February 2023 - Page 3 of 9

The Intelligent Content Revolution: How AI is Driving the Next Wave of Marketing

You’ve probably seen it all over the internet… making waves on just about every social media platform out there.

Artificial intelligence, let me rephrase that – CHATGPT3. The monster that has awakened Microsoft to invest $10 billion.

But why? Does Microsoft truly believe that AI will change the way we consume information and produce it?

Or the even bigger question… Will artificial intelligence replace us as humans in the content marketing world?

Well, stick with me for a sec, because the answer isn’t as simple as “yes you should be afraid of AI replacing humans” or “you shouldn’t worry about your job.”

What is AI Anyways?

Researchers in the field of AI strive to create systems that can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence.

These tasks include visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and language understanding.

Using AI, computers are trying to be creative like humans as much as they can, given the constraints.

Will AI Replace Human Creativity?

To compare AI with human creativity would be a good place to start.

While humans might find it challenging and tedious to understand the target market, things have become easier thanks to AI. 🤖

This technology lets companies personalize their marketing efforts, improve targeting and segmentation, and automate repetitive tasks.

How is that even possible? Well, advanced machine learning algorithms and natural language processing analyze customer data and generate insights that can be used to develop an excellent strategy in much less time.

Interestingly, the emergence of AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants is excellent for businesses as they interact with customers in real-time, providing personalized assistance and recommendations.

Overall, AI is helping companies engage with customers and increase sales more effectively. This has massive implications for entrepreneurs, as they won’t need unnecessary labor for tedious tasks.

On the other hand, human creativity is essential for developing and executing effective marketing campaigns. Humans can think outside the box, come up with new and innovative ideas, and connect with consumers on an emotional level.

Artificial intelligence excels at analyzing large amounts of data and identifying patterns, which can help target specific demographics or predict consumer behavior. It can also automate email marketing or social media management tasks, allowing marketers to focus on more strategic tasks.

Using AI for Marketing

Understanding your audience in marketing is an absolute must for creating compelling campaigns and driving human connections.

Using AI, you can identify the most effective channels to reach your audience, such as social media, email, or traditional advertising.

Ultimately, the more you know about your audience, the better equipped you will be to create marketing campaigns that resonate with them and drive conversions.

But AI creativity only completes part of the picture. The limitations in understanding human sentiments bring us to the power of human creativity in comprehending emotions.

Building Deeper Human Connections With AI

Human intelligence and sentiments play an essential role in decision-making….

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5 WAYS TO BUILD A GREAT TEAM CULTURE BY INCREASING PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY

Book Giveaway!!

20 copies available!!

Leave a comment on this guest post by Karolin Helbig and Minette Norman to become eligible for one of 20 complimentary copies of their new book, The Psychological Safety Playbook: Lead More Powerfully by Being More Human.

Deadline for eligibility is 02/27/2023. International winners will receive electronic version.

Psychological safety is the foundation for innovative, inclusive, and high-performing teams. Leaders play a critical role in building and maintaining this strong foundation.

How can leaders increase psychological safety in their organization?

5 ways to increase psychological safety:

#1. Communicate courageously.

Courageous communication requires leaders to get out of their comfort zones, invite other perspectives, and let go of their need to be right and have all the answers. For example, make it a habit to ask, “What am I missing?”

#2. Master the art of listening.

Artful listening is the most underdeveloped leadership skill. Leaders need to become more curious about other people’s perspectives and explore them before putting forth their own. Develop the discipline of not preparing your response when someone else is speaking.

#3. Manage your reactions.

Like everyone else in the world, leaders are human. They get triggered and react automatically, which can detract from a team’s psychological safety. To avoid those harmful reactions, leaders need to become highly self-aware. Before reacting, pause, take a breath, and intentionally choose your response.

#4. Embrace risk and failure.

There is no innovation without failure along the way. How leaders deal with risk and failure in their teams has a huge impact on the culture. Focus on what you can learn from taking intelligent risks rather than looking to blame or shame. Reframe failures as learning opportunities.

#5. Design inclusive rituals.

Leaders need to deliberately build inclusive cultures where diverse ideas and talents can flourish. Start by running inclusive meetings with equal speaking time, a no-interruption policy, and dissenting viewpoints welcomed. Gather feedback regularly after meetings to ensure everyone feels included.

You don’t have to do everything at once—implementing one practice can make a huge difference in your working environment.

Which of the above practices seem most relevant to you today?

Karolin Helbig, spent more than 15 years with McKinsey as a top management consultant and in leadership development, and has deep expertise in science, helps leaders increase their effectiveness, optimize team performance, and transform their organizations through mindset, emotional intelligence, and psychological safety.

