The first principle of influence is to get and hold people’s attention (I show you 7 ways to do this below).

Often this ‘attention’ is attracted by outlandish or shocking tactics, the kind that make you exclaim, “Holy crap, did you see that!”  And this does work.  But often times you can get and hold someone’s attention simply by telling a compelling story in a quiet voice.  How you do it isn’t as important as how effectively you do it and how deeply you can hold their attention.

Keep in mind also that not all attention is good attention, and we’ll get to that in a very specific and important blog post that is coming up soon.  And that’s why …

It’s only good attention if it achieves what you want.

If you do not have someone’s attention, then you cannot convey the value of your idea. Attention is the first stage of all human behaviour change. Despite the millions of bits of information we receive each day, our brain is able to bring certain things to our attention – and you need to be one of those things.

It makes sense to have a plan about what you are going to do with the attention once you get it.  What is the desired outcome.  In the broadest sense the aim has to be a lasting connection with people.  I might hire a sky-writing plane on a blue sky summer day, and fly over the beach suburbs casting a message for every one to see – and therefore grab the attention of thousands of people – and yet build no lasting connection with them at all.

The key take home here is don’t pull attention grabbing ‘stunts’ if they don’t create long-term attention and lasting connection with people – unless, of course, you’re just doing the stunt for fun.

7 ways that you can grab and hold someone’s attention

Use these ideas in your conversations, writing, or video creation this week and let me know how you go.

1. Deviation

In order to use this technique, the first thing you say or write has to deviate from what the audience is expecting.  It doesn’t have to be controversial, although controversy can fit into this category.

For example, let’s say you’re about to give a presentation and everyone has read your speakers bio and have naturally put you in a ‘box’.  Whatever it is that they’re expecting you to say when you first stand up, say something different, say the opposite – say something that shifts them from their expectation.  If you were giving a presentation on property investment, you could start by saying “property investment is completely over-rated”.  Or if you were at a BBQ and everyone was talking about a particular sports star and why she’s successful, you could chime in and say, “I think another reason she’s successful is actually …” and give a reason that no-one is expecting or has considered.

Each of these example’s will more strongly grab the audience’s attention, because it’s not what they’re expecting.  Some call this the ‘surprise’ factor, other’s call it a ‘pattern interrupt’, I’ve just always called in The Deviation, and there are multiple ways to use this approach.  In fact, I’ve used this in scientific presentations I’ve given.

Normally, when you turn up to a meeting with a group of scientists, you stand at the lectern, and there are some very standard expectations around what you’re going to do.  Everything from the slides you’ll use, the words you’ll use, the clothes you’ll wear, the structure of the presentation – it’s all very standard.  If you want to grab attention, deviate from the standard, even in a small way.

Let’s analyse the last scientific presentation I gave.  The first thing I did was to stand out and away from the lectern.  This alone was a deviation from normal.  The first slide I put up was my expected scientific title, but I had a very casual sub-heading – another deviation.  The very next slide was a complete deviation from normal: I had a photo of myself and told a story from way back that helped to explain how I had come to be involved in the project I was about to describe.

So, the first three things I did in this presentation were all deviations from normal.  The feedback from one of the Professor’s at the end was, “…as thoughtful and engaging as I’ve come to expect from you Nic”.

Clothe’s can achieve a similar effect.  If people are expecting you to wear a certain type of clothing, wear something slightly different that expected and you’ll achieve the effect of The Deviation.  Of course, all of this can backfire if the deviation is too large or just not acceptable.  You want to grab people’s attention, not put them offside.

You can, however, take the deviation so far that it becomes weird or bizarre – but is still effective.  Being weird definitely gets attention.  Sometimes, in order to break through the noise, you just have to do something that puts people out of their comfort zone in order to grab attention.

What I’m talking about here is something so unusual it might not even seem related to the idea you’re going to share.  It’s just completely left of field.  I’ve seen street performers use this.  They do something completely extravagant or bizarre in order to generate a crowd, and then they get into their show.  The streaker on the cricket or football pitch is another example.  Other examples include:

• Email subject headlines that are outrageous and nothing to do with the real subject of the email – just so people will open up
• Speakers who start with an unbelievable story that’s unrelated to their topic – just to grab attention
• Coaches or trainers who break up their workshops by getting people to do activities that break social norms

Deviations are incredibly powerful, especially when they are layered on top of each other, and if they are used sequentially, so that there are a continuous stream of them.  This technique alone can hold an audiences attention for a very long time.

2. Alarm

Maslow described the hierarchy of people’s needs, with basic survival and safety needs being our first priority.  This means anything that threatens these survival and safety needs will likely grab attention by activating the ‘Alarm’ system in our brain – and then we can’t help but pay attention to it.

Just yell out the word “Spider!” and watch what happens.

This is classic journalism too.  If you listen to the news or read the paper and you’ll see ‘Alarm’ headlines everywhere.  What categories can you use?

• the air we breathe
• the food we eat
• the water we drink
• our homes
• our clothing
• our sleep
• our finances, business and employment
• our health
• our family
• our community stability and freedom

These are just some of the topics that will grab attention because we place a high value on these things and they have high importance.  There are many more topics – but you don’t need more topics to get benefit from this post – you just need to chose one or two of the one’s I’ve listed and use them.  Then you’ll get benefit.

