Psychotactics

You’re about halfway through your speaking engagement, all fired up, and then it happens…

Someone in the audience wants to ask a question.
This question, basic as it may be, kills your rhythm.

It distracts the flow of the information for the rest of the audience.

And worse, it opens a floodgate of questions.
Before you know it, your speech has lost its momentum. The audience is restless.

And you’d like to throttle that person that raised his hand. Because it’s all his fault that the presentation has gone astray.

But is it really his fault?

Or is it yours?
You’re the speaker.
You’re the one who has to lay down the ground rules.

If you don’t lay down the ground rules, the audience has no rules.

In the absence of rules, an audience will take arbitrary decisions. And those decisions can quite easily ruin your speech. And not just ruin your speech, but irritate the audience as well.

Why would the audience be irritated?
When someone interrupts you, there’s no way to control the question.
And if you feel compelled to answer, that encourages others to ask questions as well.

In every instance, the audience is there to hear you speak. Not for the speech to become a question-answer session. So if you’re going to have a question-answer session, you must make it very clear to the audience when to ask the questions.

I cut interruptions with a simple outline right at the top of my speech
I do the following by telling the audience:

This simple five-step process is delivered in a matter of minutes
And it works exceedingly well to control an audience, and prevents them from interrupting your speech.

But what if someone still interrupts?
Listen to the audio below to find out how to prevent the ‘persistent interruption’.

Question: So how would you deal with interruptions? Any ideas? How have you dealt with interruptions before?

To get a direct podcast delivered from iTunes (so you don’t miss any of the episodes) click on this link

 

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Most business owners make a horrible mistake
They confuse the words ‘momentum’ and ’speed.’

The people who really succeed do little things every single day.
The little things start to add up.

The speedsters want to go from start to finish in 55 seconds.
They want to reach the top of the Google ranking in next to no time.
They want to learn a skill like copywriting or article writing in three weeks.
They want speed.

And as you already know: Speed kills.

 

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There’s this story of Calvin and Hobbes.
And how Calvin is drawing up his list for Santa Claus.
At which point, Calvin turns to Hobbes and says: What would you like for Christmas?

And Hobbes says: I’d like a tuna sandwich.

Of course, Calvin freaks out.
Because he’s got a list a mile long. A list that seems to have rocket launchers, trains, boats, and a whole bunch of stuff he wants for Christmas. And all Hobbes wants is a tuna sandwich.

As is inevitable, Christmas morn arrives
And Calvin is now throwing a massive tantrum, because Santa hasn’t brought him all he wanted. And Hobbes sits with a big smile on his face and says: “I got my tuna sandwich.”

Taking three months off every year depends solely on your definition of your tuna sandwich.
Do you really know what’s enough?
Have you ever sat down and worked out if you could freeze your income at a point what would be enough for you from now till the day you die? You haven’t have you?

Well don’t feel bad about it, because, as humans we’re pretty useless at planning what really matters. And of course, we’re greedy. But determining our tuna sandwich, enables us to have enough. To be happy. And contented.

And that’s what really matters, isn’t it?

To find out how we actually grew our business at Psychotactics, by cutting back, listen to the audio below. And of course, listen/read to the Three Prong System, that shows you the basis of how to structure your business for the ‘Three-Month Vacation.’

 

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So you’ve just contacted a strategic alliance.
You sent out a magnificent letter; or email; or just had a meeting.

What’s the next logical step?
Why it’s to get on with the job, right?
But that’s not the way a relationship works.

You may want to romp around with an alliance right after your first point of contact.

But that romping only happens if both parties are drunk
True relationships aren’t a factor of wham-bam.
True relationships take time.
There’s a dating process; a movie process; the phone calls; the texting etc.

Some relationships take months, even years to come to fruition.
And that’s just how we are as humans.
We want to trust one another, before romp in the sack.

Which means that if you enter an alliance expecting quick results, you’re nuts.
Or drunk.
And the question is if you rush the romp, will they respect you in the morning?

Listen to the audio below to get a feel for how we at Psychotactics go about working with Strategic Alliances. And what’s the key ingredient? What’s the real goal when you’re getting in touch with a client? What’s the real benchmark? Or subscribe to a direct podcast from iTunes (so you don’t miss any of the episodes)

 

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Could you actually take three months off every year?
Or do you get swamped with work, and more work, and even more work?

It’s a good question, and seems like an impossible one too.
So would it surprise you if I said we take more than three months off every year?
Would it surprise you that our revenue has grown because of the time off?
Would it surprise you that our clients expect us to take time off, and plan around our vacations?

But a trip depends on the plan
And most businesses don’t actually have a plan to take time off every year.
So how do you take time off every year?
You re-structure your business using the Three-Prong System.

So what is the Three-Prong System?
It’s a system that has formed the basis of business for thousands of years.
Most businesses are based on just one prong.
Some have two prongs.
And the businesses with the most free time have three prongs.

