Jeff Cassman - Page 233 of 350 - General business related things Jeff Cassman cares about

4 Types of Offers That Can Instantly Increase Revenue

I buy companies, and I start by identifying what offer is going to be ideal to increase cash flow and have the company pay for itself.

4 Types of Offers Every Company Should Have (at a minimum)

Four different offers at four different price points.

1) Free Community with Highly Desirable Free Content (Education)

2) Core Offer (Do It Yourself or DIY)

3) Upsell (Done With You or DWY)

4) Upsell (Done For You or DFY)

Example: Paintbrushes

1) Join our community of painters
2) Buy our brushes
3) Join a paid group painting class
4) Let us Paint for you.

We Identify Each of the Offers With the Same Survey

We Identify Each Of The Offers With The Same Survey. do this with a simple 4 part survey that we build in Google Forms.

The survey can either:

Be sent to everyone on your mailing list once a quarter,

Be sent to everyone who uses your product or service.

Format We’ve Found That Yields the Best Results Via a Survey

Motivation
Reason
Time Commitment
Email
First and Last Name
Phone Number
Demographic Question
Benefits Question
Frustration Question
Conversation Invitation

Motivation

A reason to fill in the survey. We’ve found the best thing to offer is a free draw for a giveaway for a new product or program you’re about to release.

Example: “Fill in this form to take part in our $7,000 giveaway! We’re giving away 7 copies of our latest $1,000 training that helps you (GET_SPECIFIC_RESULT) that we called [NAME_OF_PRODUCT].”

Reason

This is where you explain the significance of the survey and how ultimately the results help them.

Example: “We want to help YOU! This survey is going to let us know what sticking points or areas of frustration you have with regards to [NICHE]. “

Time Commitment

Here you want to let them know that the survey won’t take long to complete.

Example: “The survey only has 7 short questions and should be finished within 2 minutes max.”

Email

This is where we ask them for their email address to continue communicating with them in the future.

Example: “We’d like to offer you future giveaways, offers and tips in addition to having the most up to date contact information to notify you if you have won. Please share with us the best way to email you for these things”

First & Last Name

This is just to keep track of individual responses

Example: “What is your first and last name so we know who we are contacting if you win?”

Phone Number

Here you’re going to get a secondary form of contact information that also has a higher response rate.

Example: “In case we can’t reach you via email what’s the best phone number to reach you at via SMS?”

Demographic Question

This question lets you know something about your audience. Either geographical, income,…

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Learn These Platform Mechanics to Make Every Speech Rock

I was among three thousand people listening intently to a speaker deliver her message. She made a point to tell the audience she didn’t like to wear shoes when she spoke (and she didn’t). Her delivery was nearly stream of consciousness with few periods or commas. Here enthusiasm might have been construed by the skeptic as hyperbolic. I thought was certainly different but not great. I was in a small minority. She was a hit with the majority. The audience listened, laughed, and bought lots of her books afterwards.

That experience reminded me of how much latitude there is for speaking style in our profession. We can be grateful for the diversity of speakers, messages and styles that clients will pay to hear.

Yet despite the vast differences between that speaker, you and me, we all succeed or fail on stage for similar reasons. Underlying everything we do are platform mechanics.

Mechanics are the working part of something, and platform mechanics are what make your presentation succeed or fail. Mechanics are general and style is specific. Mechanics are what support your presentation, and your presentation needs a strong foundation.

Regardless of backgrounds, experiences and style, anyone can build on basic platform skills to achieve success.

Some Definitions

How do platform mechanics fit into the bigger picture of what we do?  What you say is your message and that includes content (ideas, stories/illustrations, statistics, etc.) and structure (outline and order).

What you do to communicate your message utilizes platform mechanics or skills. Those are the tools you use to communicate your message and your characteristics.

How you use those tools is your style. Your style should be unique to you and is what sets you apart from other speakers.

Success—for the audience and ultimately your speaking career–are the results of how those three ingredients work together.

There are many platform skills including movement, eye contact, voice and timing, but let’s focus on four skills that are central to success:

1. Ability to break preoccupation

We live in an A.D.D. world. You can safely assume that most in your audience have things on their minds other than your intriguing ideas. Before you can get and keep attention you’ve got to break preoccupation.

Remember that everyone in the audience is constantly barraged by grabs for their attention that includes non-stop messaging, changing images and auditory stimulation. Research suggests that attention spans continue to decrease as a result of television, the internet and other technology. Keeping attention may be challenging, but getting it in the first place is critical.