Building on her three decades leading global, technical teams in the software industry, Minette Norman today focuses on developing transformational…

Amazon FBA vs. Dropshipping: 6 Key Differences

ShipBob simplifies ecommerce fulfillment as it supports dropshipping from multiple channels and integrates with Amazon. Request a free quote and unlock two-day free shipping today.

Amazon FBA and dropshipping are two of the most popular fulfillment options for online sellers. While the two may seem similar at first glance, they’re actually very different. So whether you’re new to ecommerce or simply looking for an alternative fulfillment option, this guide has you covered. We’ll compare the key differences between Amazon FBA and dropshipping so you can determine which one is right for your business.

The 5 Best Ecommerce Fulfillment Services For Selling Online

Our team here at Quick Sprout has researched and identified the best fulfillment solutions for ecommerce. Here’s a quick summary of our top recommendations:

1. Costs

The upfront investment cost is the first thing you need to consider when evaluating Amazon FBA vs. dropshipping.

Amazon FBA requires a significantly larger investment than dropshipping. That’s why this option is typically better for existing businesses that are already profitable and have cash in the bank to buy inventory.

Amazon FBA is more expensive than dropshipping because it requires you to purchase your inventory in advance. With dropshipping, you’re not paying for any inventory upfront—you only pay for items once a customer makes a purchase.

Getting the lowest possible rate per unit on your inventory typically requires bulk purchases. So you may need to purchase hundreds or thousands of items at once, which can cost you thousands or tens of thousands, depending on what you’re selling.

In addition to purchasing inventory, Amazon FBA charges for inventory storage, fulfillment fees, return processing fees, and more. There’s also a $39.99 monthly fee for the Professional seller plan.

List of Amazon FBA storage and fulfillment fees Continue reading

A Brilliant Sign That Your IQ Is High

The personality trait that is linked to higher intelligence.

Being cooperative is a sign of high intelligence, recent research finds.

More intelligent people tend to be cautious with their trust at first, then build it up with experience.

People who are cooperative tend to be more helpful, believe in teamwork and be mutually supportive.

In addition, those who are cooperative tend to be better at seeing the big picture and learning from experience.

Higher intelligence allows people to process information more quickly.

All these factors are signs that someone’s IQ is high.

Professor Eugenio Proto, who led the study, said:

“People might naturally presume that people who are nice, conscientious and generous are automatically more cooperative.

But, through our research, we find overwhelming support for the idea that intelligence is the primary condition for a socially cohesive, cooperative society.

A good heart and good behaviour have an effect too but it’s transitory and small.

An additional benefit of higher intelligence in our experiment, and likely in real life, is the ability to process information faster, hence to accumulate more extensive experience, and to learn from it.

This scenario can be applied to the workplace, where it’s likely that intelligent people who see the bigger picture and work cooperatively, will ultimately be promoted and financially rewarded.”

The conclusions come from people playing a series of games that tested cooperation.

Each involved trading off risk against reward.

The results showed that people who were more agreeable and conscientious were also more cooperative.

However, the influence of these personality traits was dwarfed by that of IQ.

Those with lower IQs, the study found, tend not to use a consistent strategy and disregard the consequences of their actions.

The study’s authors explain:

“Higher intelligence resulted in significantly higher levels of cooperation and earnings.

The failure of individuals with lower intelligence to appropriately estimate the future consequences of current actions accounts for these difference in outcomes.

Personality also affects behavior, but in smaller measure, and with low persistence.”

The study was published in the Journal of Political Economy (Proto et al., 2018).

Keep reading here

The Dark Night of the Soul

Everyone descends into the dark night of the soul a time or two or three. Some absorb the darkness. Others rise. This post is about the difference.

The difference between everyday blues and the underworld is you’re alone. Encouraging words from friends feel like skipping stones on a frozen pond.

The dark night of the soul:

Recurring disappointment leads to lost hope. Doubt steals confidence. Courage quivers in a corner. You wrestle with yourself at night.

“The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation. When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed.” Joseph Campbell

Rising through darkness:

#1. Face the darkness.

Rising from your dungeon has nothing to do with others and everything to do with you. Others point the way, but the path is narrow.

#2. Beware disaster:

Blame is the messenger of disaster. The journey is about you, no one else. Not a lousy team. Not the person who overlooked you.

You lose yourself under scabs of disappointment you won’t let go.

#3. Battle yourself.

Achievement and success are dangerous when they obscure reality. Disillusionment reveals the truth.

The external world drags you into discouragement, but the real battle is with yourself. Why rise in the first place? Why try again?

You see yourself best in the dark.

#4. See yourself.

You find freedom when you rise through the dark night of the soul.

You see yourself best in the dark. Something happens when you feel like giving up – that only happens there. You realize you do what you do because it’s who you are.