3. Magic Wand

This one is almost the opposite to ‘Alarm’.  If you could wave a magic wand and give people what they really want, they’d pay you a lot of attention.  Instead of being a threat, this is aspirational.  For example, one of your mates really wants tickets to a show.  There’s none left.  You turn up and announce you’ve got a spare ticket – d’ya think you’ll grab attention?

Of course, this all sounds basic – and it is – but if it’s so basic, then why don’t people use this on purpose, and more often, to have more effective influence?  It’s the modern day marketers approach of finding out what people want and then giving it to them.

This is Google’s business model and it’s been working pretty good for them since 1998 – and more specifically, Google has held our attention.

To get someone’s attention, let them know that you either have what they want, or you know how to help them get what they want.  Use images that show or portray what they want.  Make your appearance reflect what they want.

4. Story

If you’re still reading this, then I’ve been able to hold your attention.  Notice that I’ve already touched on a number of stories in this post so far.

• the story of the sky-writing plane
• the story of the streaker (I only had to mention this, and you knew the story)
• the scientific presentation
• the mate who wants the ticket that you’ve got
• the Google story

Every night at our place, my kids love me to read them stories.  And the stories they like are about good versus evil, love and romance, happily ever after, the underdog, the rescue, the hero, the mystery, the challenge.  Stories get people’s attention, there’s no doubt about it.  I’m a natural story-teller, it’s one of the reasons that I’ve been influential in my life.  Some people are much better than me at story telling.  Other’s not so.

But forget about others – all that matters is your ability to tell stories – and I guarantee that you can use this more than you’re using it right now.  Use stories in your conversations.  Use then in your writing.  Start a conversations with, “So I was …” and tell a short story that has an ending that fits right in with the idea you’re trying to convey.

In a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, two professors make the point that despite all the new scientific evidence regarding health care, the reason that the ‘science’ doesn’t make it’s way to the public very effectively is because it is communicated with ‘facts’ and not with ‘narrative’.

So, skim over this technique or dismiss it at your own loss.  The lack of story telling by the scientific and medical community could be one of the main reasons that good science takes so long to make it into the hands of the public.  I could go so far to say as the lack of a good story could be a matter of life and death.

5. Secret

I’ve got an admission.  I used to despise the use of this technique in marketing.  The ’7 secrets to success’ or ’10 secrets to a happy life’.  I specifically did not read the book ‘The Secret’ because of the title.  As it turns out, the secret wasn’t a secret at all.

Anyway … two things happened that revived my understanding of this powerful influencing factor.  First, I’d forgotten my childhood.  As a kid, secrets were very powerful.  If someone knew something that I didn’t know, it would arouse great curiosity.  If I saw someone telling secrets, whispering, or sharing ‘knowing looks’, I just had to get in on it.  I had to know ‘the secret’.  I see this now with my own kids, and I use secrets to great effect.

Try this.  ”Hey kids, get into bed and I’ll tell you a secret”.  Bam – they’re in bed all eager to hear.

There’s one major ingredient in all this that has to be present in order for it to work – and if this ingredient is missing, it will fail dismally.  In fact, the lack of this ingredient is exactly why I had come to despise the use of this technique.

You actually have to have a good secret.  If you don’t have a good secret to share, then people will feel embarrassed that they allowed curiosity to overwhelm them for nothing of value.  If I don’t have a good secret to share with my kids, then next time I use that technique, they wont believe me.

So, use this with caution.  If you don’t actually have a good secret, and it is just a lure, then you must still deliver something of value so that the person feels as if their curiosity was justified.

6. Be worthy of attention

If what you’ve got is worthy of attention, then you should have some attention – right?  And if you’ve got attention, then this will attract more attention.

This is the conclusion people come to when they see that someone has attention.  The very fact that other people are interested in you is a cue to them that they should at least take a look.  Granted, I’m just describing an everyday experience.  If you see your work colleagues all hovered around someone’s desk, you want to know what’s going on.  If you see a few people staring up at something, it’s very difficult not to look as well.

Even though we’re all familiar with this principle, my challenge has been how I can use it in small, effective ways throughout the day, to get attention and increase my influence.  One thing I’ve tried with my kids is to find a Youtube video of something that I’d like them to do – it’s social proof that other people are doing this thing, whether it’s singing, playing guitar, exercising – whatever behaviour I’m trying to influence my kids to do.

Why it works?  Because the video proves that other kids are already paying attention to the very idea I’m trying to sell to my kids.  The academics call this ‘social proof’.  You can use this, like I do, with kids, or you can use it on stage, like I do, in front of hundreds of people.  You just need to help people understand that other people are paying attention to you, or your ideas.

7. Reverse Attention

Reverse attention is where even though you’re the one who wants attention, you get it by paying attention to the person you want attention from.

Even though I’ve listed this last, it can be one of the most important techniques if used correctly and in the right context.  An obvious context where this works is dating.  If you want attention from someone, then pay them attention.  And if you pay them attention, you will hold their attention for as long as you’re paying them attention.

In other words, don’t talk about yourself, brag about yourself, and bore them with stories that they don’t want to hear.  Instead, ask them open ended questions about themselves.  Their opinions.  Their stories.  If you notice something about them, mention it.

