Monday Mindset: Mind, Body and Business

Posted on 09 April 2012 by

Taking Care Of It AllThere is a basic principle of NLP that says ‘the mind and the body are all one system’. So as well as taking care of your mindset, how about taking care of your body?

It’s probably all too familiar to you that it’s hard to do your best work or make good decisions if you haven’t had enough sleep, had too much alcohol or you’re suffering with some physical ailment. Most people will do the ‘sensible’ thing and go to bed early the night before an important meeting or event.

How often though, do you take care of yourself simply to face an ordinary day in the office? And do you know what physical factors make the greatest difference to your overall well-being? For example, lots of people drink several cups of coffee in a day. For some, that’s fine. For others, who are not aware of their sensitivity to caffeine, those regular cups of coffee could be causing a level of physical stress that would be a barrier to working effectively.

Some people work in cramped conditions, huddled over a laptop in a corner of the dining room or spare bedroom. If that’s you and you don’t remember to stretch regularly, your mind will become as cramped as your body.

So today, take stock of how well you’re treating your body and become aware of how you can enhance your mindset by boosting your physical well-being.

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Guest blog post – written by:
Dianne LowtherMaster Trainer of NLPDianne Lowther is a Master Trainer of NLP and Principal of Brilliant Minds. She specialises in applications of NLP for leadership and business results.

Monday Mindset: The Technology of the 21st Century is the Technology of the Mind

Posted on 30 January 2012 by

 

Think! You’ve probably seen that statement ‘the technology of the 21st Century is the technology of the mind’ on the Brilliant Minds website or at the bottom of some of my emails. Have you ever wondered what I mean by it?

When we talk about technology we usually mean computers – Information Technology. I T is a set of tools that enable us to do thousands of tasks at the press of a button or two. B ecause we have technology I’m able to write this and publish on the Web so that you can read it. Because we have technology I can share my thoughts with hundreds, thousands of people simultaneously.
Because we have technology we have Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and countless other ‘social networking’ sites.

I’ve only recently joined Twitter and Facebook. I really couldn’t see the point. My friend Pete Bennett describes Twitter as ‘the ticker-tape of human consciousness’ and, to be honest, looking at most of what’s on that ticker-tape, it doesn’t give a very impressive view of human consciousness!
So maybe that’s just a first step. Having the means to communicate is a great asset. The next step is to consider what to communicate.

What is actually worth communicating? What effect does it have? Why are we doing it?
These questions cannot be answered by the technology. T hey can only be answered using your human judgement. In other words, your mind.

In just the same way, many people discover NLP and realise that, with a little effort, the ability to achieve whatever they want is available to them. Using the technology of the mind, it’s possible to re-pattern old thinking and create new possibilities. Released from old patterns of fear, doubt and cynicism they rush around making things happen and enjoying seeing their plans coming to fruition.
After a time, realising that ANYTHING is possible, they stop. Because if anything is possible you need to know what is worth having, what is worth doing and what is worth being.

Again these questions can only be answered using your mind, your judgement, your imagination. NLP patterns can’t answer these questions, they can only help you to implement your answers.

In the busy world we live in, there is so much ‘noise’ of all kinds that it can be hard to focus on anything beyond the demands of the moment. Still harder, sometimes, to hear the voice of our own philosophy and principles. We need ‘time out’ to reconnect with ourselves and our goals. By doing that, we can be more conscious of our choices, we can take action ‘on purpose’ to achieve particular results. We can cultivate a mindset that serves our purposes rather than doubts them.

I believe that our thoughts are creative. The simple fact of thinking something gives it energy to occur. The thing is, most of us are thinking such a random, disconnected, pointless train of contradictory thoughts (like Twitter!) that nothing actually gets created.

The consistent clarity of thought, commitment to an idea and belief in the value of your purpose is what creates the desired results. To achieve that, we have to steer our thinking away from the distractions, the doubts and the doubters and maintain the mindset for success.

The technology of the mind is available to all of us. Learning how to use it effectively is the challenge of our times.