Breaking preoccupation can’t be done just by being interesting; effective speakers are engaging. They involved the audience by providing compelling reasons to listen and appealing to as many of the sense as possible.  This doesn’t necessarily require a default to PowerPoint or video. The ability to create rich imagery can be done using words alone by a skilled presenter.

The key intent is to replace whatever preoccupations exist in the mind of the audience with a willingness to consider what you’re saying. This can be…

5 Ways to Become a Gifted Adviser

An eager adviser is seldom sought-after.

A person who loves telling others what to do is blind to their own arrogance. An excited adviser needs advice.

5 Ways to become a gifted adviser:

#1. Succeed at enjoyment.

The essential aspect of success is enjoyment. Few seek killjoys for advice. Enjoyment occurs beyond happiness. Enjoyment makes you attractive.

You pursue happiness, but enjoyment energizes pursuit.

The basic aspects of success include talent, energy, opportunity, good fortune, and grit. Angel Duckworth says, “Grit is more important than talent.” Grit isn’t the source of endurance. Joy is.

#2. Like people.

People that don’t like people are over-committed to changing people.

4 ways to be a leader that likes people:

Seek their success. See #1.
Use language that builds up.
Understand and seek to maximize their talent.
Call them to bring their best.

#3. Commit to learning.

The best advice-givers excel at seeking advice.

If you want people to learn from you, learn from them.

Know-it-alls make lousy advisors. Value ideas. Explore options.

#3. Have a viewpoint. (sorry…misnumbered)

Think otherwise with an open spirit.

Useful advice shifts perspectives.

#4. Make space for reflection.

Busy people lose perspective and get lost in the weeds.

A person lost in the weeds loses sight of options. Skillful advisers build ladders people use to climb out of the weeds.

#5. Give choices, not commands.

You make infants of adults when you make decisions for them. Everyone who chooses their own path takes responsibility for their path.

The person who makes the decision assumes responsibility.

Tip: Skillful advisers help people make undramatic progress. The need for giant leaps destroys small opportunities. Growth is often perceived by looking back.

Which of the five ways to become a sought-after adviser seems most important?

What might you add to the above list?

The 4 Unbreakable Rules of Giving Advice that People Actually Respect

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The Personality Trait That Really Gives You Power

The idea that aggressive, selfish, disagreeable people are more likely to get promotions and acquire power is false.

Jerks do not get ahead, research finds.

The idea that aggressive, selfish, disagreeable people are more likely to get promotions and acquire power is false.

While intimidating people get some advantage from their selfish behaviour, this is offset by their poor relationships.

In other words, what jerks gain by being nasty, they lose by being hated.

In fact, it is extraversion that predicts people getting ahead in their jobs and obtaining more power.

People who are outgoing, energetic and assertive — all hallmarks of the extravert — are more likely to advance.

Professor Cameron Anderson, the study’s first author, said:

“I was surprised by the consistency of the findings.

No matter the individual or the context, disagreeableness did not give people an advantage in the competition for power — even in more cutthroat, ‘dog-eat-dog’ organizational cultures.”

The study tracked people from college or graduate school to 14 years into their careers.

They were asked about their power and rank in their workplaces.

Those with deceitful, aggressive personalities were no more likely to have gained power than those who were generous and trustworthy, the results showed.

Jerks still obtained positions of power, though, Professor Anderson explained:

“The bad news here is that organizations do place disagreeable individuals in charge just as often as agreeable people.

In other words, they allow jerks to gain power at the same rate as anyone else, even though jerks in power can do serious damage to the organization.”

Agreeable people produce the best results, Professor Anderson said:

“My advice to managers would be to pay attention to agreeableness as an important qualification for positions of power and leadership.

Prior research is clear: agreeable people in power produce better outcomes.”

‘Disagreeableness’ is one of the five major personality traits.

It roughly translates to ‘being a jerk’, the study’s authors write:

“Disagreeableness is a relatively stable aspect of personality that involves the tendency to behave in quarrelsome, cold, callous, and selfish ways.

Disagreeable people tend to be hostile and abusive to others, deceive and manipulate others for their own gain, and ignore others’ concerns or welfare.”

One of difficulties for disagreeable people is creating alliances.

However, what applies in the workplace may not apply in politics, Professor Anderson said:

“Having a strong set of alliances is generally important to power in all areas of life.