I’m sitting here typing this post and my son is on the lounge playing his wii.  He’s not paying me any attention.  I know that all I have to do to completely enter his world and have him totally engage with me is quietly sit next to him, and mention something about what he’s doing.  Ask him what his current challenge is.  Notice if he’s doing well, or finding it difficult – and straight away I’m in.  Imagine if I then looked up Youtube to find a solution to his challenge and said, “hey, you wanna know the secret to this level?”.

This is combining reverse attention with secrets.  These two combined are powerful enough to get me a deeply connected audience with my son.

What you can do now that you’ve read this

The main content of this post is in the 7 ways you can grab someone’s attention.  If you read and remember anything from this post it’s that section.  Knowledge is merely interesting until it is applied.  So, even if you’ve read my 7 ways and it’s not new information, I’d still encourage you to look at how you communicate in your life – be it your personal life or business life – and figure out how you can use these 7 techniques more effectively.

That’s the evergreen nature of studying influence – you will never master it – you will only get better at it.  After you’ve used at least one of these techniques, please come back here and leave me a comment to let me know what you did and how it worked out.

And if I could ask one small favour … we need to let Google know that I’m sharing information about this stuff.  I can rant and rave all I like, but the way we can influence Google together is if I write and then you click on the Like button, the Tweet button, and the Google +1 button.  With three little clicks we can send a signal to Google about this information.  Ta.

I’ve finally decided to write a short series for you on my lessons in influence, marketing, advertising …

These are not ‘academic’ (yawn) lessons, but real lessons I’ve learned and applied in my life and business.

What you can gain from this series.

There’s a million (or so) blogs and books and stuff on influence, marketing and advertising.  But there’s only one of me.  And there are things about me that are quite unique. And so if you relate to me, then you might just gain additional insights from my lessons, as apposed to someone else’s.  See, we are who we are because of how we’ve come to be … and the reason I first started studying influence was to understand myself.

• Why was I the kid who got to meet his favourite musician and get some one-on-one coaching?
• Why was I the teenager who was admitted to the secret inner circle at my martial arts school?
• Why was I the young bloke who got to record a song at EMI studios, and end up in a music production company with a world class producer and songwriter?
• Why was I the Uni student who got to house-sit the lecturers place and land myself a coveted summer research job?
• Why was I the guy who was able to start a national student organisation?
• Why was I the student who was able to start an international scientific journal and attract some of the most influential scientists in the field to participate?
• Why was I asked to give a keynote presentation in London and have a special meeting with HRH Prince Charles?

It goes on and on…and each time I find myself in these situations, I look around and say, “who me…?  Are you sure you mean me?”

And I try to figure out just what the hell I did that made those things happen.  It seems that being able to influence people is something that kinda just happens for me  - but not all the time.  And this is why I am a student of influence these days.  I wanted to find out what I was doing ‘right’ and also find out what I was doing ‘wrong’ when things didn’t work out.  And I’ve figured out a whole lot of things.

And so this is what you can gain from me.  I now understand what I do ‘right’ and I’ve learned what I was doing ‘wrong’ and I can expose all of it.

Why this will help you.

From the time we open our mouths as babies and cry with hunger, we are trying and learning to influence others.  Babies don’t cry from hunger just to convey information to their parents – they cry to influence their parents to bring them food.  The more effective you are at influencing other people, the easier it seems to get things done – and more importantly, the easier it is to get what you want (even if what you want is selfless and philanthropic).

So, how does this work and what do you need to do now?

I’ve put together a series of blog posts called, Lessons in Influence.  This is part Zero.  All you need to do now is start at Part 1.

But before you do … can I ask just a very small favour?  Google, Facebook and Twitter need a signal from you that you have read this post and enjoyed it.  All you need to do is click the buttons on this page to Like, Tweet and +1 it (will take you less time than it took to read this sentence), and then leave a comment below telling me about your experience and thoughts about influence.

Thanks for that and I’ll catch you in Part 1.

Against. Banging.  Brick wall.  Your head. 

Put those words together in a sentence and you get ‘banging your head against a brick wall’.  And that’s what it’s like when you try to influence people who are impervious to your influence.

Someone’s ass is on the line, so the bottom line does matter

Sometimes you are faced with a situation in which you have to influence someone, or a group of people, who are resistant to you.  This is where you have to call upon your best powers of influence, and it’s often where your highest level of skill is required.  Even then, this can fail.

Compare this instead to the ease with which some people follow your lead.  Agree with your ideas.  Take hold of your vision and run with it.  It makes sense to go to groups of people who you are most likely to be able to influence.  This is especially true in business when the bottom line matters.

I’m a lover not a fighter

In my short, sweet life, I have had the opportunity to work with brilliant people who have amazing knowledge and yet fail to influence people because they took the right message to the wrong crowd.

Fighting for your point of view is a tricky game to play and even if ‘you’ win it often means ‘they’ lost – and chances are that ‘they’ probably didn’t like losing.

You end up with an enemy or a begrudging ally.  Fighting isn’t really the kind of influence I’m writing about in this series.  I’m after a more sophisticated and beneficial approach that’s win-win, not win-lose.

