Group items tagged

Business Creating software is a business. Senior managers and team leaders expect you to behave in a certain way with your clients and partners. It's about having proper email etiquettes, behavior and responsibility when dealing with clients.  Also, it's good to have some management and leadership skills. You should be aware of the latest trends and activities in your area of specialization.

Recommended book : What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School by Mark McCormack.

Startup Few years back, I would have never considered working for a startup or even making something on my own. I thought it was better, and easier to get into big companies and get a good pay package and that's about it. But, after about a year of learning things on my own and trying to build something independently, I can't tell you how great it feels when you work for yourself. You are free to make that software or game that you always wanted to, but didn't have time or resources.

Creativity/Drawing It's a bit difficult to explain this exactly. But, I think being creative helps you a lot, in coming up with new solutions, or looking at problems through different angles. You can be creative in any field, and the best thing is, this quality stays with you when you try to solve tough programming problems.

Spiritual I am still not sure whether I should have included this one or not. The only reason I am including this is because, I have personally benefited a lot from this single quality more than any other skills/qualities I have mentioned before. For those who don't care about being spiritual, please note that it has got nothing to do with any religion, country or society. Anyone can be a spiritual person without even being religious(I am one).

You can just start with meditation by focusing on your breathe for 10-15 minutes daily. I would love to talk more about this.

Believe me, you will feel more calm, peace and satisfaction by being a spiritual person. You won't get irritated easily and almost never have stress again if you are able to practice this for a long time.

Recommended book : Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by Shunryu Suzuki. This is the toughest one to choose because, I have literally read at least a hundred books on this subject. Honestly, I only recommend this because I am currently reading it and found it really good.

2. Customers Know What They (and Other Customers) Want; They’re also Willing to Help

In a study of 1,193 commercially successful innovations across nine industries, 737 (60%) came from customers (i.e., customers can have very innovative ideas). User-created innovations have been successfully utilized to turn around “innovative slump periods.” While #1 is certainly a shocking revelation, there is a unique case study for #2 that really paints a believable picture for just how valuable customer input is.

3. Customers like Loyalty Programs… as Long as You Make Them Seem Easy

In their research on the Endowed Progress Effect, Nunes and Dreze tested two versions of a car-wash loyalty program, which consisted of a card that got stamped after every wash. The first card needed 8 stamps to get a free wash. The second card needed 10 stamps to get a free wash, but 2 stamps were automatically added when the customer joined. That means both cards took 8 stamps total to get a free wash; they were just framed differently. Which one do you think performed better? Their findings: Despite the similar process, the second card performed almost twice as well as the first card, having 34 percent of participants complete it versus 19 percent for the other card. Why is this important? It shows that customers are more likely to stick with loyalty programs if the task at hand is framed as already being started.

4. Creating Goodwill with Customers Doesn’t Take a Lot of Money

An employee on the phone with a customer during a marathon troubleshooting session heard the customer tell someone in the background that they were getting hungry. As she tells it, “So I put them on hold, and I ordered them a pizza. About 30 minutes later, we were still on the phone, and there was a knock on their door. I told them to go answer it because it was pizza! They were so excited.”

What’s actually happening: While the cost of the gifts/actions is quite small, the human mind simply cannot refuse the psychological construct of reciprocity. Reciprocity can be summed up as our natural inclination to feel grateful for favors and our desire to “pay them back,” no matter how small they are (covered quite well by Cialdini in his famous book Influence). The other thing that you must understand about reciprocity is that research has shown us that the intentions of the “giver” can affect the perceived value of the gift. This is why “Frugal WOWs” work so well: Customers perceive the service as a genuine act of kindness rather than as you trying to buy their affection with costly gifts. So remember, it doesn’t take huge expenses to win customers over!

5. Customers Absolutely Adore Personalization; They Will Gladly Pay More for It

Would you believe that waiters were able to increase their tips by 23% over a control group by utilizing something as inexpensive as mints? It’s true, and this research is not only important in helping you understand how to create repeat customers, but also how to keep your customers incredibly satisfied and supportive of your business offering.

The results were surprising to say the least: The first group studied had waiters giving mints along with the check, making no mention of the mints themselves. This increased tips by around 3% against the control group. The second group had waiters bring out two mints by hand (separate from the check), and they mentioned them to the table (i.e., “Would anyone like some mints before they leave?”). This saw tips increase by about 14% against the control group. The last group had waiters bring out the check first along with a few mints. A short time afterward, the waiters came back with another set of mints and let customers know they had brought out more mints, in case they wanted another. That last group is where waiters saw a 21% increase in tips… yet they still were bringing out only two mints. The researchers found that it was the perceived personalization of bringing out the second set of mints and mentioning it to customers (“Hey, I thought I might see if all of you are satisfied or if someone could use an extra mint.”) that made the difference.

