To attain goals, Be an imposter of a new identity first!

40 days to 2023. 

Still want to achieve those goals?

Be an IMPOSTER!

We mostly begin the process of changing our habits by focusing on what we want to achieve. 

Outcomes. Goals.

- Weight loss

- Fab abs

- Startup

It fails because when you don't see results by following a system, we tune out.

Start with identity.

Why?

Our current behaviors are a reflection of our current identity.

To change your behavior for good, we need to start believing new things about ourselves.

Ask yourself, “Who is the type of person that could get the outcome I want?”

- A model

- An athlete

- An entrepreneur

At a deeper level, this is about defining new beliefs -

What do you want to stand for?

What are your principles and values? 

- I started with "I stand for anything 'health and fitness' in my friends & family circle."

Difficult part is, we ourselves are only not convinced. 

-I am NOT this person yet!

That's where, being an IMPOSTER helps.

When you masquerade, you have to start thinking and proving your new identity to yourself.

On how an athlete will think when offered a late night booze party? Ditch.

On how an entrepreneur will think when offered to be limited at job? Ditch & Start.

And one day you will BECOME.

Thats why i say, be an imposter.

#habit #career #job #runningmarketer

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I write regularly on topics linked to marketing/consumer and habits/productivity. 

Follow #RunningMarketer on LinkedIn 

Monkeys on your back are pulling your productivity down?

🐒 Monkey on your back?

You’re racing down the hall. Your reportee stops you and says, “We’ve got a problem.” 

You listen to him but can’t make an on-the-spot decision. You say, “Let me think about it.” 

👉You’ve just allowed a “monkey” to leap from your subordinate’s back to yours. 

👉You’re now working for your subordinate . 

👉Take on enough monkeys, and you won’t have time to handle your real job: fulfilling your own boss’s mandates and helping peers generate business results. 

How to avoid accumulating monkeys? 

👉Develop your subordinates’ initiative.

For example, in such a scenario, clarify that he needs to come back with - recommendation , take action and report outcome at a regular update. 

When you encourage employees to handle their own monkeys, they acquire new skills—and you liberate time to do your own job.

- Tip from an article by William Oncken, Jr., and Donald L. Wass published in Harvard Business Review 

#work #career #tip #productivity #job

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I write regularly on topics linked to marketing/consumer and habits/productivity. 

Follow #RunningMarketer on LinkedIn 

When the humble kaapi met the affluent Latte!

I wonder, when the co-founder of Starbucks, Zev Siegl recently visited Bangalore's heritage shop - Vidyarthi Bhawan for a quick taste; he must have done this thousands of time;sampling coffees across continents and soaking in how consumers sip coffee everywhere.

With glocalisation, it's important that brands offer consumers to taste the best of both worlds - signature stuff the brand stands for globally as well as modification or new products lines keeping local sensibilities and flavours in mind.

#Starbucks this year has launched filter coffee & masala chai in their menu along with stuff like chole kulche in India.

#McDonald's has been selling Aloo tikki burger for years now in India and it has been adopted in the global menu under vegan options.

#Snickers introduced the veg version in India only (eggless).

#harleydavidson recently launched tough turbans in thier range of accessories considering a lot of sikhs community drive thier vehicle.

But for all that thing to happen, understanding consumers by immersing themselves in the market is what is a must!

#consumerbehavior #marketing

Top 5 ways to build habit forming products?

Top 5 ways to make your product a habit-forming one?

'Hooked' by Nir Eyal is a must read on the subject. My picks from the book -

1. Become a Guru.
Thats what most brand build - a library of great Content on thier transactional apps - like #Zerodha varsity.

2. Become a Friend.
Personalize. Recommend. Valuable reminders. That wife's anniversary tip. #Cred saves the day on bills.

3. Become a Community.
Standing for a common cause in the category & solving consumer pain points. #Nike+, Redbull have embraced this so well.

4. Dont build point programs for loyalty. Build VAS, consumer will pay for. Like #Amazon Prime.

5. Don't make a super app to build frequency. Cut confusion. Retain focus.

What would you add there?

#product #marketing  #growth #book

Peak End Rule - Whats more memorable - Dhoni's six Vs Gambhir's 97?

More memorable of 2011 world cup - Dhoni's hitting 6 in 2011 world cup (91*) or Gambhir's above the order 97?

You went to a movie. The beginning and the middle was boring. But the end was awesome. Your mind will still rate it - awesome. (Bruce Willis's Sixth sense?)

Apart from the end, we also remember some of the extreme scenes in the middle; those peaks that were unusually good or worst. (Kashmir Files' 2 extreme scenes!!)

That's peak-end rule at play. 

When we remember something, our brain ignores most of it. It picks only the 'peaks' and the 'end' more than anything out of a story, movie, #content..any experience; and makes an assessment of it, based on that only.

Despite a poor #experience throughout, if the brand makes it sweetest at the end, your #NPS rating would still be 8-10/10. 

So, its important that as marketers, we build those peaks in our content or experiences along with pleasant endings. 

That unique mouth freshening pouches in a restaurant. Or that peak moment clicked at a Disney ride given at end!

Any relatable examples?

#marketing 

Strategy is God?

Strategy is God.

It pervades everywhere.

From man on the moon strategy to how to tie shoe laces strategy.

Basic strategy. Sophisticated strategy. Winning strategy. Losing strategy. #Marketing strategy. Sales strategy. HR strategy.

‘strategy’ derives from the Greek strategia, = ability to employ available resources to win a military conflict.

Simply put, strategy is a cohesive response (analyses, concepts, arguments, policies and actions) to an important challenge.

Not a standalone decision.

Not a goal.

It’s important to distinguish and use the word. 