Imagine that instead of fighting or arguing, you were able to subtly lead people to a conclusion that they come to themselves and that is in favour of your idea.  It’s much better when they conclude that the idea is good – because all you have to do then is agree with them – not the other way ’round - and hey presto you’re on the same page.

Once this happens and people agree with your idea, then your ability to influence them increases.

So, to start with, focus on those people that you can influence and save the other people up for a rainy day. There’s plenty of people to choose from, so why choose those that are the most difficult to influence?  That’s just hard work.

How does this apply in your work or business?

The only people you should be focussed on are your customers (clients) – or people who are very likely to become your customers.  Why spend time or money on people who aren’t likely to become your customers?  It makes no sense…

Every piece of advertising, every marketing strategy, every product and every communication should be focussed on existing customers or new customers.

This sounds like simple advice, but in my consulting business I’ve come across small and large organisations that mess this up – and the cost can be massive.

One organisation in particular took out a week of national TV advertising that resulted in no new business.  Why?  Well, besides that fact that the ad lacked basic aspects of influence, it was aired to a non-targeted audience.  They spent a small fortune to send a message to millions of people of whom only a small fraction would be interested.

And to make matters worse, they had no control over when that small fraction was going to be watching the TV at the exact time that the ad was aired.  (In fact, this is the problem with much advertising and marketing – and why I prefer to use digital marketing that can be very highly targeted)

To be influential in business, you must understand your potential customer.  You must know how to communicate with them directly.  And then you must focus on them – and only them.  Don’t waste precious time and money on advertising and marketing to the wrong crowd.  Don’t waste time and money on stunts in the hope that they’ll ‘work’.  Many promotional campaigns are a complete waste of time for this very reason – and hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars, can be at stake.

Are you prepared to invest time and money to gratify or indulge an idea of your designer, advertiser, marketer – or yourself?   In business, you are only after new customers or repeat purchases by existing customers.  Don’t waste money on ideas that you haven’t tested first, or on people who are not your likely customers.  The money wasted on this sort of thing is worth your mortgage, your car, your kids school fees, your holiday home and a lifetime of international travel! (Which I’m quite fond of myself…)

Take this message away with you…

Find out who is most likely to respond to your ideas – and go to them first.  Sometimes the people most likely to benefit aren’t the ones most likely to respond – which is why testing is so important.  So, do yourself a favour – whether it’s in your personal relationships or in your work or business – become more influential by finding those most likely to respond – the early adopters who will help you to grow your idea.

Will you help me grow my ideas here?  It’s easy – ya just have to click on the facebook or +1 buttons below to share this with your friend and colleagues and you’re done.  Thanks.

Sometimes, there’s a lot on the line.  A business deal.  A job interview.  A relationship.  An election.

Your ability to influence others could have a massive impact on the future direction of your life.

I’m not someone who wants to leave this to chance.  I want to have as much control as possible over the outcome.  Are you the same as me?  Think about a situation you face right now that would benefit if you had more influence.

Test your tactics to maximise your results

Even though it’s useful to be able to apply various techniques to increase your influence, it’s even more useful to know with certainty, which ones work best for you in your life or your business.  Testing is such an important process to go through – especially when there’s a lot at stake.  Of course, there’s times when testing just isn’t practical, and you have to rely on your skills and best judgement.  But there are lot’s of times when you could compare two or more different approaches to find out which one worked best – and then continue to use the winning approach.

Imagine, for example, spending 1K, 5K or even 50K on a website and not knowing if that website was the most effective for your business.  Would another design have led to more sales?  If you don’t test, you’ll never know.  Yet this is how the majority of money is spent on websites.

Hoping or knowing?

All the money is spent on ‘hoping’ that the design you’ve come up with is the best one.  Imagine if you tested two different home pages, and found that one resulted in double the calls or double the sales.  How gutted would be you if you hadn’t tested and were left stuck with the dud.  Is your current website a dud?  If you’ve never tested it, it might be?  (I’ve got another blog series coming up soon on profit optimisation that you might want to look at)

Imagine spending 5K on a logo for your brand.  Who told you this was the best logo?  Was it the designer?  How do they know?  Was it your marketing team?  How would they know?  Was it your partner?  How would they know?

The fact is – they don’t know – none of them do.  The only way to know if your logo is the best logo for your brand is to test it in the market place.  The market will tell you which logo they like best – and it might be completely different from what you or any of your advisors guess.

Think about it from a medical perspective.  Pharmaceutical companies go through multiple stages of testing a new drug before testing it on humans – and then before the drug has widespread use, it must first be tested to see if it is better than the existing drug on the market.  When a pharmaceutical company finally discovers a drug that is better than others on the market, they can then take that drug to market with the confidence and proof – and maybe a billion dollars in sales.

Do you understand that testing to discover the best solution magnifies your powers of influence?

Testing like this used to be the domain of large agencies, however these days testing is much easier.   Get someone who knows how to do facebook advertising and run some ads using different logos or headlines to find which one most people click on – or use Google adwords.  Or send a survey to your existing database and ask them.

The real cost of not testing

Imagine you’ve got a database of 20,000 customers and you’ve been working on a new product to help them.  You’ve been working hard for 6 months.  It finally comes to the day when you’re going to announce this product.  You’ve written the email – and then you sit at the computer and you have to insert an email subject line.  But you haven’t really thought about the subject line.  And what does it matter, right?  It’s just a single sentence.

