know it just by its smell.… read more “Branding: Recognition in One Second”

Practice being a leader.

Do you want to be a better boss at work? A better parent to your children?

Practice, Practice, Practice!

How do you practice being a leader?

• Start a ___ group
• Coach a kids football or basketball team
• Throw a big party

But how do you know if you are becoming a better leader?… read more “How to Be a Better Leader”

Many businesses that we interact with have a lot of information on who we are and what we like, but never use it.  The businesses that do use the information they have about us are greatly appreciated.  Examples:

1. The waiter who when you walk into the restaurant says, “Hi Joel, Welcome back to Quinn’s! I know you love dark beer and I have a new one on tap. 

… read more “Human Connection in Business”

The brand formula is:

(Expectation) * (emotional power) = Brand

Some brand formula examples:

Google:

(Expectation of answers to questions) * (very consistent & useful)= Very powerful brand.

Seattle Times:

(Expectation of news) * (pretty consistent, decent news writing) = Solid brand.

Wells Fargo:

(Expectation of banking services) * (random fees, too many upsells) = Weakening brand.… read more “What is a brand?”

According to Malcolm Gladwell, it takes roughly 10,000 hours of focused practice to become a world-class expert.  His findings show that this holds true regardless of whether your area of expertise is chess, business, dancing or athletics.

So how long is 10,000 hours?

3 hours of practice every day for 10 straight years.

Sound overwhelming? It is.… read more “Want to be a World-Class Expert?”

At first glance, using a robotic answering machine for your business seems like a genius idea.  Pretend your a Wells Fargo business analyst ten years ago.  Let’s say that Wells Fargo at that time had all human tellers answering their phones and taking information.  Doing so took 40,000 man hours a month at $10 per hour, resulting in a cost of $400,000 to Wells Fargo.… read more “Robot Answering Systems SUCK!”

Scientific research has shown that people filter out evidence that is contrary to their beliefs.  People also hate to admit their faults even to themselves.

How can filtering evidence and hiding faults hurt you?

Let’s say you are the CEO of Acme Widget Manufacturing and you believe that the South American market does not have enough money to buy your widgets. … read more “Blind to Your Mistakes?”

Most people thinking about personal finance focus on budgets and expenses.  They try to reduce the money they spend on food, clothes, rent, entertainment, etc. and increase the amount they save and invest.

These people forget the other side of the coin though: INCOME.

You should put an enormous amount of effort into boosting your personal revenue streams. … read more “Common Personal Finance Misunderstanding”

Do you find yourself procrastinating on most of the duties you must take of?  Are you unable to find motivation to get much work done?

The cure for procrastination is to break down your mega-task into a bunch of little small ones.

Want to get in better shape?

Set a series of small tasks for yourself that lead to your goal and just focus on those, for example:

• Run for 10 minutes every day this week, then increase it by 2 minutes a day each week thereafter….

… read more “How to Stop Procrastinating”