Month: July 2022

Leaders are Cheerleaders – Leadership Freak

Leaders are Cheerleaders

Success is about freedom to serve others.

Cheerleaders encourage people to succeed.

All of life’s great battles are within.

Among others, my battles include, selfishness, the need for the spotlight, and the need to control things. Put succinctly, I “prefer” that others don’t outshine me. When I lose those battles, I’m an insignificant leader with a title but little positive influence.

Resentment of other people’s success prevents leaders from becoming cheerleaders.

Cheerleaders smile when others succeed.

Cheerleaders smile when others succeed. Image of a smiling young person standing in front of sunflowers.Cheerleaders smile when others succeed. Image of a smiling young person standing in front of sunflowers.

Leaders are cheerleaders

The stereotypical cheerleader is cute and dumb.  (Cheerleaders, please forgive me!) 

Influential leaders are smart cheerleaders.  Better to stop making inane suggestions that slightly tweak another’s work, behavior, or words and start giving out atah boy’s, great job’s, and you are da bomb’s to others, especially those who outshine you.

Leader’s reach higher by helping others reach higher.

Be a cheerleader to 10 people today. 

Shine the light on something you see in another that outshines what you see in you.  Note:  don’t mention yourself while doing it.  For example, don’t say you are so much better at listening than I am.  Do say, I really admire your ability to _______ (fill in the blank). 

Here is a list of potential candidates:  spouse, son or daughter, boss, co-worker, a service provider, client, parent, employee, public servant, checkout clerk, or …

This is the first post I ever posted on Leadership Freak, with a few modifications.

How do you lift others?

Is there a danger of too much cheer leading?

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Episode 1818 Scott Adams PART1: How Democrats Solved All Of Our Problems By Redefining Words

Episode 1818 Scott Adams PART1: How Democrats Solved All Of Our Problems By Redefining Words

Content:

  • Saudi 1/2 trillion dollar smart city
  • Elon Musk’s 3D printed city technologies
  • Democrats redefine words to solve problems
  • Congress intentionally misnames bills
  • Defending the lack of National Guard on J6
  • Defending AOC’s no cash bail position
  • If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topicsto build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Call To Action In Writing: 7 Powerful Examples

Careful attention to CTA (call to action) copywriting is the difference between brands that drive conversions and those that only drive traffic.

Brands that slap a “Buy Now” button on a page and call it a day wonder why their campaigns fail to convert. Companies that engage in strategic CTA testing continue to drive success metrics like CTR (click-through rate) up and to the right.

CTA testing is paramount because it’s not always obvious what needs to happen for your business. Landing page platform Unbounce boosted conversion rates by 90% by changing their CTA copy from “Start your 30-day trial” to “Start my free 30-day trial.” 

In this article, we’ll explore seven powerful CTA examples from high-performing companies. You’ll learn what makes them so convincing so that you can apply these lessons in your own CTA writing.

What is a call to action in writing? 

Your call to action is the prompt you give readers or users to take a desired action.

That action might be to:

  • Download an ebook or guide;
  • Sign up for a free trial;
  • Register for an upcoming webinar;
  • Browse products in your online store;
  • Book a sales demonstration.

CTAs are a critical component of marketing material. It’s the point where you tell your reader to do something.

CXL use them on landing pages to invite customers to trial top marketing courses:

Screenshot of CXL HomepageScreenshot of CXL Homepage

SEO tool Clearscope invites users to join their Director of SEO in a webinar.

Screenshot of Clearscope Inviting Users on their WebinarScreenshot of Clearscope Inviting Users on their Webinar

And revenue intelligence platform Gong uses CTAs at the end of blog posts to guide readers to additional content they may find valuable:

Screenshot of Gong’s CTA at the end of their blog postScreenshot of Gong’s CTA at the end of their blog post

At the most basic level, these CTAs exist to give customers their next step in the buying journey.

CTAs drive the buying journey 

A CTA in a brand awareness campaign will look entirely different from a CTA meant to drive sales at the bottom of the funnel.