When you win, glory obscures the reason you run. When you don’t win, you learn the truth.

You run the race because it’s in you.

What has the dark night of the soul taught you?

Still curious:

The Path to Authentic Leadership Often Misses 1 Key Ingredient

What does “Choose How You Show Up” Really Mean and Who Cares

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How to Back Up Your Website in 6 Simple Steps

You can back up your site quickly and easily using Hostinger, thanks to the weekly backup feature included in all Hostinger plans. Get started today for 80% off with our Quick Sprout code.

Anyone who’s lost their website to changes, crashes, or updates will tell you that there’s nothing more important than backing up your site. Not only can you lose your content, design, and data if your site crashes, but you can also put your users at risk.

Backing up a site often falls last on a website to-do list, but it should be a priority, and considering how easy it is, there’s no reason you shouldn’t do it weekly. In this article, we’ll break down the steps to back up your website and the tools that’ll help you do it.

How To Back Up Your Website in 6 Simple Steps

The 10 Best Hosting Providers For Backing Up Your Website

When it comes to backing up your site, it’s a lot easier if you have a good web hosting provider to support you. These are our top picks for hosting providers that keep your website safe and up to date:

To see our full review of each hosting provider and find out why we recommend them, read our in-depth guide.

Backup Your Website in 6 Easy Steps

Unless you want to lose your website and all your content, you need to back it up regularly. In the article, we’ll break down several ways you can back up your site in a step-by-step guide.

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Back Up Your Site With Hostinger
Download A Backup To Your Device
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How To Calm Down Anxiety Or Anger: 6 Methods

To calm down from anxiety or anger, use awareness, control of breathing, prepare calming thoughts and use self-compassion.

It can be difficult to calm down: we worry about work, money, our health, our partners, children…the list goes on.

And let’s face it, there are plenty of things to worry about, and that’s even before you’ve turned on the news.

This means that when the mind is given an idle moment, often what it seems to fill it with is worrying rather than calming down.

Worry can be useful if it’s aimed at solving problems but less useful when it’s just making us unhappy or interfering with our daily lives and making it difficult to calm down.

The standard psychological methods for calming down pretty simple.

But, just because they’re simple and relatively well-known doesn’t mean we don’t need reminding to use them from time-to-time.

So here is a five-step plan to calm down called “The Peaceful Mind” that was developed by psychologists specifically for people with dementia (Paukert et al., 2013).

Because of this it has a strong focus on the behavioural aspects of relaxation and less on the cognitive.

That suits our purposes here as the cognitive stuff (what you are worrying about) can be quite individual, whereas the behavioural things, everyone can do.

1. The first step to calming down is awareness

When trying to calm down, this is the step most people skip.

Why?

Because it feels like we already know the answer.

You probably already think you know what makes you anxious.

But sometimes the situations, physical signs and emotions that accompany anxiety aren’t as obvious as you might think.

So try keeping a kind of ‘anxiety journal’, whether real or virtual.

When do you feel anxious and what are the physical signs of anxiety?

Sometimes this stage on its own is enough to help people with their anxiety.

As I never tire of saying, especially in the area of habits, self-awareness is the first step to change.

2. Calm down your breathing

The mind and body naturally each feed back to the other.

For example, standing confidently makes people feel more confident.

Mind doesn’t just affect body, body also affects mind.

It’s the same with anxiety: taking conscious control of breathing sends a message back to the mind to calm down.

So, when you’re anxious, which is often accompanied by shallow, quick breathing, try changing it to relaxed breathing, which is usually slower and deeper.

You can count slowly while breathing in and out and try putting your hand on your stomach and feeling the breath moving in and out.

In addition, adopt whatever bodily positions you associate with being relaxed.

Typically these are things like relaxing muscles, adopting an open stance to the world (unfold arms, hint of a smile).

It will do wonders to help you calm down from anxiety or anger.

3. Prepare calming thoughts to fight anxiety

The injunction to ‘think calming thoughts’ is very trite, but no less true for that.

Here’s the problem: it’s all very well saying: “Think calming thoughts”, but who can think of any calming thoughts when stressful situations are approaching…

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Marketing for Talent Acquisition: Ideal Candidate Avatar

Marketing isn’t just for getting new clients.

Hiring is more than just filling a role or getting a job done; it’s about building a high-performance team that grows your business. Building your team at work isn’t much different than building a sports team–each player has a specific role, is motivated by different things, and needs different types of coaching and support.

Finding those ideal candidates is also no different than finding ideal prospects for your business. You can use the same strategies used to market your business to build a talent acquisition strategy.

Ideal Candidate Avatar

A baseball coach doesn’t choose a first baseman based on skill or positional requirements alone.

