Recognition rewards achievement with attention. In the martial arts, a beginner is given a white belt. This belt signifies you are a student of a discipline. Over time (so the legend goes) the belt would get dirty and grimy with the dust of the road and the blood of your enemies. When someone survived [...]
Have you ever heard of the Super Mario Effect? In the TED talk given by Mark Rober in 2018, the Youtuber described how players will happily endure repeated failure with menial tasks while playing the game Super Mario Brothers. Image by Mark Rober If we tested a bunch of kids on if [...]
Three years ago, I fell severely ill with an autoimmune disorder. I'll spare you the details (but they were bloody uncomfortable). This illness transformed my life. It also transformed my body:For someone who is used to being strong and having high endurance, the change was drastic. I used to rely on my American work ethic [...]
Before I learned how to manage my tasks, my time, and my priorities, my desk was a huge pile of junk. I had long to-do lists that were never getting done. I was so overwhelmed by everything I had to do, I felt like I was drowning in obligations. Then someone threw me a [...]
There comes a time in the writing of every book when the author and the book don’t get along. I’ve been writing Marketing Yourself on and off for a few years. We have an on-again, off-again relationship, until I got committed last year and decided to see this through. Like any relationship, we’ve hit [...]
Next week on Tuesday at noon New Zealand time I'll be sharing my best business growth strategies during my upcoming Techweek21 presentation, 'Grow Your Business With Marketing Automation.' During this free one-hour presentation, I'll share case studies of entrepreneurs who have created systems that produces reliable results. The best marketing takes you the least [...]
Sell Them What They Want, When They Want It The day was hot, and I was exhausted from running five kilometers. The Rugged Maniac obstacle course was filled with mud pits and climbing nets. After 37 minutes on the course, I was thirsty. As soon as I crossed the finish line, I was handed [...]
Smart marketing is like a cup of coffee. The coffee that we drink, as beautiful and invigorating as it is, starts out completely differently than what ends up in our cup. Coffee begins life as a hard, greenish-coloured bean, and it does not look or smell remotely edible. It is not a food. Humans cannot [...]
Prevent Simple Mistakes From Destroying Your Bottom Line My new client was panicked. 'We just paid for all this traffic,' he told me breathlessly, 'and we aren't making any sales!' I did a quick audit of his sales funnel. Right away, I found the problem: there was no Buy button on the mobile version of [...]
Create a pre-designed proposal template you can customise for every new client “Can you send me a proposal by the end of the day?” When I started my first web design agency in 2010, this question forced me into upgrading my business. I had only made four websites at that time, and a new client [...]