The Power Of Imagination

On Monday I overheard my daughter playing in her cot. She was completely engrossed in a magical world of her own creation. I put a short post about my observations on Facebook and my wall exploded. The need for us adults to engage our imaginations seemingly struck a chord. 

Yesterday I spent the day teaching a group of engineers the art of storytelling. At first I worried that it might be a hard sell, too far removed from their world of facts and figures. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Their desire to play, to connect with each other on a simpler, more human level was inspirational. 

So why is imagination important? And what are the creative lessons that we can take from the world of make-believe and the arts, that can help us succeed in business? 

Stay Creative 

It may seem obvious, and I’m sure someone else has said it more eloquently but if you can’t imagine something you will never create it. Our ability to envisage the future, to dream big, to think the impossible, is what separates human beings from other mammals and ultimately drives our society forward. Even 20 years ago not many people believed that space travel would be possible for the man on the street. Today, if you head on over to Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic website you can complete an application form to become an astronaut! In just the last few weeks scientists at Penn University in the USA have been able to 3D print blood vessels. And Elon Musk’s Hyperloop technology has taken a massive step forward and could see us traveling to our destinations in specialised pods at the speeds of up to 760mph. The future is coming! But the only reason it’s coming is that people were brave enough to dream. To think creatively about the worlds problems and push the boundaries of what is possible. It’s easy to fall in repetitive patterns and assume that your situation or the things that you’re working on can’t change. Challenge your perception and ask yourself the magical question “What if…?”

Stay Flexible

I’ve written about the importance of staying flexible before. Our ability to adapt is key to our continued growth both individually and organisationally. When we allow our imaginations to run free something exciting happens. We open up a world of possibilities. We start to see options rather than obstacles. At drama school young actors learn to improvise, a incredibly vulnerable practice but one that can be incredibly liberating. One of the key rules of any successful improvisation is to “accept every offer”. You are taught not to block ideas but to run with them. No matter how odd a curve ball you get thrown, your job is to build on it rather than push back. That doesn’t always happen in “real life”. Human beings have an inbuilt negative bias, its a natural protection mechanism that’s designed to stop us getting eaten by sabre tooth tigers and other dangerous predators but it has no real function in the twenty first century workplace. Instead of saying “yes but….” to the next offer that comes your way, what would it be like to say “yes and….” instead?…

Stay Playful

To quote Plato “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation”. When we play, we allow ourselves to connect. We let our guards down and become more human. Play helps us build relationships. Think back to your school days, I bet you can remember the kids who were on your sports team or in your orchestra better than the kids who were in your biology class. Why? Because through the collective experience of playing together, you created stronger bonds. Play is also fun. It provides variety, makes us feel good and boosts performance. When we take time out of the “norm” to do something different, we recharge our batteries. There’s a reason why Pixar animators can decorate their offices in any way they choose… What would happen if rather than looking at problems in a linear way, we were prepared to see them through the eyes of a child and play with them until we found a better solution?

The imagination is one of the most powerful tools in our tool kits but all too often it’s left rusting at the bottom of the bag. I believe that the more we engage with it and dare to use it, the more happy, successful and prosperous we will be.

I’d love to hear your observations about how the power of the imagination has impacted you or your business. Please feel free to share some magic in the comments box below ;-)

Keep shining, and creating and flexing and playing!

Dominic

Lessons In Endurance

What Running 26.2 Miles Taught Me About Business

On Sunday 11th October I ran my first marathon. Historically I am not a runner. I signed up for the challenge because I wanted to give something back to the fantastic hospital that treated my daughter after she had an accident at the beginning of the year. It was a personal challenge but also a very public one. I had told all of my family and friends about what I was doing in a effort to raise as much money as possible. I was then contacted by a TV production company who were interested in my story and wanted to film me training and during the race for a documentary they were making about the event. I had nowhere to hide…

I’m not going to lie and say it was easy, it was the most physically and mentally demanding thing I’ve ever done. The race and the months of preparation challenged me in ways I hadn’t expected and there were moments when I doubted that I’d be able to complete the challenge. But I did. In 4 hours 31 minutes. A time of which I am incredibly proud. The whole experience has changed me as an individual and as a business owner. It’s made me change the way I think about the challenges I face and it’s made me more determined than ever to succeed at those things that I choose to do. It was a brilliant experience. Here are the lessons I learned along the way…. 