Yes, they need to know how to catch a ball, but they will also need to work well with the team, fit into the team culture, and be invested in helping the team win.

Before drafting your job description and posting it on LinkedIn, take some time to build an ideal candidate avatar. You’ll understand your ideal candidate on a deeper level and can craft a compelling job description that attracts those ideal candidates.

Candidate Value Journey

Finding ideal candidates is tough, but it’s even more challenging when you don’t have a strategy.

Much like we build a customer value journey to understand where and how to market to our ideal customers, you can use the customer value journey to create your strategy for talent acquisition.

Most businesses hire reactively, but the companies that succeed at building high-performance teams create a proactive talent acquisition strategy.

This allows them to attract and retain high-performing talent and build roles around those ideal candidates instead of filling positions as they become available.

Are You Delegating Tasks or Growing a Team?

One of the most common pieces of advice given to new business owners is to delegate tasks they don’t love and aren’t great at to a virtual assistant. Now, that’s not always bad advice, but for most new business owners, this is done rapidly without much forethought into their future business structure and growth. We must ask ourselves, am I delegating tasks or growing a team?

If you are or plan to grow a team, the tasks themselves matter less than finding an ideal team member who can adapt to the needs of the business.

Let’s go back to our baseball analogy. If you’re a one-person team, you may be better off finding a decent player invested in learning and growing into a position over time than you are finding a home-run hitter who can’t catch or throw and has no desire to learn or grow with your team.

Instead of focusing solely on the tasks, you want to delegate, spend time considering your ideal future organizational structure and the types of team members you want to bring in and build the company around.

As they…

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Insight from Kenny Chesney on Trustworthy Leaders

Trustworthy leaders with average teams outperform teams of suspicious superstars.

Untrustworthy leaders swing a blunt axe. Speed slows to agony. Confidence turns to suspicion. Authenticity becomes masking-up. Initiative turns to covering your butt. Support turns to accusation. And joy heads for the horizon when you don’t have trustworthy leaders.

Kenny Chesney explains trustworthy leaders in the song, “Grandpa Told Me So.”

He said life was made for you to live
The best love is the love that you give
There’ll be times when you wanna hold on but you gotta let go
And I lived by those words, ’cause grandpa told me so

Yeah, and I still believe, ’cause grandpa told me so

Trustworthy leaders are like Grandpa:

#1. Be comfortable in your boots.

Grandpa says, “I don’t know.” And when he’s uncertain he says, “I could be wrong.”

Smoke-blowers are untrustworthy.

Self-knowledge multiplied by self-acceptance makes you trustworthy. You tend to accept others when you accept yourself.

#2. Relax when you screw up.

Grandpa says, “Well that didn’t work.”

Never run like a cockroach when the light reveals mistakes. Tighten your belt and say, “I sure blew that one.”

“I was wrong,” is a deposit in the trust bank, as long as you don’t screw up the same way over and over.

Trustworthy leaders never overreact to their own failures.

#3. Give voice to your heart.

You trust Grandpa because he likes you and he says it.

It’s unusual to seek the best interest of someone you don’t like. It’s normal to attack an adversary and fun to vilify objectionable folk.

Trustworthy leaders like people.

#4. Admire the strengths of everyone.

Grandpa isn’t threatened by how great you are.

You trust Grandpa because his jeans are worn thin and he only wants what’s best for you.

What makes leaders trustworthy?

Still curious:

The 10 Laws of Trust from the Chairman of Jet Blue

7 Faces of Distrust

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How to Make Websites Mobile-Friendly in 6 Simple Steps

Our favorite website builder for making your site better for mobile users is Shopify, which offers impressive versatility for building your site. Try using Shopify with a free trial period or get a discounted rate for your first three months.

Delivering a great experience to both mobile users and desktop computer users who visit your website is a smart way to improve customer loyalty. Although many websites build their design around computer users, creating a mobile-friendly website is an important consideration, too.

Fortunately, you don’t have to redesign your entire website to achieve the look you want for mobile users. Follow our steps to make changes to your website that serve mobile users better while maintaining appealing design elements for desktop computer users.

How to Make Websites Mobile Friendly in 6 Simple Steps

The 7 Best Website Builders for Making Websites Mobile Friendly

Designing a website that’s both mobile-friendly and good for those using a traditional web browser on a computer is easier when working with a high-quality website builder. These best website builders walk you through the process of creating a great website for both smartphone and computer users.

Shopify – Best for selling products and services
Wix – Best website builder for your first website
Zyro – Best for keeping website costs low
Bluehost – Best for WordPress websites
Squarespace – Best website builder for creators of all stripes
Weebly – Best for solopreneurs
GoDaddy – Best for building your website from your phone

Make Websites Mobile Friendly in 6 Easy Steps

Whether you are building a website from scratch or…