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Guest blog post – written by:
Dianne LowtherMaster Trainer of NLPDianne Lowther is a Master Trainer of NLP and Principal of Brilliant Minds. She specialises in applications of NLP for leadership and business results.

Sales Pages – Keeping Updated on the Details

Posted on 09 November 2011 by

It’s your sales page and we all know that it’s important. Have you given thought to what it takes to maintain it? Do you understand that it isn’t simply the act of uploading it to your website that makes the difference? What does?

Well we are about to tell you.

Here at JigsawBox we know how much time and energy you invest in your sales pages – we’ve been there too! Knowing how to make your page effective is the smart idea but an even smarter one is knowing how to make it the best it could be by testing it. We have some great methods for you to use to gauge just how far your sales page is taking you.

1. Your own backyard – your hosting company!

Now we realize that the idea of this is daunting to some – but this is where you get to take control. Don’t sit back and be too scared to look for your statistics. You are in business and you need to know how your pages are being responded to. By going into your host’s dashboard or cPanel, you will be able to find sections that show you how, where, and when visitors have been hitting your site. Once every two, three, or six months sit down and compare the statistics to see what versions of your pages has worked the best!.

2. Google Analytics

Yes, Google Analytics is your best friend..or at least one of them. First, go to
http://www.google.com/analytics and set up a free account. Once you are there, you will be able to enter your URL, direct to your specific landing page, and you can then track how many people are visiting that particular page and match it against your current sales for that page. This is how you are able to gauge your conversion rate.

3. 1ShoppingCart

If you have 1ShoppingCart, you can set up a fabulous product called an adtracker. If you set up, for example, multiple pages, you get that one link for all of your pages. When a potential customer uses that link they will go to one page or the other via 1ShoppingCart rotating your sales pages. By doing this you can look at the clicks and see which ones were responded to more.

Be conscious about what you are doing, take control of your sales, and understand what you need to do to be a success! Knowing your statistics could mean the difference between small scale and going global!

Is Twitter “Worth” It?

Posted on 09 February 2011 by

In past blogs I’ve shared tips with you on how to get the most out of social media, specifically Twitter and I hope you’ve started implementing some of those strategies. I also shared a tip about measuring your success…and now it’s time to take that a step further so you can really see if all of these ideas are paying off.

If you’ve taken my advice and started using bit.ly to track the URL’s you tweet out, you already have a great starting point (more on this here). One of the things you can also do is to plan out your tweets in advance and incorporate your bit.ly account information too.

Simply create a free SocialOomph account, this is a site where you can schedule and manage your tweets. After you have your account set up, you can log-in and then go to My Account. You will be able to enter your bit.ly account username and password and then every time you use SocialOomph to schedule your tweets, it will automatically shorten your long URL’s using bit.ly and all of your stats will be managed in your bit.ly account! How clever is that?! Then when you’ve completed a campaign you can log into your bit.ly account to review your click through rate.

Another way to measure your success is to use a tool called Twitalyzer.com. You can enter your Twitter username and you will get a free report of your Twitter impact. Your impact rating takes into account how many followers you have, how many people retweet you, how frequently you retweet others, as well as other factors too. All of these add up into a percentage to show you were you rank among other tweeters. Plus, you can also enter a competitors’ username to gauge your impact against theirs too! It’s an easy way to find out how you measure up in the Twitter community.

Twitalyzer is also a good tool to find out what you may need to work on. For instance, if you see that you have a high level of impact, you know that you’re doing a good job with retweeting and replying to followers. However, if you see that your influence is low, you may need to work on building your network. Another great feature is to measure yourself against the most influential people on Twitter by using the benchmark tool – very interesting information.

Lastly, another tool you must put in place, that is also free is Google analytics. By adding this to your website, you will be able to track where your web traffic is coming from so you can see how many people from Twitter are coming to your website. You can read more about adding Google analytics to your site here.

So, there are some free tools to help you decide if Twitter is “worth it”, I recommend you use a combination of these and analyze regularly. Keep a spreadsheet with your targets and then after your promotion campaign is over, take some time to analyze your results to see what worked and what you may need to work on next time.

Hope to see you on Twitter, you can follow me @nicolabird.