Take it one step at a time

There’s nothing sexy about training for a marathon. Just like any major project with a delivery date way off in the future, the thought of achieving your goal, of crossing the finish line, is exciting and extremely appealing. However, the reality of what comes before that celebration, the journey you must go on to get there, is pretty bloody boring and full of lots and lots of hard work. I had just under nine months to train for the race and after the initial excitement of starting the project had worn off, it was very hard to find the motivation to leave the house on a cold, wet Sunday morning to go jogging for two hours. I soon discovered the importance of splitting the journey into bite-sized chunks, mini-projects or milestones that I could tick off along the way. Complete at least 2 runs a week. Run a half marathon. Run for 3 hours without stopping. All little goals within the bigger goal that gave me a sense of achievement and of forward momentum. As a result I now include milestone in all of the projects within my business which not only gives me and the team a way to measuring our progress but also helps us resist the urge to cram all of our preparation in just before the deadline. As any marathon runner will tell you, pacing is the key!

Find yourself a cheerleader

The road to success can be pretty lonely. We’re all our own biggest critics and when things start to veer slightly off track we can be pretty quick to put ourselves down. We go straight to our default negative bias. The little voice inside our heads starts telling us about all the things that we haven’t done, all the targets that we’ve missed and all the reasons that we’re sure to fail. Our ability to manage that voice, to demand that it changes its tune and starts championing us instead, can be the difference between success and failure. When “you’ve still got 6 miles to go, I hope your knees hold out” changes to “you’ve done 20 miles already, the finish line’s within reach” the difference is tangible. And it’s not only the internal voices that are important in helping us to achieve our goals. On race day I had teams of friends and family strategically placed at intervals along the route: cheering me on, waving signs and offering me jelly babies and bananas! The impact of this was huge. All of a sudden I wasn’t alone. For a couple of fleeting seconds I felt connected and part of a bigger team. Just imagine what a difference it could make in your business if you created a more positive script for yourself and regularly checked in with the people who champion you and believed in what you were trying to achieve.

Keep pushing

With so much invested in the run and with so many people aware of what I was trying to achieve (not to mention the TV crew following me round!) giving up was never really an option. But that doesn’t mean that it didn’t cross my mind. About three weeks before the event I had to pull up short on a training run due to knee pain and I was seriously worried that my chances of racing were over. A couple of days before the run I developed a full body rash, started running a fever and was having cold sweats – I think I caught a virus – and again the doubts crept in. And the on race day itself, around the 21 mile mark, I hit the dreaded “wall” and was convinced that I’d have to give up there an then as I had no energy left and I could hardly breath. But at every hurdle I kept pushing on. Not because I believe that anything’s possible. It’s not. I’ll never win a marathon – unless I’m the only person in the field :-). The reason I kept pushing on is because I’d done my homework. I’d put in the training hours . I’d eaten the right food. I’d chosen good shoes and even better socks (essential for anyone who fancies running a marathon themselves in the future). And most importantly I’d prepared my mind to go the distance. I’d anticipated that it wouldn’t all go according to plan and I put tactics in place to cope with it. I crossed the finish line with a smile on my face. My body ached, my lungs were stinging and I had achieved my goal.

