Names, productivity, and reviews

October Favorites File

Selecting names, productivity, and reviews (online or otherwise) might not seem related but there is a common thread of purpose interwoven among these three.

What’s in a name?

Names are one of the most repeated parts of your brand – whether it is your brand name, or the name of a product or a service you offer – it is important to make your selection wisely. In episode 247 of The Marketing Book Podcast, Douglas Burdett interviews Alexandra Watkins about her book “Hello, My Name is Awesome!”

Watkins owns and operates an agency solely focused on naming strategies. Through her work, she has come up with two helpful acronyms to keep in mind when it comes to naming strategies. First is SMILE – which focuses on concepts to focus on while selecting a name. The second is SCRATCH – or the ideas to stay away from while selecting a name.

When you keep the purpose of your business top-of-mind while going through these exercises, you are sure to come up with the perfect name.

And speaking of names, I’m asking for suggestions for a better name for my Marketing Director on Call service. Check out the service page and then leave me a message here or on my Facebook page with your ideas.

Let’s talk about productivity

Being or feeling productive seems to be getting harder and harder. Why is that? Jocelyn K. Glei attributes it to an increased dependence on technology and a transfer of tasks from several people to an individual. Combine this with concepts such as completion bias (the overwhelming desire to check things off a list) and the rule of reciprocation (the desire of returning one positive action with another) – and we end up with no boundaries.

Glei talks with Dan Harris on episode 207 of The 10% Happier podcast about how to overcome productivity shame through practicing heart-centered productivity and a healthy dose of tender discipline.

Intention and motivation is the first step in defining a path to productivity. She advocates for celebrating progress, building in accountability, and consider moving away from solely relying on technology for documenting goals.

Productivity shame occurs when we set unrealistic intentions for ourselves and then are not able to achieve those goals. We start beating ourselves up, feeling as though we’ve failed or let someone down.

To get ourselves away from the shame spiral, practicing tender discipline recognizes what is realistic to accomplish, establishing boundaries and builds trust in ourselves and abilities. Shifting our mindset from “I can or can’t do” to “I do or don’t do” – saying you can do something sets an expectation that at some point you will do the task whereas saying I do/don’t do something depersonalizes the task and leads you to have a reason why you do or don’t the task being asked of you.

All of this sets you up for a heart-centered approach to productivity. By getting back in touch with our natural tendencies rather than being available 24/7, instant gratification and short-term rewards, we set boundaries, become more aware of our realistic capabilities, and what makes you feel good about your accomplishments.

We need to take time for reflection and planning, which are often neglected or minimized in our efforts to execute a strategy.

Some of the most accomplished individuals, such as Darwin, only worked at high productivity for three to four hours. The rest of the time he went on long walks.

Skip the 5-Star review

Did you know that our brains are wired to resist being sold to? Yes, it is true. And 82% of people seek out negative reviews when making an online purchase.

Todd Caponi discusses this with Douglas Burdett on episode 226 of The Marketing Book Podcast. He is the author of The Transparency Sale.

As part of his research for the book, he explored neuroscience and the emerging field of neuromarketing, which dives into the way we make buying decisions. Online reviews are changing the way we make purchases and businesses can no longer hide behind flaws and get away with it.

As he states, transparency sells better than perfection. And let’s face it, we all know that no one is perfect so why would we expect a business to be perfect??

Download a summary of this episode!

As always, pursue your purpose,