Take this post from Mailchimp on email marketing benchmarks. Most readers will land on this page after searching for “email marketing benchmarks” on Google.

Screenshot of Google showing result for the search query “Email Marketing Benchmarks”Screenshot of Google showing result for the search query “Email Marketing Benchmarks”

Mailchimp knows, then, that the user’s search intent is to learn more about the subject of email marketing, not about Mailchimp and its features.

So, the CTA at the bottom of this blog post directs readers to related concepts, several of which are more…

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SATURDAY SAGE: 7 Good Things About Skillful Quitting

SATURDAY SAGE: 7 Good Things About Skillful Quitting

Quitting is pathetic, impulsive, and caving in. It results in a storm of defeat.  Or at least that’s what people think. 

Familiar stories:

  • An eleven-year-throws his ball glove on the ground, “I quit”.
  • An employee feels overlooked for a promotion, and says, “I quit”, and walks out.
  • Amateur golfer, double bogeys three times, “d * * * * t, “I quit”.

The myths of quitting are nothin’ but a bunch of baloney!

Get ready. Skillful quitting rocks your world.

My skillful quitting skills are happening. Image of a cartoon character breaking a golf club.My skillful quitting skills are happening. Image of a cartoon character breaking a golf club.

Skillful Quitting:

“Of all the strategies, to know when to quit is the best”.  Chinese Proverb

The myths of quitting show up unexpectedly.  They stymie you from moving forward.  Skillful quitting is the bravest decision of your life. 

Chasing your passion too long is wasteful. Originally passion was associated with pain and suffering. Don’t let passion harm you.  

People applaud grit and determination, but these skills are suspect when making life decisions. 

“I’m not a quitter,” is risky business. Stubbornness blocks your willingness to quit. Lurking behind stubbornness, you find vanity and arrogance.

More is lost in victory than defeat.

7 Good things about skillful quitting:

  1. Freedom to pursue new directions
  2. You realize that your “passion” was only an interest in something
  3. You admit that it’s not working
  4. Frustration vanishes
  5. Self-confidence returns
  6. New decisions are energizing
  7. Abandon your one-track mind

4 Myths:

Myth #1:

“Winners never quit, and quitters never win.” – author unknown

Winners are the very best at quitting.  Losers lose because they aren’t willing to quit. You wanna win?  Then don’t be afraid to cash in your chips and ask for a new hand.

Myth #2:

“If you quit once, it becomes a habit.  Never quit!!!”  ― Michael Jordan

Skillful quitting isn’t habitual quitting. It’s a line in the sand that says it’s time to change direction. You won’t know when, but skillful quitters know why it’s time to change.

Skillful quitting isn't habitual quitting. Image of a 'not' symbol.Skillful quitting isn't habitual quitting. Image of a 'not' symbol.

Myth #3:

“It’s always too soon to quit!” ― Norman Vincent Peale

Don’t let grit fool you.  Skillful quitting is the fastest route to new discoveries. 

Blind determination is a crap shoot. Explore quitting when you feel irrelevant, boredom fills your day, goals keep changing, and you constantly feel worn out.

Myth #4:

“Quitting is the only failure.” ― Brajesh Kumar Singh

Stubborn attitudes are harmful. 

When a new attitude shows up, skillful quitting usually deserves the credit.

Holding on for too long brings negative results. There are times when quitting is the right thing to do.

“Behind the most impressive résumés there will be a litany of set-backs, direction changes, and…

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The Best Lifestyle For The Aging Brain

Improved working memory, vocabulary, and episodic memory.

Older adults who have a busy lifestyle also have better cognitive function, research reports.

The results come from one of the most comprehensive studies of how the brain changes with age: The Dallas Lifespan Brain Study.

Dr Sara Festini, the study’s first author, said:

“We show that people who report greater levels of daily busyness tend to have better cognition, especially with regard to memory for recently learned information.

Living a busy lifestyle appears beneficial for mental function, although additional experimental work is needed to determine if manipulations of busyness have the same effect.”