Don’t forget to celebrate

After I collected my medal I didn’t go home and start training for my next challenge. I went out to the pub to celebrate – via a long hot shower of course ;-). This may not sound extraordinary but when I compare it to what I would normally do in a business context there is a big lesson to be learned. Believe it or not, despite the fact that I’m an actor, I don’t really like being the centre of attention. So, when my wife told me that she’d invited 40 people to celebrate with us after the race I felt pretty uncomfortable. Plenty of other human beings have run a marathon, it’s really nothing that special. My default position is to swipe things under the carpet, to acknowledge my successes briefly and then move on to the next thing. But my thinking has now changed. I realised that celebrating success wasn’t just about me, it was about recognising all the people that had been part of my journey. It was about my wife and daughter who’d put up with the relentless training schedule that had eaten into our weekends and changed the contents of our fridge. It was about the friends and family who had turned up to cheer me on along the route and it was about everybody that had read my story, pledged money to the cause and sent me beautiful messages of support. Those few hours in the pub will always be really special to me. I got a chance to relive the race from a different perspective and to create even stronger bonds with my “tribe”. Successes need to be celebrated. It’s too easy to switch focus to the next big thing as soon as a goal is ticked off the list. However, unless we give ourselves the time to enjoy our wins, we miss an important moment for reflection and connection that sets us up for continued success in the future.

I am now a runner. I’m not sure where it will take me next and I’m pretty sure I won’t be going full marathon distance in the foreseeable future, however, I do know that the experiences I have had over the last nine months will have an impact for many years to come.

What have you learned from your recent challenges? What will you do differently in the future?  I’d love to hear your thoughts, so please leave your comments in the box below.

Keep shining!

Dominic

How To Start A Pitch Or Presentation

In this video I reveal the simple secret for grabbing your audience’s attention and getting them onside from the word go.
You’ve got seven seconds to make a first impression. Make them count!!

I’d love to hear how you get on with implementing this strategy so please leave me a comment in the box below.

Keep shining!

Dominic

The Do's and Don't of PowerPoint

In this video I want to share my PowerPoint do’s and don’ts…. and when I say PowerPoint I mean any presentation software including Prezi and Keynote.
I know that a lot of people use these presentation tools and used well they can be excellent. Unfortunately, all too often, I see people making easily avoidable mistakes with the software. In this video I’ll share with you some simple tips that will help you connect with your audience and get them to engage with your presentation.
Tip no.1: Don’t read the bullets!

Power point and other presentation tools are there to help you reinforce your messages, to give the audience the key points that you want them to take away. Don’t use your slides as a script. It’s distracting and boring for the audience, as they know what’s coming before the words have even come out of your mouth.

Tip no.2: Don’t have too many words on the screen

If you start to put lines and lines of text onto your slides your audience will try and read it. As soon as you flip to a new slide filled with words you lose the focus of the audience as people try and read all the information that you put on the screen behind you.

Tip no.3: Keep it simple

Use a maximum of three bullet points per slide. That’s plenty. Use three to five words per bullet point. Don’t over complicate things; leave people with the key messages

Tip no.4: Use images

I really encourage you to use pictures. Images stay with us much more powerfully than text and if we associate what you are saying with the image that you put on the screen, we are much more likely to remember it.

Tip no.5: Think of Power Point as your backdrop

Don’t let PowerPoint upstage you. We don’t want people to remember the PowerPoint, we want them to remember you and what it is you said. Use your Power Point to enhance your presentation, but remember, Power Point isn’t your presentation. You are your presentation: the words you speak and the connection that you make with your audience.

I’d love to hear your views on how to get the most out of PowerPoint, so please share your comments with me in the box below.

Keep shining!

Dominic

Breathing Exercises For Confident Public Speaking

Breathing is really important for making you sound and feel confident when you are in front of an audience.
The first thing you should think about is the placement of your breath. A common mistake that people make when they are nervous is to start breathing up into the chest. This increases the adrenaline flowing around your system and you enter into ‘fight or flight mode’.

The best way to overcome your nerves is low breathing. Use your diaphragm by relaxing your stomach muscles and allow your breath to drop in and fill your lungs. Use your ribs and the intercostal muscles too, like you’re filling up a barrel!

The simple breathing exercise I share in this video will help you to calm yourself down before a presentation. What you are actually doing is lowering your cortisol levels (your stress hormone) and at the same time increasing your testosterone levels (your confidence hormone) so it’s an absolute win-win!

I hope that you find my video on breathing exercises for confident public speaking useful. Please share your comments with me in the box below and I’d love to hear about any other tricks that work for you.