Point being: It wasn’t really the mints; it was the personalized experience that they created. It made it perfectly clear to customers that the waiter was thinking of them. Be sure to incorporate this into your own offering: How can you follow up with customers in a personalized manner with free support, training, or reward for trying out your product or service?

Research lead by Melanie Green and Timothy Brock reveals that trying to persuade people by telling them stories works extremely well. The reason that stories (when told well) are so appealing to customers is that you can transport them inside the story and get your point across without directly selling.

Once inside the story, we are less likely to notice things which don’t match up with our everyday experience. For example, an inspirational Hollywood movie with a “can-do” spirit might convince us that we can tackle any problem, despite what we know about how the real world works. Also, when concentrating on a story, people are less aware that they are subject to a persuasion attempt: The message gets in under the radar. Our brains have a tendency to be mostly concerned with enjoying the story and absorbing the message.

For instance, over at Help Scout, I conducted an interview with Leo Wildrich of the BufferApp that discussed how a small team like Buffer’s could possibly handle email support with tens of thousands of customers. The tale of a small team dealing with mountains of support emails was definitely one that resonated with a lot of small business owners, and the post was quite popular and performed well, all without the “hard-sell.”

Everyone loves hearing their own name! The implications of this have been seen across a variety of situations in dealing with customers: People tend to like you more if you use their name a few times during conversations. (But there is a limit; saying their name too much becomes unnatural and insincere.) People open emails with more consistency if their name is included. (That’s a big reason to ask for a name if you want increased conversions via email.) People often assume you are more competent if you know their name; it’s a big part of their identity, and if you recall it and use it, you are instantly viewed in a better light in their eyes. Utilizing customer names when interacting with them directly is an important part of making people feel like individuals rather than a “support ticket.” It’s difficult to scale, but if you care about your customers, it’s an essential part of winning them over. There’s quite a difference between receiving an automated email from “DO-NOT-REPLY” versus receiving one from “Scott” saying, “Hey Greg, thank you for your purchase! :)”

9. Selling “Time” over Savings Can put Your Customers in a Better Buying Mood Have you ever wondered why commercials for “cheap beer” never, ever focus on the money that you can save by buying them? Instead, they create ads and slogans that focus on having a great time (i.e., “It’s Miller Time!”) This isn’t an accident. As it turns out, new research from Stanford reveals that selling “time” over money can make customers more receptive to buying. From Aaker’s research: “Ultimately, time is a more scarce resource—once it’s gone, it’s gone—and therefore more meaningful to us,” says Mogilner. “How we spend our time says so much more about who we are than how we spend our money.” Getting people to think about a period of time they enjoyed (associated with a product) can be much more effective than reminding them that they could be saving money.

10. Bringing up Savings Makes Customers Feel Self-Centered and Greedy

Psychologist Kathleen Vohs has done numerous studies on priming, specifically in terms of how it affects our perception of money. She found through her research that just thinking about money makes us more self-serving and less willing to help others: Two sets of subjects were “primed” with either cues related to money (money related images, essays about making money) or cues that were unrelated to money. Later, subjects were asked to solve a difficult “brain-buster” and to help others do the same (those others being people “in” on the study).

Getting people to think about money and having them enter this “selfish” state can be beneficial or disastrous in advertising benefits to customers. If you’re selling an item associated with luxury or prosperity, this mindset may be a good thing (advertising your mutual fund, financial/retirement services, etc.).

Roger Dooley, author of Brainfluence, had this to say: [Marketers] who should be particularly cautious about money cues are those who want to appeal to the viewer’s feelings about others. Filling viewers with feelings of warmth and a desire to please someone else… and then reminding them about money, could be self-defeating.

Vohs agrees, citing research that shows how money often creates conflict and stress when paired with family issues, due to conflicting interests (Burroughs and Rindfleisch, 2002). The lesson: Be wary of reminding your customers about money if your product isn’t related to serving self-interests.

Sean likes using a pop-up or other survey tool to ask people 'How disappointed would you be if [your product] wasn't available anymore?' on a scale ranging from 'not at all disappointed' to 'extremely disappointed' to identify your MHUs (they'll answer very or extremely disappointed).

You can ask these identified MHUs 'What is the primary benefit you receive from [your product]' (as an open-ended question to start, then after getting ~30 responses, you should be able to narrow it down to 3 multiple choice answers).

4. Getting people to your MHXOnce you understand your MHX, you can then maximize the percentage of people that reach this point. This means identifying points of friction and reducing that friction (Sean suggested watching people use your product, and then A/B testing based on insights gained), focus on what a real conversion looks like, building channels to increase user habits/increase revenues/drive sales/etc., and understand intent by A/B testing your messaging and hooks. You need to obsessively optimize everything that is part of this newly formed growth engine.

You need to engage with your users, and take those insights to come up with new, breakthrough ideas.