And so you make up the subject line on the spot and send out your email to your 20,000 customers – and in that one action you could lose yourself tens of thousands of dollars.  Why?  Because there might be a much better subject line that causes 30-40% more people to open your email, see your offer, and buy your new product.

But you’d never know if you never tested a few email subject lines before hand to know which one got the highest open rates.

Not only does failing to test things like email subject lines cost you big time, it also wastes the time and money you put into your product development in the first place.

Now let me take a more personal example that doesn’t include ‘formal’ testing.  Imagine spending 6 years with your child during their teenage years.  You could leave your relationship to chance and your natural skills as a parent.  Or, you could practice your influence skills to find out which one your child responds to best.

Imagine if you found one particular approach that your child really responded to – and now imagine if you hadn’t taken the time to test.  What difference would that make to your relationship over that period of 6 years and beyond.

Lastly, as a personal example, I discovered that one of the key reasons I am influential is that I enthusiastically share my knowledge with people and explain how this knowledge applies to them and how it can improve their lives.  It works really well, except there are just some people who don’t respond to enthusiasm.

So, if enthusiasm is your super power and you come across someone who is impervious to your enthusiasm – what then?

Well, if you haven’t tried and tested alternative methods of influencing people, then you’d never know what else to try.  I’ve seen this have a massive impact in my own life and also in other peoples lives. I think that not learning, applying, and testing the techniques of influence is a risky behaviour.

How you can apply this idea

Think about your personal life and work life right now.  Think about a relationship or an important situation which you would like to change or improve.  Maybe you’re writing a book.  Starting a business.  Having relationship issues with your partner.  Take a step back and consider all that you are doing to engage or interact with the other people involved.  How much of your communication are you leaving to chance and how much of it is delivered on purpose and with attention to influence?  How many assumptions about your communication are you making?  Is there a better way to approach your communication strategy?

There probably is – and you wont know unless you try something new and, where practical, formally test different approaches.

5 Random Examples of Attention to Influence

1. If your website doesn’t have a video on the home page, then go record a video for the home page and test to find out which one works better
2. If you always use ‘fear’ as a way to influence people, try using ‘hope’ instead to see which works better
3. If you always use the same benefit to sell a product, then try a different story and sell on a different benefit
4. If you always use the ‘authority’ factor to influence, try using the ‘reverse attention‘ technique and see which one works better
5. If you always use logic to win an argument, try using social proof as evidence of your way of doing things

The take home message from this post should be that you have no idea what’s really going to work – so why leave it to chance or arrogance.  Test your approach. Try different approaches.  And let the people who you are trying to influence let you know which approach works best by their behaviour and the decision’s they make.

Lastly, I’d like to congratulate you on reading this far. People like you are exactly who I want to read my blog because you’re also the type of person who recognises a good thing when they spot it and shares it with their friends.  Please feel free to go ahead and click the Like, Tweet and Google +1 buttons below – and leave a comment if you’re so inclined – I’m just like you and love to get feedback.

Years ago – as a teenager – I was a fanatical drummer.  I’d delivered enough newspapers and mowed enough lawns to finally purchase my very own kit.  It was loud at our place.

The idea of getting paid to play drums was like a fantasy – but that’s exactly the opportunity that presented itself to me.  My mother was doing some part time work, playing the piano for a dance class, and they needed a drummer too.  ”Great”, I thought, “this beats delivering papers … and I’ll be able to save up to buy more stuff for my kit.”

I turned up early on my first afternoon – feeling somewhat nervous.  There were lot’s of little ballerina’s – in the 5-15 year old age bracket – and what looked like concerned mothers looking on as I self-consciously set up my drum kit next to the piano.  And I had everything.  The base drum, snare, hi-hats, cymbals, tom-toms, floor tom.

The teacher arrived, and the children lined up ready to start.  The pianist (my Mum) started, and so did I.  Perfectly in time I might add.

But it was all wrong.

The teacher immediately stopped the class and started shaking her head, saying “no, no, no … we don’t need that … we just need a marching beat … can you do that?”

Well, I felt like a complete idiot.  Here I was, probably 15 at the time, embarrassed in front of a room full of girls – this is the opposite to every drummers wildest dreams.

I managed to fake it for the rest of the class, with some marching beat that I conjured up – but I wasn’t asked back.

What’s the point?

It didn’t matter that I had a great, new, shiny drumkit.  It didn’t matter that I could play advanced syncopated rhythms.  It didn’t even matter that I was the pianists son!

Basically, what I had to offer them, wasn’t what they wanted, or needed.

So, what are you doing right now in your business that is making you all excited – but that isn’t what your market wants, or needs?  What new toys have you bought, that just don’t captivate the imagination of the people you serve?

If you’re finding that business isn’t going that great, then this is basic place to start examining what you’re doing.

The first rule of business isn’t that the customer is always right.  But the first rule about business is that it is ALL about the customer, client, or patient.  It’s not about you or your toys or your skills or your qualifications … its only about the people you serve and whether or not you can inform them, entertain them, help them or transform them.