Keep shining (and breathing)!

Dominic

Public Speaking : Getting The Tone Of Your Speech Right

I spent the weekend getting ready for my most important speech of the year. It’s not a speech for a massive corporate audience, I won’t be on stage at a glitzy industry conference and I’m not even getting paid to deliver it… In fact, the speech that I’ll be giving will be even shorter than a TED talk but to me it will be much more important. Next Saturday at around 3pm I’ll be standing up in a small village hall in East Sussex, in front of the hundred or so guests that will be celebrating my brothers wedding!

It’s the first time in years that I’ve actually been slightly nervous about standing up in front of an audience. It’s not because people know that I’m an actor, a speaker and a communications trainer – although there is certain amount of pressure there! The reason I’m nervous is the fact that in the audience will be all of the most important people in my life… and I want to make them proud. 

It’s not the actual performance I’m worried about, that’s the bit I enjoy! The thing that I’ve found most difficult when writing this speech is striking the balance between humour and sincerity. I’m the Best Man, so there’s an expectation in the audience that there will at least be a few jokes but at the same time I want say something meaningful, not just go all out for laughs! I hope that I’ve achieved that in the speech I’ve written (although I suppose I won’t know for sure until I’ve sat down after the toasts!) so in this blog post I thought I’d share some tips on getting the tone right….

#1. It’s Not About You 

My first bit of advice for you, before you even put pen to paper, is to take a moment to think about who you will be speaking to. Who exactly will be in the audience? What do they want? How familiar are they with your subject matter?… As experts in our fields it’s all too easy to assume that everyone understands a topic as well as we do. However if we fail to adapt our message to the people listening to it, they will quickly loose interest. You wouldn’t give the same presentation on the subject of “personal finance” to a group of chartered accountants as you would to a group of primary school children. You’d naturally adapt – or at least I hope you would! Once you start to really think about your audience – and by that I mean getting as specific as possible – it will automatically start to affect the way that you think about what you are about to say. Put yourself in their shoes. Think in their language. As soon as you do this, you’ll start to naturally find the appropriate tone.

#2. Maintain Your Balance

You can’t please all the people all of the time… but there’s no point in alienating half of your audience just for the sake of it! Modern audiences have relatively short attention spans. We’re bombarded with information 24/7 and even when we intend to give something or someone 100% of our focus, our emails, our social media and our ever expanding “to-do lists” are in the background waiting to distract us. Good presenting and public speaking is all about balance. We need to vary our tone in order to preserve engagement. If you have a lot of detail to deliver, that’s fine but make sure you cover the bigger picture too. Likewise if your subject matter is more visionary make sure that you use specific examples to support your argument. Balance humour with sincerity and rallying cries with quiet reflection. If you look at any famous speech, this symmetry of light and dark will always be present. Think about where you can use this contrast in your public speaking and avoid getting stuck on one note.

#3. Tell Stories

My final tip on striking the right tone is to include stories. Ideally personal ones. I know the idea of revealing things about yourself can sometimes feel risky or inappropriate. However, used in the right ways, stories create a deep connection with your audience. I don’t think you should be airing your dirty laundry or revealing the skeletons in your closet but making things personal is a great way to build rapport. Talk about your feelings. Give parallel examples from your life to the subject matter you are speaking about. Create metaphors. Or simply ask your audience to take a leap into the unknown… “I’d like you to pause for a moment and imagine what would happen if….”. As human beings we’re hardwired for story. They engage our imagination and touch our hearts.

I’ll post a little update once I’ve given my speech on Saturday but in the meantime please share your thoughts on how to get the tone right in the comments box below. And if you’ve got any good wedding jokes I can steal, I’d love to hear those too – just keep them clean! ;-)

Keep shining

Dominic

The Secret To Connecting With Your Audience

There are many things you can do to make your audience love you but in my opinion the simplest and most effective is to make brilliant eye contact.
In my latest video I give you my top three tips for connecting with your audience using your eyes. If you find eye contact a little uncomfortable or you’d just like more engagement with the people you’re talking to, then this video is for you.

