It’s the time of year that many people consider making a resolution to improve their life, business, relationships, health or a host of other reasons. However, the odds say that most resolutions won’t be successful. According to one study, only 8 percent of New Year’s resolutions are kept.
Change is one of the most difficult tasks for most people. It becomes even more challenging if the change involves subject areas that bore you or tasks you don’t like. However, change does not have to be painful writes Dr. Barbara Oakley, in her new book, Mindshift: Break Through Obstacles to Learning and Discover Your Hidden Potential.
An interesting article in Scientific American shed light on “Why Smart People Do Foolish Things.” Author Heather Butler relates that there is a disconnect between how intelligence is measured and making smart decisions. The Intelligent Quotient (IQ) test is often the barometer of intelligence. The test evaluates ability to solve visuospatial puzzles, math problems and vocabulary questions, recognize patterns and conduct visual searches. Butler understands that being intelligent offers significant advantages. Intelligent people generally do better in school, have better jobs and careers and are less likely to get into trouble (e.g., commit crimes) as adolescents. However, Butler notes that being intelligent does not necessarily predict other life outcomes such as well-being. Research shows that most intelligence tests fail to predict one’s decision making ability, and that helps to explain why smart people sometimes do foolish things.
A University of Southern California Business School professor study of 1,000 sales identified the distinctive characteristics and habits of top performers. He found that 15 percent of those surveyed had exceeded their quotas by more than 125 percent. Here are the key findings of the study:
Making your brand relevant and socially useful is one of the challenges affecting kitchen and bath showrooms. How to you accomplish this? The first stop is your website. Are you providing information that customers want? Are you making it easy to find information? Pretend you are a customer looking to remodel your kitchen. If you went to your website, would it deliver the information you want and need? Would it encourage you to call, email or visit your showroom? Ask yourself what you can do to make your brand more relevant and useful? This is a great place to start because recent research found that consumers find 44% of all brand experiences as boring.
There’s a fine line between risk taking and dumb. Many of the great CEOs in today’s corporate world, including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Netflix’ Reed Hastings and Coke’s James Qunicey believe in the power of failure. If you are not taking risks, you are not thinking creatively enough they argue. One of Bezos’ great competencies, and there are many, is that he is quick to pull the plug on projects that don’t appear to pan out. As Scott Galloway points out in his new book, The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google,Bezos divides Amazon’s risk taking into two types: 1) Those you can’t walk back from (“This is the future of the company.”), and 2) Those you can (“This isn’t working, we’re out of here.).
There's an interesting and opportunistic shift taking place in the way large and small businesses go to market. BKBG members may view their role as creating new kitchens and baths for their clients. Their tasks may include designing the space, specifying and selling products, installation and performing quality control. Showrooms sell both products and services, and retail gurus are advising showrooms and other brick-and-mortar retailers to sell experiences and solve the needs and aspirations of their customers. When a showroom creates a new space in the customer's home, they can focus on experiences by relating how warm and fuzzy their clients will feel with the ability to create restaurant-quality meals in their home.
There are 4.8 million people in the U.S. who are 26 years old. They are the largest group of the Millennial generation, which is the largest generation in U.S. history. They are on the verge of dramatic lifestyle change that may involve marriage, buying a home or having a child. Millennials represent 42 percent of all homebuyers and 71 percent of all first-time homebuyers, according to Zillow Group, and 86 percent of Millennial homebuyers reported making at least one home improvement in the last year.
Do you know someone who believes they are right 100% of the time? These people are difficult to deal with, especially if they are your clients. They believe because they may have been successful in life, or achieved a certain financial or societal status, that they have the right to tell others what to do and how to do anything and everything. How do you deal with a know-it-all? According to Priscilla Claman, president of Career Strategies, the first step is to pick your battles wisely. If the advice, guidance, directive or request is not going to make a difference in the outcome of the project or compromise the integrity of your design, let it go.
Did you know that the average person receives 121 emails a day? Do you know anyone who wants to receive more than 121 emails daily? Probably not. How do you stand out? How do you make sure your emails are read? Look at email through a different lens. What message do you convey when you end your email, “sent from my mobile phone, please overlook typos? Simply because you use a mobile device to communicate does that give you a pass for shoddy communication?
