Success Tips: 6 Habits of Truly Memorable People
In order to succeed, almost everyone—whether business owner or employee—must be memorable. While you don't have to be The Most Interesting Man in the World, being known is one of the main goals of marketing, advertising, and personal branding. Out of sight is out of mind, and out of mind is out of business. But if your only goal is to be known for professional reasons, you're missing out. So forget the flashy business cards and personal value propositions and idiosyncratic clothing choices. Here's how to be more memorable—and have a lot more fun. 1. Can you speak intelligently about how clothing provides a window into the inner lives of Mad Men characters? Anyone can share opinions about movies or TV or even (I'll grudgingly admit) books. Spend your life doing instead of watching. That's especially true when you... 2. Draw a circle and put all your "stuff" in it. We like to think we're unique, but roughly speaking we're all the same, and similar isn't memorable. 3. 4. But... 5. 6.
Why Being Color Conscious Makes Good Business Sense
New Yorkers are known for their love of black clothes. And folks familiar with Washington, D.C., can attest to the fact that its denizens have an unparalleled affinity for gray. I get it—no doubt, colors like black, navy, and khaki are classics for a reason. But the thing about classics is, when used alone, they can quickly morph from "classic" to "boring." And if there's something entrepreneurs don't want to be known as, it's boring. Interestingly, I've noticed that entrepreneurs are typically more likely to be the brave souls rocking color, as compared to other businesspeople. Most of us are at least topically familiar with research surrounding how people respond to color. Attire. Classic colors have their place, but adding some bold colors to your business is yet one more tool in a smart entrepreneur's arsenal of ways to stand out from the competition.
5 Steps To Build, Plan and Promote A Wildly Successful Launch
5 Steps To Build, Plan and Promote A Wildly Successful Launch Written by in Today is an experiment. And whether you like it or not, you’re already a part of it. It’s a bold statement, I know. I’m willing to take that chance. And why not? Over the past 90 days my wife and I have planned – with NASA like precision – the launch of our new site. Prepare for lift off… 5. Cornerstone content lays the groundwork for your site. Before you start, write down the following: Who your intended audience isWhat they want more than anything (regarding your subject, at least)Why you can help themWhat common themes will you coverHow you will structure your content Now create content around each of these points. How many pages do you need to launch with? For example, my wife and I launched our travel site with over 800 pages of content (because the site covers destinations around the world… can’t really have an empty continent section, can we?). And you know what? These are two extremes. 4. The next step is to…
Disillusionment of an Entrepreneur
Editor’s note: This guest post was written by Prerna Gupta, who is CEO of Khush (now part of Smule), whose music apps,like Songify and LaDiDa, have been used to create over 200 million songs worldwide. You can follow her @prernagupta. When I became an entrepreneur at the age of twenty-three, I began in earnest, as do all entrepreneurs, chasing a dream. I recently had the fortune of celebrating a year in which I saw that lofty goal fulfilled. I took a trip soon after to a secluded surf beach on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua. Yet, as I sat dangling my feet off a seven-foot surfboard, missing wave after perfect wave, I saw an unmistakable truth. Having risked my career in order to escape, at all costs, the Great American Rat Race, this was disconcerting to me. Am I? You see, a funny thing seems to have happened just before I reached the ten million users mark. This is the disillusionment of the entrepreneur. I do not like being enslaved, by anything. That’s not the only reason though.
Wayfair's Road to $1 Billion
Wayfair was founded with one goal in mind: to get as big as possible. Next stop: $1 billion. Niraj Shah and Steve Conine were at a loss. They felt they had lost their momentum. Four years earlier, the two college friends had sold Spinners, an IT consulting business, for $10 million. It took a while, but soon they felt they had found something really exciting: birdhouses. Bear in mind that this was 2002, when public sentiment and the Dow Jones index held that the heyday of e-commerce had come and gone. It occurred to them that the Next Big Thing wasn't one thing at all. All of those items—and about 4.5 million more, in 25 categories—can now be found at Boston-based Wayfair.com, the largest online-only retailer of home goods in the United States. Part of the reason you don't know about Wayfair is that the company doesn't quite know itself yet. CSN Stores's growth was a testimony to the power of Web analytics, target marketing, and near-perfect execution. It's a gamble, for sure.