The Dallas Lifespan Brain Study included 330 people aged between 50 and 89.

Their daily routines were recorded along with their cognitive performance.

The results showed that whatever age they were, the brains of people who were busier worked better.

Busier people had better:

  • working memory,
  • reasoning,
  • vocabulary,
  • and episodic memory (the ability to remember specific events in the past).

It’s not yet clear exactly what causes what.

For example, people with more active brains may tend to be busier people.

The researchers, though, think that being busy gives people more opportunities to learn and puts them in more new situations.

Being busy also tends to bring people into contact with others more.

Both factors may help to stimulate the brain.

Professor Denise Park, a study co-author, said:

“We were surprised at how little research there was on busyness, given that being too busy seems to be a fact of modern life for so many.”

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience (Festini et al., 2016).

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Omnichannel Marketing: 7 Examples to Improve Customer Experience

When researching a new product, buyers use 10 or more channels to interact with companies. Each channel presents a chance to make a good impression. 

Optimize each channel, and you’ll win new customers, enjoy higher order rates, and retain customers. Get them wrong, and you risk damaging brand perception and trust. 

In this post, we’ll explore lessons from brands that use omnichannel marketing to deliver a seamless customer experience.

What is omnichannel marketing?

Omnichannel marketing is the combination of offline and digital marketing channels to create a consistent customer experience at every touchpoint and every stage of the buyer’s journey. 

It’s an approach that fits with how people increasingly engage with brands. As McKinsey research notes: 

“Given the choice of in-person, remote, and e-commerce channels, purchasers have shown they want them all.”

Its study of B2B buyers shows an even split in how decision-makers interact with sales reps traditionally, remotely, and self-served digitally: 

Screenshot of the result from McKinsey’s research on B2B decision makersScreenshot of the result from McKinsey’s research on B2B decision makers

Of the B2B leaders that use omnichannel marketing, 83% say it’s a more successful way to prospect and secure new business than traditional “face-to-face only” selling. 

Omnichannel aligns branding, messaging, and customer service across every channel. 

If you’ve ever received an email with personalized product recommendations or a retargeting ad on Facebook for a product you left in your cart, that’s omnichannel marketing in action.   

Focusing on personalized experience instead of the platform increases familiarity, convenience, and engagement. It makes it easy for people to get the necessary information and help. And when the time comes, it makes buying easier for them. 

This leads to greater brand awareness, revenues, and customer loyalty.

Omnichannel marketing vs. multichannel marketing: What’s the difference?

Both omnichannel marketing and multichannel marketing use more than one platform to engage audiences. But how they do it is very different:

  • Multichannel marketing is a channel-by-channel strategy where marketers use each channel as a standalone way to amplify the message and reach more customers. So the brand experience on Twitter is not joined up with Facebook or LinkedIn, and content is often pushed out to each platform with no differentiation or personalization.
  • Omnichannel marketing approaches marketing through the lens of the customer. It uses data to understand customer behavior and preferred channels, ensuring personalized messaging that fits each journey stage. Each channel is a piece of the same puzzle. 

Essentially, it’s quantity vs. quality. Multichannel marketing focuses on quantity, giving customers more options to use. Omnichannel focuses on quality, creating marketing campaigns based on customer interests. 

How to create an omnichannel marketing strategy

According to the Journal of Marketing Management, a seamless omnichannel customer experience is built on: 

  • Consistency;
  • Synchronization;
  • Freedom in channel selection.

These are the pillars of…

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7 Tactics to Solve Drama at Work

7 Tactics to Solve Drama at Work

Troublemakers are smart, manipulative, and self-serving.

Drama at work means:

  1. Hot situations get hotter.
  2. Difficult situations become more painful.
  3. Confusing situations seem unsolvable.

It’s impossible to imagine the tiny offenses that bother thin-skinned dramamongers.

They say:

  1. He looked at me wrong.
  2. I can’t like you if you like him.
  3. Her work makes me look bad.

The ability to make molehills into mountains is a troublemaker’s delight.