I really appreciate the comments these posts have been getting recently. It’s been amazing to hear people generously sharing their experiences and their own ideas for how to be brilliant communicators. So, if you’d like to join the debate I’d love to hear from you in the box below.

Keep shining!

Dominic

How To Use Your Hands When Presenting

I wanted to make some videos so that I could share with you some quick tips and tricks.
In this first video I talk about the topic that probably comes up most often in my presentation skills training sessions…. “what do I do with my hands?”.

I hope you find it helpful and would love to hear your comments so leave them in the box below or at my youtube channel.

Keep shining!

Dominic

Speaking On Camera: An Actor’s Top 5 Tips

I spent yesterday in the studio. That statement sounds very grand… the reality was somewhat more chaotic. The furniture in the office pushed against the walls, a white sheet erected for a back-drop, several lights cluttering the floor space and my iPhone 6 attached to a tripod to record the proceedings. Very soon you’ll be able to judge the results for yourselves as I start releasing the videos on YouTube but I’m amazed at what can be achieved using such a simple set up. In fact the resolution of the finished product will be significantly higher than the footage I have from an episode of Doctors I shot for the BBC 10 years ago. It’s amazing how far technology has come!
Being in front of the camera is something that feels quite natural for me now. It’s something I’ve been doing for a long time. But it wasn’t always that way. The first time I did it, I was absolutely petrified. I’d had the amazing good fortune to be cast in a big budget BBC period drama called The Lost Prince which was directed by the legendary Stephen Poliakoff. In the cast were some of Britain’s finest actors, Michael Gambon, Miranda Richardson, Tom Hollander, Bill Nighy and me… 20 years old, completely new to television and desperate not to make a fool of myself!

As I stepped up to shoot my first scene I was a nervous wreck. All the main cast were there along with about 200 extras! The pressure was huge. My lines kept flying out of my head and I just couldn’t remember what I was meant to say next. My hands were shaking and my voice felt tight. The camera was rolling and the director shouted “Action!”. A complete jumbled mess came streaming from my mouth. “Cut!” I heard Stephen cry and we reset to shoot again. I was mortified. The second take was no better. What was I going to do? It was Michael Gambon that broke the ice. All of a sudden he burst out laughing, stood up and started clapping!! He could see that I was struggling and came to my rescue offering words of reassurance. I instantly relaxed, smiled, took a deep breath and the third take was word perfect. That first TV job taught me so much about how to work on camera and I’ve been lucky enough to learn many valuable lessons throughout my career, so I thought I’d use this blog to quickly share my top 5 tips.

1. Don’t take yourself too seriously

This was my major take-away from that first challenging experience in front of the camera. The more I worried about what other people were thinking of me the worse I performed. It’s easy to become very self-conscious and serious when you’re looking down the lens. Try to stay playful and give yourself a break. The beauty of digital cameras is that you can do as many takes as you need to get the right footage, so don’t worry about getting it right first time.

2. It’s all in the eyes

The eyes are the windows to the soul and this is especially true on camera. The lens has an amazing ability to pick up on your emotion and we tend to see it in the eyes. Think happy thoughts and the eyes sparkle on screen. If you’re feeling sad or tired the eyes will seem dull and lifeless. Make sure that your mental state matches your objective when speaking on camera. If you want your audience to be excited and inspired by your message, you need to be completely energised. If you’re not, they’ll see it in your eyes.

3. Warm up your face

When we’re in a room talking to someone they can normally see our whole body. When we’re speaking on camera they normally only get to see our head. This mean’s all the extra information conveyed in our body language needs to be channeled into our facial expression. I’m not suggesting for a second that you start gurning or doing strange things with your lips to get your audience’s attention but you do need to make sure everything is alive and warmed up. There are a staggering 42 muscles in the face, so having a stretch, blowing through the lips and screwing everything up before you go on camera will make sure the lens really captures your emotion and gets your message across.