So what are these prongs? And how do you use them to control your business? And how can you get on the road to three months (or more) every year? Listen to the audio below. Or subscribe to a direct podcast from iTunes (so you don’t miss any of the episodes)

 

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Sometimes, it’s best not to think of anything.

And just to be in the no-fi zone.
Because as much as your brain needs to work, it also needs to relax.
No email. No phone. No wi-fi.

Just blank thoughts.
Besides, blank thoughts are so much easier to mind-map, eh?

If you’ve sent out an email, you’re more than likely to have sent out an email signature.

An email signature is simply the text that’s at the bottom of every email you send out.
And you may not have thought a lot about modifying that signature, but hey, if you do, that single signature alone could bring you hundreds and thousands of customers each year.

So how do you write an email signature that instantly gets the attention of your customer?
And then how do you leverage that signature, using it on forums, in reports, on answers to blog posts etc. How do you maximise the power of that email signature?

Let’s find out, by looking at three email signatures

Why Your Business Card Confuses Customers
How Too Many Elements Cause Confusion In Your Customer’s Brain

How To Systematically Use Numbers To Keep Your Audience Alert
A simple technique to use at your next speaking engagement

The ‘Why Factor of Headlines ‘
It’s not about ‘What’ Headlines to write. It’s About ‘Why’ one headline is more powerful than the next.

Did you notice how each signature is devised for a different audience?
You did, didn’t you? Well here are some more reasons why those email signatures get your attention. And notice the following:

1) How I never ask them to subscribe.
2) How I use questions. And curiosity.
3) How I use two or three sentences. And only highlight one.

There’s a reason why you don’t ask someone to subscribe.
No one really cares about your newsletter. They only want what they want. And your email signature should act like an attraction device, sending the customer to what they want.

Questions work, because they’re curious. Your brain wants to know the answer.

And using two-three sentences helps you get a complete message out. There’s never a need to try and squash a signature in one sentence. Let your signature breathe. Yet don’t overdo it. Two or three sentences are enough. A paragraph would probably be over the top, eh?

So that’s it. Three simple guidelines.
And you’re away writing emails that attract customers. And make sure you use these signatures everywhere: In forums, in your email and wherever else there’s a chance to attract customers.

P.S. Note: Even this audio below has a signature. Listen to the audio, and you’ll recognise the simplicity and attraction power of the signature (yes, even in an audio).

(Note: You can also get an automatic podcatst download from iTunes —And never have to miss an episode).

 

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Have you wondered why you get Writer’s Block? And what Writer’s Block has to do with fire-drills and 800-pound gorillas?

Let’s start with the fire-drill, shall we?
The reason why you had a fire-drill in school or at an office, isn’t because the organisation likes making you run out of the building, and onto the street.

The biggest reason for fire-drills, is to know what to do in an emergency.

Because contrary to what you may believe, people don’t actually run helter-skelter in an emergency. They sit there, transfixed, as if in a bad dream.

And in your business, emergencies pop up like 800-pound gorillas
Suddenly you have to write a report. Or create a presentation. Or even worse, write an engaging article.

And your brain panics. It freezes. And it has no memory of any fire-drill.

The brain goes into panic mode. It scans memory bank after memory bank for a memory of success.

On the contrary, it finds failure after failure
Why does it run into failure? And how do we overcome this failure? Listen to this short 7 minute audio, and you’ll understand exactly what goes in the mind of a so-called ‘talented’ person. Why that person is able to walk right past that 800-pound assignment, while you can only watch in terror.

Find out, by listening to the audio.  If you want to read a detailed article, email me.

(Note: You can also get a direct download from iTunes if you wish).

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So maybe you don’t have a massive to-do list. And maybe you do.
What you most certainly don’t have is time set aside for chaos.

So what’s ‘time for chaos?’
Every single day as we are ‘getting things done’, we almost always run into downtime. This includes us having to put out an emergency, or just getting tired, or something or the other. Yet, if you look at your schedule for the day, there’s almost never an allocation for ‘things going wrong.’

There’s never any time for chaos
Yet we have to plan for it. And I’m sure you’re saying you don’t have any time in your life for chaos. Well, listen/download this 2 minute audio (see below)–and listen to it (Note: You can also get a direct download from iTunes if you wish).

 

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Should you always be testing?

No, you should really take time for toilet breaks, coffee, and other things in life. But other than that, yeah, you can spin your wheels forever if you aren’t testing.

And despite your wheels spinning like crazy, you’ll still get pulled up by a cop car. The cop car is the sight of dropping profits, and exiting customers.

So test, test, test. But do take time for toilet breaks, ok!

I could go on forever, but I’ll leave that to the experts.
Me, I’ll just let the cartoon do the talking.

And talking about ‘talking’: You can get a cool weekly Psychotactics Podcast delivered right from iTunes.
Note: This cartoon was specially done at the prodding of Bryan Eisenberg of FutureNowInc. So there, Bryan…are you a happy camper yet?