Disagreeable politicians might have more difficulty maintaining necessary alliances because of their toxic behavior.”

→ Read on: How to change your personality

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Anderson et al., 2020).

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How to Create a Social Media Posting Schedule in 3 Steps

Have you ever heard the saying, “If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail”? This famous Benjamin Franklin quote applies to all facets of life, including social media marketing.

You can have the most sophisticated social media strategy, but if you don’t post your content when your target audience can see it, all your marketing efforts will be a waste of time.

That’s why you need a social media posting schedule—it will ensure that you’re consistently posting your social content when your audience is online.

It will also help you:

Increase the quality of your content
Save time
Boost audience engagement
Make team collaboration easier
Run experiments to maximize ROI

Here’s all you need to map out the best social media posting schedule for your brand.

How to create the best social media posting schedule

A social media posting schedule is the framework that keeps you organized when publishing social media content. It ensures that you create content in advance for your social media marketing campaigns and post that content consistently.

But there’s no “one size fits all” posting schedule. The right timing and frequency of your social media posts depends on your audience, industry, and the social platform you choose.

To help you figure out the best times to post on social media, we have broken down the process into five steps.

1. Know your audience

This is the first—and most important—step. To ensure that your social media schedule will work for your business, you need to know:

Who your target audience is
The times of day they are online
The social platforms they hang out on. For instance, do they start their mornings by watching YouTube videos and end their day scrolling mindlessly through Instagram posts? (I mean, we all do it, right?)

When you know your audience, you’ll be able to deliver relevant and helpful content to them at the right date and time, through the right medium.

If your audience is in a different timezone than you, don’t worry. Later in this article, we’ll cover the best social media scheduling tools that will automatically post your content at the best times.

2. Understand how social media algorithms work

Many social media content creators are so quick to blame “the algorithm” when their content doesn’t perform well. Sometimes, they’re right.

As much as some content flops because it’s terrible, algorithms play a vital role in whether your audience sees your content or not. Each social platform has its own algorithm—a system that helps it understand what sort of content its users want to see, and then delivers that content to their feeds.

One of the factors that algorithms use to analyze and distribute your content is how often you post. In June 2021, Instagram’s CEO, Adam Mosseri, confirmed that posting two posts a week and two Stories per day is a great way to…

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3 Communication Fails to Avoid

You have a vision for your business, your team, and your day-to-day workflow. But the more people who are added to the mix, the more likely misunderstandings will happen. No matter how hard you try, things still get lost in translation. It costs time, money, and momentum. Maybe we’re not as good at communicating as we thought. Does communication really have to be that hard?

The truth is, it doesn’t. You can make sure the people around you get the right message the first time—every time. How? By avoiding what’s causing the issue in the first place. Most communication breakdowns can be traced back to one of three things:

1. No communication

This is communication that is unclear because it isn’t expressed. Sometimes we think we communicated something, but then our team’s confusion tells us otherwise. Thinking about communicating and actually doing it are different things. Maybe you have important information just rattling around in your head that could affect the outcome of a project, but you don’t get around to telling your team. Everything becomes muddy, and no resolutions are ultimately met. The solution is to take ownership of your communication.

2. Garbled communication

This is communication that’s expressed but unclear. It’s too vague to really be understood. If people have to guess at the meaning, the communication probably falls into this category. This usually boils down to a lack of clarity in your own mind. This is also one of the main reasons that delegation fails. The people around you can’t give you what you want if you don’t know what that is. You have to be explicit and precise if you want predictable results. Otherwise, people will act on their own interpretation, intuition, or best guess. The solution is to get clear on your own thinking before you communicate with others.

3. Implied communication

This is communication that is expressed but perhaps not fully, and so it is only clear to you and not others. You’re left frustrated, because people don’t respond as you’d like. Often, there’s a gap between what you think you’re communicating and what the people around you understand, because they don’t have the baseline understanding that you already do. You think they should know what you want since it’s so clear to you, but they don’t. It might feel tedious, but you need to spell things out. The solution is to overcommunicate.

You can communicate clearly every time by making your communication explicit and precise. And to arrive there, you need to avoid these three communication fails. Thankfully, good communication is a skill anyone can learn. Use every day as an opportunity to practice and hone your skills. Little by little, your communication will get better. And not only will communication be cleared up, but you’ll gain further clarity about what you want for your business, your team, and your role.

What’s the biggest challenge you fall into when trying to communicate?