4. Treat the camera like a friend

It’s important to remember that when you look directly down the lens of a camera you are looking straight into the eyes of your audience. To make the connection between you and the viewer really strong, the best piece of advice I was ever given was to imagine that you are talking to a friend. If you treat the camera as if it is someone you like and trust, that will come across in what the audience sees. It’s a really simple technique to implement and it makes a massive difference to your performance.

5. Don’t be afraid to go off script

Obviously if you’re acting in a big budget feature film this tip isn’t really an option (unless the director gives you permission) but when we’re making videos in order to connect with and serve our audience sometimes a full script can make things too rigid. If you’re not experienced in the actor’s art of bringing word off the page, you can often come across as wooden or stilted. In my experience it’s much better to sketch out a few bullet points that you want to talk about and use the other 4 tips above to bring them to life. There’s something about an “off the cuff” video that gives you real credibility and builds trust with the audience. So, next time you’re tempted to write the whole things out, take a risk and shoot from the hip instead. I guarantee that the results will be more authentic and engaging.

I hope you found these tips useful and would love to hear any other things you do to come across like a pro on screen, so leave your comments in the box below or tweet me @dominiccolenso.

Good luck with your videos.

Keep shining!

Dominic

Game, Set & Match. How To Win At Public Speaking.

What a match! Novak Djokovic pounded a cross-court winner past Roger Federer on Sunday afternoon to seal his third Wimbledon championship and ninth grand slam title. But what can the world’s most famous tennis tournament teach us about public speaking?
#1. Love your audience.

In a game of tennis the cheers of the crowd make a big difference. When they feel like the audience is behind them, it can give players a big boost. When they loose the audience, Centre Court can be a very lonely place! Standing in front of large groups of people can make us nervous. Put yourself in Djokovic or Federer shoes and imagine standing in front of an audience of 15,000 people (plus a few million more watching from home)… pretty scary stuff!! For most of us the idea of presenting in front of 100 people causes anxiety. So what can we do to make sure that we give a confident performance and get our audience on our side?… Simple. Show them some love!
The big secret is that there is little difference in speaking to an audience of one or an audience of one thousand. I understand that it feels different but don’t let that feeling fool you. Look at the people we consider great speakers, Steve Jobs, Barack Obama, Stephen Fry, they all have different styles and different subject matters, yet they all have one thing in common: whatever the size of their audience, they make every single person feel engaged and special. Treat the people you’re speaking to as if they were your best mates and you can’t go wrong. Just like in a game of tennis, the audience is your friend and they want to be part of your success.

#2. Focus on the task at hand.

It’s easy to get distracted, especially when things don’t go our way or we make a mistake. However, great performers and athletes focus on their objective and don’t let themselves get pulled off course. If we stumble over a word when we are speaking or forget to mention a key point, we can often spend the next few minutes beating ourselves up. When we see this on the tennis court we know a player is in trouble. If they can’t move on quickly they will find themselves heading towards defeat. The key to success is having a strong objective to focus on. If you know what you are trying to achieve – to inspire the audience or to challenge their current way of thinking for example – then you can direct your energy towards that goal when you find yourself in trouble. If the goal is big enough and exciting enough it will outweigh any negative emotion and help you to continue to move forward. Without a strong objective you’ll trip yourself up at the first hurdle and find yourself crashing out of the competition!

#3. Get in the game.

The more you do something the easier it gets. No athlete, whether professional or amateur, would ever advocate competing in their chosen discipline without first putting in many hours of hard work before the event. In the same way that Djokovic spends most of his time training, you have to seek out opportunities to speak in front of large groups. So many people say “ I’m not a public speaker, I’m just no good at it”. The truth is that if you’ve ever had a single interesting conversation with another person in your entire life then you already have all the skills that you need to be a great public speaker in front of thousands of people! It’s just a case of practicing (and working with a good coach) to find out what works and what doesn’t. Djokovic has been knocked out of many more competitions than he’s won but that doesn’t stop him playing, in fact it probably makes him more determined. That’s the sign of a true champion in any discipline!