The simple facts are that if you find that your product or service doesn’t match your market – then you either need to change your product or service, or find a market that wants or needs what you’ve currently got to offer.  Without this fundamental piece of the business puzzle in place … then the rest will just be endless hard freakin’ work.

I hope you enjoyed this little walk down memory lane … and if you like being reminded about business fundamental by people who are living the business dream, then you’ll probably like this free video training by Siimon Reynolds.  Siimon is an award winning advertiser and creative director who built his company to 500 million with 6000 staff.  He’s giving away a training module on how great entrepreneurs think – it’s normally worth a bunch of money, but you can get it here for nutthin’.  Check it out – it’s good.

In any case, whatever you do, don’t try and sell fancy drum rhythms to people who want a marching band … it just wont work

I remember first hearing this question when I was just a kid – it was aimed aggressively at someone – can’t remember who.  It’s a saying we’re all no doubt familiar with.  Can you remember when you first heard it?

It’s usually used as what’s called an ‘indirect speech act’, in which the person asking the question is actually accusing another person of being arrogant, or of over-estimating their capabilities or ‘position’ in life.

It’s a damn good question to ask yourself though – probably the basis of that somewhat bizarre concept of ‘finding oneself’.

Another quote that comes to my mind about all this is by Alexander Hamilton, who said:

“Those who stand for nothing, fall for anything”.

So, what’s the point?  I think that we should ask ourselves, “Just who do you think you are”.  I’ve done it.  Standing in front of the mirror – looking directly into my eyes, and asking that question.  Looking for courage.  Looking for determination.  Looking for honesty, integrity, capability, compassion, confidence.

I view this as a very important question to know the answer to, because for me, as an educator, teacher, coach, leader, I’d better know who the hell I am and what I stand for.  I’d better know what I’m good at and what my weaknesses are.

Do you?  Do you know?  Are you sure enough of yourself that when things come your way, you just know how to handle them, because you draw on a core understanding of what it means to be you?

I’m not talking about being stubborn or dogmatic – not at all.  You might stand for open-mindedess and the preparedness to be wrong (like I do).

We’ve recently launched an online education program and we’ve had a lot of queries from people about ‘who we are’.  It’s not enough to put a ‘logo’ out there, call it a ‘brand’ and think that people will relate to it.  People want to know who is behind the ‘brand’ – and they want to know what they stand for.  So, of course, I’m going to tell them.  I’m coming out from behind a ‘company’ to be a real person.

I’m almost finished writing it, and I’ll post it here for you to check out and comment on – and more importantly, I hope that it’ll inspire you to figure out just ‘who you think you are’.

**Update**

I’ve published the first part of my “who do you think you are” document.  I’m going to use it as a basis for the ‘my purpose’ document I use for the various businesses I am in.  If you like it, please feel free to use it to model a “who do you think you are” of your own.  You can read it here.

–> If you liked this video, then check out this one about business growth by James Schramko

So, you think you know what’s going on. You think you’ve got a handle on everything – and then, whammo, it all changes.

I’ve had this happen to me so many times that I have now come to expect it.

The first thing this experience does is test your ‘ability’ to be OK about being ‘wrong’.  Typically, us humans aren’t that great at being wrong.  We dont’ like it.  In fact, you could say that many of us are addicted to being ‘right’.

This is a very important point of distinction between people.  Those who are OK about being wrong, and those who don’t like being wrong at all – and the way this plays out is that those who are OK about being wrong, are more teachable than those are don’t like being wrong – because to learn something you often have to change your opinion on something else.

And like I said – we humans aren’t fans of being wrong.  We like our opinions.  They’re ours.  We’re invested in them.  We argue for them.  We hold on to them.

Being emotionally mature enough to admit you’re not right and concede that you’ve been wrong, leaves you with a new question.  How can I trust the information I have at hand.  How do I know it’s ‘right’ and not ‘wrong’?

Testing

The easy answer to this question is to test, or verify your information.  Sounds simple right?  Just run a scientific study, find out what right and what’s wrong – and hey presto, your uncertainty is solved.

Well, that is a fantasy.  Just as much as never never land doesn’t really exist, nor does certainty from scientific studies.  All scientific studies can do is help us be less wrong, more often.

And when you think about that, you think to yourself, “well, if scientific studies aren’t absolute – even though they do try to test things objectively – then how much less can I rely on information that has not come from scientific studies?”.

Great question by the way … I’m glad you asked.

The fact is, an awful lot of the information we use is not accurate and is not based on any objective test.  And this is true in all fields.

Now, back for a minute to those people who are addicted to being ‘right’.  What I’ve noticed in a scientific career that has now spanned 15 years, is that many, many people will use ‘scientific’ concepts to justify a position, when in fact their use of the science is wrong.  But they like using science because it increases their sense of being right – and often being more right than you.

Not only am I guilty of this – but I see it over and over and over again in other people.  You see, when you have a higher education in the science of things, you can fall for your own publicity and start to think that you’re infallible.  And of course, you’re addicted to being right, and now that you’ve got some science behind you , you stand a good chance of being right more of the time.

How does this apply to life?

At this stage of my life, I have developed what is referred to as a ‘portfolio career’.  I am still involved in health care, medical research, education and scientific publishing and I am also involved in digital media, marketing, business and entrepreneurship.  They are two great worlds that are great to traverse.