Richard Rumelt in his book, Good Strategy Bad Strategy; talks about -

#Strategy = Diagnosis + Guiding Policy + coherent action

Diagnosis = Identification of problems/obstacles

Guiding policy = Specific approach selected to solve problems

Coherent action = detailed how to ( policy, resources,actions) to carry out Guiding policy.

Do the below sound okay as strategy?

-Our strategy is to grow 10X in 3 years. 

-Our game strategy today is to go out there and score!

#execution 

How much is that connected TV costing you?

Smart Idiot box draws 25% of waking life!

Our attention is the biggest resource to be managed, along with the time we fill for it.

Series on Apps like #netflix increasingly use ‘peak end’ rule, to leave you wanting more after each episode & making you binge watch.

How to get out of it?

Fix the time slot and pause after it to resume later next day, vs binge watch.

Connected TV means control is with you vs with the now smart idiot box.

Don’t lose control.

On of my favourite speakers, Jim Rohn mentions a story - When he asked his friend on how much did this grand ultra sized recently purchased TV costing him, his friend mentioned proudly the price tag.

Later jim told him, that the cost is actually several million dollars over the years, of the time that it will suck perenially.

Who much is the smart idiot box costing you?

#smart #entertainment

Psychology behind 'I know'

Psychology behind 'I know' 

Generally when asked about something, our default response (despite having a very hazy idea) is that 'I know'. 

In an experiment, people were asked if they know 'how zippers work?'

And then asked to rate themselves on a scale of 10 on how well they know it.

Then they were given a pen and paper to explain. And again asked to rate. 

Their scores plummeted.

This phenomenon is called the ‘Illusion of Explanatory Depth’.

The illusion that we understand things better than we actually do. 

We think we understand how things work. Even when we don’t.

This often leads to - 

☝️ end of conversation as the other person stops and doesnt explain further 

✌️ you remain poorer under this mirage that you know.

How to counter this?

👉Convert 'I know' to saying 'I want to know'.

👉Be the last one to speak, if you really want to educate yourself.

Have you caught yourself in a conversation saying 'I know' when somebody just started saying something?

 #work #life #tips #growth 

1000 true fans?

Power of 1000 true fans > Power of mass media?

In times of efficient and ROI driven #marketing, power of #community is a big lever.

Kevin kelly wrote an essay in 2008 stating the power of first 1000 fans -

"A true fan is defined as a fan that will buy anything you produce. These diehard fans will drive 200 miles to see you sing; they will buy the hardback and paperback and audible versions of your book and so on.

If you have roughly a thousand of true fans (also known as super fans), you can make a living — if you are content to make a living but not a fortune."

And here is how it works. You need to meet two criteria -

1. You have to create enough each year that you can earn, on average, $100 profit from each true fan.

2. You must have a direct relationship with your fans. That is, they must pay you directly.

If you keep the full $100 of each true fan, then you need only 1,000 of them to earn $100,000 per year. That’s a living for most folks.

Earlier this phenomenon was difficult to achieve because of lack of direct relationship/transaction with customers, but with #ecommerce, D2C and p2p digital payments, this concept is the backbone behind many brands globally.

Thats why brands of today aspire global demand because they now have this power of a connected world!

These brands focus on direct contact with customers to leverage this principle of true 1000 fans!

And yes, more often than not, you dont see these brands spend on mass media because the community helps them grow. They dish out challenges, rewards, parties first to those fans and then to the world at large!

#D2C enables efficiency in marketing and #sales and business!

Have you experienced the power of thousand true fans yet? Not customers, but fans.

Book Review - Good to Great by Jim Collins

Books worth enough to share your life with -

"Good to Great" by Jim Collins

This is like a book '7 habits of highly effective people' applied to companies! It traces progress of ~1500 companies to come up with 11 which beat competition consistently for 15 years in his research.

And filtered the 'reason why' into a behaviour model of 'Good to Great' shown in the picture split into disciplined people, desciplined thought, desciplined action. 

Apart from doggedness to keep at doing things, he defines discipline around 'clarity and focus' which is a gem nuance. wavering strategy or doing multiple things, back and forth is example of indiscipline.

The #audible version has voice of author himself and the way he narrates the book, he is so passionate in his work, it seems as if you are part of the discussion! Must listen.

However, apart from the company's behaviour aspects; i felt same can be applied to individuals in thier lives & careers -

1. Level 5 #leadership - A humble but firm leadership behaviour. Not flamboyant, not charming but simple people with no egos dedicated to the objective. None of these companies have those celeb leaders!

2. First who, then what - While embarking on a vision, its important yo figure who is on the bus (like-minded) & then decide to what to do next. Else, you falter easily as people leave the bus if mis-aligned.

3. Confront the brutal facts - Running away from reality doesnt help. And quoting future vision without confronting reality is like ostrich with his neck under sand.

4. Hedgehog concept - This is crux of this book. We should figure the intersection of 

-what we are passionate about, 

-what are our skills/talent that we are good at, and

-what is our economic engine ( how we can make money out of the two by figuring a matket and a metric that uniquely drives us to the vision)

5. Culture of #descipline, not hierarchical. Descipline by auto mode vs forced; enabled by disciplined thinking and disciplined control. No bureaucracy.

6. #Technology as accelerator, not as 'the' thing to change fortunes. First figure hedgehog concept and then apply technology if it helps you accelerate the focus via hedgehog. For eg. Clarity of thought boosted by tech is a dangerous thing.

7. #Flywheel - The good to great transformation is not like a revolution, its like slow and steady evolution. It builds up turn by turn on a steering wheel till you pass through a breakthrough. Its like a decade long overnight sensation!

Loved it to the core. Become a fan of Jim Collins. Its like those re-reads kind of books.

Which #book have you loved recently? Share your recommendations for a business book for my next read.