Starting a business

Time management is a skill that most of us have yet to master.  No matter how many things we do during the day, there always seems to be a long list of unchecked ‘to do’ items.  This is something that I’ve struggled with as of late.  Starting a business on your own can become overwhelming very fast. The volume of things to do sometimes reaches a point where all you feel like doing is stashing them in a big bag and hiding it somewhere for a few days.  But that only compounds the problem.

I decided to go through the titles in my bookshelf and take a look at what the experts had to say on the matter.  The two that were most useful were “The 7 habits of highly effective people” by Stephen Covey and “The 4 hour workweek” by Tim Ferris.  In part 1 of 2 of this blog posting, I will go over what Stephen Covey has to say on time management and in part 2, I will do the same for Tim Ferris. Read more »

• Comments(0)

I just finished reading a great book last week called “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion“, written by social psychologist, Robert Cialdini.  As Amazon puts it, it is “arguably the best book ever” on the subject of persuasion and in understanding the psychological foundations of marketing.  Here is a quick summary of the some of the principles discussed in the book.

1.  Contrast: When we see two things one right after the other, if the second is fairly different than the first, we well see it as being more different than it really is.  For example, salespeople are often advised to sell a more expensive item first (e.g. a $500 suit) and then suggest less expensive accessories (e.g. a $40 tie).  With the expensive suit still in their head, they are likely to see the tie as a negligible amount. Read more »

• Comments(1)