After years spent analysing and critiquing scientific studies and health care claims, it is fascinating to see how people in the business and marketing worlds attempt to apply scientific principles to help inform their decisions.  What’s apparent, however, is how often people take information on board as being reliable or accurate when in fact it’s nothing of the sort.

Let me give you an example.

Someone might own a website, and they may want to see if the header graphic has an impact on the number of people who choose to join their mailing list or buy their product.  Great.  So they run what is called an A/B split test.  In this test, they have two pages and all that is different about the pages is the colour of the header graphic.  On one page it’s blue, and on the other page is orange.  People who visit the web page are randomly taken to the page with either the orange or the blue header.

After a while, they check and see that more people have joined their mailing list from the orange page compared to the blue page.

Is it safe for them to assume that orange is really better than blue – or could this just be a fluke – a random event – chance?

Well, what I often see happening is people do make the assumption that orange is better than blue and so change all their headers to orange – but they’ll also write a blog post about this, update their friends on facebook and say “hey, orange is better than blue, I tested it – if you use orange headers you’ll get 17% more sales” or whatever their test has shown.

And the people who listen to them take note.  Wow – this person has tested this – it must be true. And so before you know it, they’ve all changed their header graphic to orange.

But here’s the problem.  Orange might not be better than blue at all.  It might be a complete myth.  Here’s what’s really going on.  When you compare two groups, there are 4 outcomes that can occur.

1. You found a difference between the two groups (orange is better than blue) and this difference is real
2. You found a difference between the two groups (orange is better than blue) and this difference if not real – it only happened by chance
3. You did not find a difference between the two groups (orange and blue are the same) and this is real (there really is no difference), or
4. You did not find a difference between to the two groups (orange and blue and the same) but this is false – there really is a difference, but you didn’t detect it.

So, out of the above 4 options, two are false.  They are errors.  It’s hogwash.  And there are special names for these things.

Point 2 – when you think you’ve found a difference but it’s not real – you found it by chance – and if you tested again you might find that blue is better than orange – they call this a Type 1 error.

Point 4 – when you haven’t found a difference – and you think there’s no difference between the colours – but in actual fact there is a difference and you would have found it if you’d just kept testing – they call this a Type II error.

So, the next time you hear someone say “use a bigger Buy Now button – they’re better”, you’ll be ready to say, “hang on, how do I know you’re not committing a Type I error?”.  ”How do I know that this difference you think you’ve found is a real difference and not a chance difference”?  ”How do I know that if you ran this test again on your website, that you’d still find the difference – that the big Buy Now button would still do better?”

I bet if you asked those questions, that you’d get a blank stare – or the person would get defensive (remember, we don’t like being wrong, and we’re addicted to being ‘right’).

See, right now I could stop.  This alone cuts out so many of the claims made by people in the marketing world.  You realise that you can’t really rely on their information.  Not to make important business decisions.

But I’m not going to stop there – because there is more to this puzzle that you should be aware of.  And you should be aware of it because you care about being able to trust the information you’re consuming – or the information that people are serving up to you.

Let’s just say that someone tells you that orange headers are better than blue headers.  They know this because they tested it on their site.  You ask them how they know that they didn’t commit a Type I error and they tell that:

“because we tested it with statistics, and it was a statistically significant finding – so put that in your pipe and smoke it”.

Ahhh … now we have someone throwing statistics around.  That’s more than enough to scare most people off – and so they will retreat and accept the ‘scientific’ information and the person who got to say ‘statistically significant’ will feel all warm and fuzzy because they were right.

Well, maybe they’re right.

You see, statistics are reasonably complicated to get your head around – that’s why you have people with PhD’s in statistics – because quantifying probability is a complicated thing to do.

When people say that something is ‘statistically significant’, this has a very particular meaning – and by just saying ‘it was statistically significant’ leaves out a whole bunch of important information.

You see, if something is statistically significant at the 50% level – it kinda means that there is a 50% chance that they person did not commit a type I error.  In context, if someone said “orange is better than blue and I’m sure because it was statistically significant at the 50% level” this means that there’s still a 50% chance that this finding was a random event – a fluke – not real.

Now, most tests of statistical significance do not test at the 50% level – but they test at the 95% level.

But even if a difference (orange is better than blue) was found to be statistically different at the 95% level – it still means that there’s a 5% chance that this difference between orange and blue is due to chance – meaning ‘not real’.

And if you haven’t done the math, it means that even at the rigorous scientific level of 95% there is still a 1 in 20 chance that the findings are a fluke and not to be trusted or relied upon.

And I could stop there … and you should be left feeling that you really are operating in a world of uncertainty … and that a lot of the ‘accepted wisdom’ in the marketing field is based on this kind of very shaky data.

Now someone might say “well, Nic, how do you know that a lot of the accepted wisdom in the marketing world is based on shaky data”?  And I’d say, “well, honestly, I don’t.  I haven’t sampled all of the data.  But have you?  Or are you just relying on what everyone else is taking for granted?”

See … there is another huge hurdle to jump when it comes to working with verifiable and useable information that you can rely on.  See, even if you accept that orange is better than blue.  You accept their findings.  They show you their data and you can see that the difference has been demonstrated at the 95% level – there’s still one major issue and it’s called applicability.

