Fear

Thinking time

Fear, Human Brain, possibility thinking, Thinking, Worry

Inspite of having so many productivity tools, we are so busy these days that we are not able to take out time to think.

Over the years, I have been sharing how I have tried to regain some of my life by eliminating apps from my mobile phone and tablet, so that they don’t interrupt me. That has definitely helped me regain at least about an hour, but given the amount of travel we have to do, its still a small piece.

Even on weekends, we have chores to run and family and friends to meet and interact with, which eats up time. Now we need to do all these things, because they help us get away from being caught up in our mental rut.

If you can somehow plan out your week, month, year in advance to cover 60% of what you want to achieve and leave 40% slack for unexpected situations, then you can genuinely achieve a lot. But if you have not got time to think, then you can’t plan.

So figure out ways to carve out at least 50 min in a week, in one stretch, when you will plan of the next set of activities. Once you do that, you get a lot of clarity on the next steps you have to take. To give an example, I have been thinking on ways of how I can increase my passive income. However it was always something to do. Today morning I took out about 40 minutes of time to just think of ways, because this was causing me a lot of insecurity. Finally I figured out an action plan, which I will need to put in place from tomorrow.

Now that it’s moved from your brain to the paper for execution, the brain is relieved that it no longer has to bother about protecting me and therefore my fear and insecurity has fallen. Tomorrow onwards, I will just need to ensure that I ticking off the points that we have identified.

Once the brain knows you have an action plan, it stops showing resistance and throwing up all the disaster scenarios.

Take time out for just thinking – put on some soothing music and let your brain dump out all the points it has and then figure out an action plan. This will also showcase possibilities that don’t come up when you are in the transaction mode.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Hard-work + Taking Chances = Success

ego, Fear, Human Brain, losing, Worry

I was watching a video on Netflix, The Call to Courage by author & researcher Brene Brown today afternoon. Its about 80 minutes long, but she keeps you engaged all through the eighty minutes. Her talk is about vulnerability, shame etc. and all its various connotations. I had read a lot about her books, when reading other authors, but never quite got to the stage a actually reading one of her books. Today while doing some research on her, I actually found this video on Netflix, so I decided to spend time watching it. it was time well spent. I would highly recommend watching it. I have downloaded it so that I can watch it a couple of times more.

While there are a lot of Aha moments in the video, one which kinda stuck with me is a statement she made – Success is all bout doing the hardworking and taking chances. You could fail, but its about getting down into the actual field and playing and then figuring out how to win. You can keep sitting in the stands and comment about how things should be, but its all about playing which decides if you have the chops to win.

You cannot lose any game that you don’t play. A lot of us, including me a lot many times, take the easy way out because our brain does not want us to lose. Its hardwired to protect us at all costs. So even failing in front of others is a major set back to our brain. I have written about this in multiple posts over the years. But she put a different perspective and therefore I am recommending, watching the video. It will be time well spent.

Most of the times its our brain, which is the actual culprit – because it doesn’t want us to take chances. When I was watching the video I could recollect so many situations, where I din’t take a chance and maybe things would have turned out to be different. But then that’s history….

Till next next time then…take your chances…don’t have regrets in your life.

Carpe Diem!!!

Pain & Gain – the pivot for messaging

B2B, Fear, Human Brain, Marketing, messaging

Its general human psychology that people avoid pain (fear of) and go for the pleasure / gain. People remember the pain forever or almost forever while they discount the gain. You lose a dollar and your brain will remind you about it for a longtime, but if you earned / won 10 dollars, your brain will discount it by saying it was luck.

This is the same logic why people don’t have a Vitamin C tablet which costs a few cents everyday as a preventive measure but go out and spend thousands of dollars when they get hospitalised. The pain & fear makes them spend the large amounts but the idea of spending a few cents and “gain” the positive of good health.

When you do messaging – whatever kind – an advertisement, a video, a webinar or individual sales – you have to keep these two emotions and their relative importance in the brain , in mind, if you want to get your message to stick to your audience. So while the negative or the message of pain will get more attention, you put too much of negative and it becomes dreary.

In every audience there will be people who are reactive since they are in pain and get your message immediately. On the other end of the spectrum there are people who are proactive and want to ensure that they take care of things before anything can go wrong, they plan in advance. Then there’s a large section of the audience which is sitting in between these two ends. The challenge of your messaging is to take this mass of people to either side of the spectrum so that they buy what you are selling.

Generally its easiest to sell to a person who is in pain or recognises the pain, then the set of people who are proactive. Then you should aim for the audience in-between. In case of B2B if you are selling an ERP software, then the ones whose production is completely messed up on one side, while there’s dead inventory lying on the other side, would be the ideal set of people to target first. The next set of companies to target would be the ones who are thinking in terms of growth and want to ensure that they are ahead of the curve.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

TRUST & FEAR IN B2B – 2

B2B, education, education, Fear, Marketing, Trust

In my earlier post on this topic I spoke of the challenge for a new vendor to enter into an organisation. But there’s a positive side of this story. Once you enter the organisation and do a good job and the customer starts trusting you, then you will stay in that organisation for a very long time. Decisions in organisations are rarely impulsive, therefore they will always prefer to go with the vendor who is an incumbent and whom they trust.

So how do you build trust & reduce the fear-

  1. Ideal situation is when you have enough other customers vouching for your product or service. If they are from the same industry as the prospect you are targeting, even better.
  2. Provide continuous education on what’s new and what they could be missing – there are three things in this sentence. First is “continuous” – you have to be reaching your prospects regularly and creating an impression in their minds, so that when the time comes and the incumbent is not in a position to provide them the service, they reach out to you. The Second item in the sentence is – “What’s new” – keep talking about the new technologies, new case studies etc. so that the customer understands that you are doing a lot of work and others are trusting you. And the last item is on “What they could be missing” – with their existing supplier – this is to create a wedge, start a cycle of dissonance with the incumbent. This could be a simple thing like talking about how at each of your other customers’ premises you provide a dedicated project manager to ensure smooth operations. Now if the incumbent is not providing this facility, then the customer will start getting a feeling of missing on a service.
  3. Always be upfront in what you can do very well and what you can’t do. When you first get a chance – it could be a trial or a Proof of Concept, never do anything in this phase which is not your best item. Only when the prospect gets convinced at this stage, will they decide to move forward with you.

Out of the three points above, with marketing you can systematise the second point and ensure that there is constant education happening for the prospects. This background activity will slowly result in your name becoming more familiar. With familiarity, some amount of trust starts developing. As the trust starts getting built, they may start inviting you to discuss on things which they are coming up with to see if they can accommodate you.

Till next time then……

Carpe Diem!!!