What do you do to make sure you “win” when you’re performing in front of a large audience? What other professions have you learned lessons from? I’d love to hear your ideas (and what you thought of the match!) in the comments box below.

Keep shining!

Dominic

What role do you play at work?

Today has been an exciting day at In Flow HQ. We’ve had a planning and strategy session devoted to looking towards the future. It’s been really illuminating and one thing it has made me reconsider is my “role” within the business. As an entrepreneur and business owner it’s easy to want (and sometime need) to be involved in every little detail. However, today brought home to me how important it is to identify where you should take the lead and where you should give others the spotlight in order to improve the company’s performance. 
The idea of “inhabiting a role” is something I would previously only have associated with my career as an actor but the more I think about it, the more I see how applicable it is to all aspects of life. In business in particular I think the way in which we think about our “role” can have huge implications on our performance.

In reality we each have many different versions of ourselves. There is a very different version of Dominic when I am at home with my wife and daughter to the version of Dominic who turns up to serious negotiations. It is another Dominic again who takes the lead in the training room and even that version of Dominic adapts to the needs and energy of the delegates. 

When we think of our “work role” then, imagine the impact if instead of just thinking about Key Competencies, Responsibilities and Duties we thought about which parts of ourselves we needed to “turn up” and which parts we needed to “turn down” in order to achieve our goals. What would happen if we consistently brought the version of ourselves that was most perfectly suited to the tasks at hand to the office with us every morning?

As any good actor will tell you, the process of creating a character begins with awareness. The actor needs to understand their own “character” before they can adapt and inhabit another. In the world of business then, our task is to develop a greater self-awareness in order to allow us to be flexible in our approach to the challenges that we face. Begin to notice your behaviour and you are half way to changing it. Once you know the options at your disposable you can then be much more targeted in how you deploy them!

What version of yourself would you benefit from bringing to work tomorrow morning in order to best fulfil your role? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Keep shining!

Dominic

Pink String

I’m really honoured to bring you this guest post from award winning author Jacky Fitt. Jacky and I met at the beginning of the year at an Institute Of Leadership and Management “Exceptional Trainer” event. I asked her to share her ideas on “online communication and engagement”. Here are her thoughts…
Website: String4You Ltd sells pink string.

Searcher: Great, I need pink string …

Website: String4You was established in 1984.

Searcher: Is your pink string sold in balls?

Website: The dedicated team at String4You are passionate about string.

Searcher: Really, is that all they have in their lives? I don’t actually feel anyone in the team is talking to me personally and I really need to know if your string is delivered next day.

Website: The string is manufactured in West Wittering.

Searcher: Yeah, yeah, whatever, is it rough or smooth because that worries me, oh, and can you colour match? I have a particular pink in mind…

Website: String4You – the gardeners’ friend!

Searcher: Wow, that’s old, we’re all knitting with it – when was this site last updated? And, by the way, I’m not a gardener…

Website: Buy our string!

Searcher: …

Website: Enjoy String4You’s easy pay plan!

Searcher: …

Website: Hello?

When you talk to your customers through your website it’s an intimate conversation.

Your reader is right there in front of you.

You have their attention.

But, not for long… On average if a website visitor doesn’t find what they want they will leave a web page within 10-20 seconds. Not long is it?

Don’t tell them what you think they want to know.

If you don’t know what’s important to them you don’t know them well enough and any conversation is going to be a short one.

Before you write your copy, make sure you know your customers. What kind of people are they? What kind of things do they like to do and what keeps them up at night.

Your home page needs to talk directly to them, one human being to another. The copy should reassure them that they are in the right place. It should attract and keep their interest, enough for them to delve further into the site.

Only then will you start a meaningful relationship that will profit you both.

How well do you know your customer?...

About Jacky:
Jacky Fitt is an award-winning author, editor and copywriter, her book ‘How to Get Inside Someone’s Mind and Stay There’ won the 2015 Small Business Book Community Choice Award for marketing. Jacky is Co director of The Big Ideas Collective creative agency and publishing imprint the Big Ideas Library.