Just because someone found a difference between orange and blue on their site – and it was a real difference – doesn’t mean that you will experience the same difference.  In fact, you might switch to orange and find you get a worse result.

Whoa.  A worse result?

Well – maybe you will, maybe you wont.  Who knows?  The person who told you that orange was better than blue – they certainly don’t know.

But let’s get real here.  Most people who say they split test – and then promote their findings – don’t provide you with the real data.  They also don’t show you the statistical results to prove that their findings are statistically significant.  Yet so many people just accept what they say as being true.  They accept the findings as if they’re real.  They don’t stop to think that

1. there might not be a difference at all, or worse
2. that by applying the change, they may get a worse result, not a better one.

So, if you are really serious about implementing changes on the basis of someone else’s testing – someone else’s claims – that you have to test the outcome on your own site.  Sure, go ahead and try an orange header – but make sure you test it to see that it actually does what you’re hoping it’s going to do.

In summary, you can see that my survey of the business and marketing worlds is that there is a lot of misunderstanding which leads to a lot of misinformation.  Some people make honest mistakes – and others use ‘scientific sounding’ words to inflate the credibility of their information in order to get you to consume it.

I wont make a value judgement on that though.  That’s not what this post is about.  If I wanted to start criticizing people for using scientific concepts inappropriately, the first place I’d start is with the scientists

What’s the practical take home message here – why have I written all this and what can you do with it to help you in your business.

1. Keep your critical reasoning filter on.  If someone is making a claim, at least ask yourself if that claim can be trusted.  Is it reliable or accurate information.
2. If you’re satisfied that the information is good, or are not sure but are willing to give it a go, then ask yourself if you think the information will apply to your market, your website, your product
3. If you do go ahead and implement a change, based on information you’ve read, then at least measure what happens to your results.  Don’t just assume that if it worked for them, that it’s going to work for you.  Protect your business by measure the effects of any changes you make.
4. Be prepared to be creative in your business.  Don’t get sucked into the ‘conventional wisdom’ – it might be wrong or it might not apply to you and your business.  It’s your business, don’t let convention put a limit on your innovation.  But, as always, if you’re going to try something difference, test it.

PS:  If you liked this post and are interested in seeing how I apply my thinking to life, business and marketing, then leave a comment below and encourage me to keep writing.  I could put down pages and pages of this sort of thing – for the most part I tend to keep this to myself because it can be a bit disruptive and confronting.  Whatever the case, I hope you enjoyed it and I really wish you well with whatever you’re working toward.

If you liked this and found it useful, check out this video by James Schramko

Cheers

Nic

It occurs to me that time management is a croc.  You can’t manage time.  You’re doomed to fail from the outset.  It is independent of you and beyond your influence (unless your an astral traveller, posses the tardis, or something equally unlikely).  You can’t speed time up – you can’t slow it down – what can you do to time?  Nothin’.  So why does an entire industry maintain that we can manage time.  We can’t.  Never could and likely never will.

All you can manage is you.  That’s it.

All you can manage are the actions that you take – or don’t take.

Once you recognise that, you can really get down to making some serious stuff happen in your life and business.

Most people want to get from where they are now, ‘A’, to where they wanna get to, ‘B’.  There is a short way and a long way.

If you take the shortest possible way to get from A to B, then there are only so many steps that have to be completed for you to get there.  So take the damn steps and forget about time management.  Focus on first knowing what those steps are, and then just do those steps.

if people did this – and only this – they would outperform the other people using ‘systems’ for so-called time management, especially if those people trying to manage time aren’t doing the essential steps.  Time management tools, software, courses etc – none of them will help you get from A to B.  All that gets you from A to B is doing only those steps that get you there.  As soon as you deviate from those steps then you stop moving toward B.

Sure, if you want to get the steps done as quickly as possible, there may be strategies, or tactics (tools) to help you do what you need to do.  But, folks, honestly, the fastest way to get from A to B is to know the fewest steps possible and then just do them as quickly as possible (so long as they’re done properly).

The science of leadership is fascinating.  People have been formally studying what makes an ‘effective’ leader for decades now and the field has matured enough to be able to provide some strong recommendations.

What are they you ask?  Well, that’s exactly what I’m going to be talking about at the Real Estate Leadership Conference put on by TRET in Fiji.

I made this video – check it out.  Let me know what you think.

Well, I’ve got this video for ya and I want you to pay attention to two things.  First, watching the video is a damn site more interesting than just words on virtual paper.  Second, listen to what Steve and I are saying about using video in your marketing.  Knowing about online video isn’t novel – but doing online video is very novel for many people.

I bet if you took a good hard look at your business, marketing, and education material that you’d admit you could be using video more often and more effectively.

If you liked the video, then there’s also the chance that you might benefit from attending one of Steve’s video marketing workshops.  He only runs a few every year and they are so worth going to in terms of putting you in a better position to take advantage of video.

For example, I recently created a video of me introducing myself for a conference i’ve been asked to speak at.  So far, it looks like I’m the only one using this tool.  When I arrive at the conference, I will already have a level of rapport with the attendees.  I’m more likely to already have ‘friends’ because of the video.  So, check out Steve’s video about video marketing – and whether you click on it or not, I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself and learned some stuff.

Cheers

Nic