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post…

5 Energizing Conversation Starters for One-on-Ones

One-on-ones are drudgery if all you discuss is past to-dos and new assignments.

Create a list of conversation starters that energize your one-on-ones.

People are too valuable, and time is too short to leave one-on-ones to chance.

The primary purpose of one-on-ones is development.

Performance stays the same if all you do is talk about work responsibilities. Prioritize development by putting it first on the agenda.

An energizing conversation starter is the difference between drudgery and delight.

5 Energizing conversation starters for one-on-ones:

#1. Leadership qualities

When you think of your current responsibilities at work, what three leadership qualities seem most relevant?

What three things could you do this week to practice one of those qualities?

#2. Energy

What’s draining your energy? What three things could you do to turn energy drains into energy gains?

What energizes you and how are you prioritizing this?

What are you glad you did last week? What makes you glad you did that?

What recurring frustrations are you experiencing? What specific thing(s) do you need to do differently? If you don’t know, who can help you?

#3 Relationships

What one thing will you do today to demonstrate you are committed to results through relationships?

What happens when teams are under committed to results and overcommitted to relationships?

#4. Priorities

What’s one big rock you’re working on? What makes that rock important?

How is your calendar reflecting your commitment to big rocks?

What low-value activities might you stop doing?

If things were going perfectly, what would you being doing today? How might you do that? What’s preventing you from doing that?

#5. Vulnerability

How might your weaknesses inform the way you lead? Interact? Celebrate? Plan?

What conversation starters might you add to the list?

Effective 1:1s – Tips For One-on-One Meetings With Your Team

One-on-one meetings: 4 ways to make them more meaningful

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Episode 1664 Scott Adams: Putin Goes All In On Ukraine

Content:

Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine
Sanctions with teeth?
Winners and Losers
Greta and US Green Movement, benefit Russia?
f 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.

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19 Proven Instagram Marketing Tips for 2022

Instagram is used by over 1 billion people and has a vast advertising audience for brands looking to expand their reach, and get more leads and conversions.

Instagram’s data shows that 90% of Instagram users follow at least one business profile. But this is not limited to just consumer products. Over 36% of B2B decision-makers use Instagram to research new products or services.

In this article, we’ll cover 19 Instagram marketing tips that will boost your Instagram strategy, whether you just started on the platform or you have tons of experience.

Setting up an Instagram Business account

Before we get into the Instagram marketing tips, you need to have an Instagram Business account or an Instagram Creator account.

If you have one of these, you can skip to the tips in the next section. If you have a personal account already, you can skip to Step 3 of this section.

If you’re brand new to Instagram and you want to create a new account, here are the steps you need to follow:

Step 1: Download the Instagram app

Step 2: Sign up to the platform

Open the app.
Tap Create New Account (on iOS) or Sign Up With Email or Phone Number (on Android).
Enter your email or phone number and tap Next.
Create your username and password.
Fill out your profile information (see Tip 4) and tap Next.

Step 3: Switch to a Business account

To switch from a personal account to a business account, go to your profile and tap the hamburger icon at the top right.
Tap Settings, then Account.
Tap Switch to professional account.
Tap Business and follow the prompts.

And voila, you have an Instagram Business account!

19 Instagram marketing tips for business that you should try in 2022

Now that you have a business account, let’s get right to the Instagram marketing tips, shall we?

1. Use a Business account

If you’re a business, you should… well, have a Business account. If you’re not a business and you’re serious about building an audience, you should still use a Business IG account.

Here’s why.

A Business account unlocks features you can’t use with a personal account, including:

Instagram ads (see tip #18)
Instagram Insights (see tip #19)
Instagram shopping (see tip #14)
Contact information and a call-to-action (CTA) button on your profile
Primary and secondary messaging inboxes

If you’re a content creator or influencer, a Creator account has its own benefits for you. But if you’re a marketer, having a business account is your best bet to succeed at Instagram marketing.

So if you haven’t yet started a Business account, scroll back to the top of this article and convert your personal account to a business profile.

2. Clearly define your goals

If you’re marketing on Instagram, there’s a good chance that you want to achieve…

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Episode 1665 Scott Adams: Ukraine Fights Back and Biden’s Supreme Court Pick

Content:

Biden nominates Judge Ketanji Jackson
Neo-Nazis in Ukrainian military and government?
Fake News propaganda encouraged War
Fake News industry in America, vs Russia
Ukraine, a war of disinformation
Temporary vs permanent sanctions
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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