The person you're dancing around uses drama at work to control you. Image of a puppeteer.The person you're dancing around uses drama at work to control you. Image of a puppeteer.

People at the center of drama at work:

  1. Weaken relationships. Dramamongers use conflict to strengthen their power.
  2. Take offense quickly, easily, and frequently. The person you’re dancing around uses drama at work to control you.
  3. Gather allies and expect you to choose sides.
  4. Pretend they love you when they hate you.
  5. Manipulate behind the scenes instead of speaking up.
  6. Recruit the gullible to do their dirty work.
  7. Smile in your face and secretly tear you down.
  8. Suck the life out of hard-working team members.
  9. Seduce you to speak ill of the boss and tell the boss what you said, for example.
  10. Expect others to change but never change themselves.

Don't negotiate with backstabbers. They're glad when you look bad. Image of a smirk.Don't negotiate with backstabbers. They're glad when you look bad. Image of a smirk.

7 tactics to solve drama at work:

  1. Notice energy drains in your organization.
  2. Don’t ignore recurring tensions. Anticipate problems. Act quickly.
  3. Record their complaints for a month and repeat the list in their 1:1. How would you like to address this?
  4. Don’t negotiate with backstabbers. They’re glad when you look bad.
  5. Go public. Dramamongers love secrecy.
  6. Maintain a solution-orientation.
  7. Isolate troublemakers if you can’t remove them.

Tips:

  1. Everyone who feels upset isn’t a troublemaker.
  2. Healthy disruption is a good thing.

Forgiveness isn’t a strength for thin-skinned people. Normal people get upset from time to time but work through it.

If a troublemaker isn’t stirring the stink now, they’ll be causing drama soon.

What do you notice about drama at work?

What are some ways to deal with troublemakers?

Still curious:

Drama and Who Broke the Media Projector 

Stop Workplace Drama – Marlene Chism

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The Beginner’s Guide to the Best Strategies to Manage Your Online Reputation

Negative customer reviews are part of running a business. Stuff happens. The tricky part is that the bad press lingers long after you’ve solved the problem.

You don’t have to accept negative publicity forever. Here’s how to take an active role in protecting and managing your online reputation.

The Top-Rated Online Reputation Management Companies for Managing Online Reputation

Our top recommendation for most people is WebiMax. They can solve current issues quickly and provide guidance to keep your reputation spotless moving forward. Get a free custom quote from WebiMax today.

The fastest way for most people to really take control of their online reputation is by using a professional service. Here are our top picks:

You can read the full reviews for each of these online reputation management companies here.

What is Online Reputation Management?

Online Reputation Management (ORM) refers to a set of actions to control the online conversation about an individual, brand, or organization. These actions often include monitoring, analyzing, addressing, and leading the online discussion in a positive direction.

Generally, online reputation management efforts may cover multiple digital touchpoints, including:

  • Social media platforms
  • Videos
  • Review sites
  • Press coverage
  • Websites such as blogs and news sites

Successful ORM offers multiple benefits, including improving brand credibility, building trust, increasing web traffic, and reacting quickly to potential crises.

Deciding How to Handle Online Reputation Management

As you can see from our list of the touchpoints involved in reputation management, keeping on top of your online reputation can be a significant challenge. It requires a lot of time and some expertise to dial it in just right.

Some business owners enjoy handling these processes on their own, but they may end up being unable to devote as much time as they would like in managing the company’s reputation….

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Episode 1818 Scott Adams PART2: How Democrats Solved All Of Our Problems By Redefining Words

Episode 1818 Scott Adams PART2: How Democrats Solved All Of Our Problems By Redefining Words

Content:

  • Saudi 1/2 trillion dollar smart city
  • Elon Musk’s 3D printed city technologies
  • Democrats redefine words to solve problems
  • Congress intentionally misnames bills
  • Defending the lack of National Guard on J6
  • Defending AOC’s no cash bail position
  • If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topicsto build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Keep reading here