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The Fun Theory
| Guest post by: Nick Nanton |
Article Overview: “Fun theory” states that if something is fun, people are more likely to do it. As a business owner or a leader, you want to keep your employees around and have the ability to attract new talent, right? Making your workplace a fun place to be is a huge step in the right direction.
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Free Download - Leverage Your Personal Brand and Achieve Direct Mail Success By Nick Nanton |
The Fun Theory
Earlier this month I saw an interesting video. The creators focused on what appears to be a train station with a long set of stairs immediately adjacent to a working escalator (going up.) As you would expect, the vast majority of commuters chose to take the escalator rather than walking up the stairs. The question posed by the creators of the video was simple: “if taking the stairs was more fun, would more people do it?” To test their premise, a team of engineers turned each stair into a functioning piano key (think of the supersized piano in the movie “Big”). Sure enough, as soon as the staircase was turned into a musical instrument, a majority of commuters chose to walk up the stairs rather than ride the escalator.
The conclusion reached by the end of the experiment is obvious, at least at first glance: if you make something fun, more people will do it. While this isn’t rocket science, I believe it is potentially very powerful. As a business person, take a moment to evaluate the culture of your company. Is it fun? Do employees enjoy coming to work? Let’s be honest—for most of us, the answer to that question is no. And the idea of transforming a workplace into a giant piano or an amusement park may sound like fun, but it’s not practical. But is there any way to transform your workplace into a more enjoyable environment? And don’t stop with your employees— what about your customers? Is it fun for them to do business with you? Below are some ideas for managers and business owners to consider:
1) Make it impossible for your clients to resist doing business with you.Every year, I take some of my clients to the Grammy’s. I’m also taking clients to The Kentucky Derby, Hollywood, and Bermuda. Why? Because we have business to do… but we might as well have some fun in the process!
2) Start an office bowling league.Or form a softball team. Or a weekly basketball game. The activity doesn’t really matter—the point is to find something, outside of work, that your employees and coworkers can enjoy together. You’ll find that the basketball game from the previous evening becomes a popular topic of conversation around the office. While it may not make the work itself more fun, it will gradually build camaraderie throughout the office—and that makes everything more fun.
3) Engage your employees’ minds.Many people “shut down” their mind as they walk in the office door each morning. And why wouldn’t they? A day spent following directions and performing scripted tasks just isn’t very stimulating. As a manager or a leader, look for opportunities to make your team think outside of the box. Whether it’s troubleshooting a problem or creating a new product to be sold, asking an employee to think is a great way to get them engaged in their workplace. And an engaged employee is a happier employee, every single time.
“Fun theory” states that if something is fun, people are more likely to do it. As a business owner or a leader, you want to keep your employees around and have the ability to attract new talent, right? Making your workplace a fun place to be is a huge step in the right direction.
Related Articles1) Make it impossible for your clients to resist doing business with you.Every year, I take some of my clients to the Grammy’s. I’m also taking clients to The Kentucky Derby, Hollywood, and Bermuda. Why? Because we have business to do… but we might as well have some fun in the process!
2) Start an office bowling league.Or form a softball team. Or a weekly basketball game. The activity doesn’t really matter—the point is to find something, outside of work, that your employees and coworkers can enjoy together. You’ll find that the basketball game from the previous evening becomes a popular topic of conversation around the office. While it may not make the work itself more fun, it will gradually build camaraderie throughout the office—and that makes everything more fun.
3) Engage your employees’ minds.Many people “shut down” their mind as they walk in the office door each morning. And why wouldn’t they? A day spent following directions and performing scripted tasks just isn’t very stimulating. As a manager or a leader, look for opportunities to make your team think outside of the box. Whether it’s troubleshooting a problem or creating a new product to be sold, asking an employee to think is a great way to get them engaged in their workplace. And an engaged employee is a happier employee, every single time.
“Fun theory” states that if something is fun, people are more likely to do it. As a business owner or a leader, you want to keep your employees around and have the ability to attract new talent, right? Making your workplace a fun place to be is a huge step in the right direction.
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Article Tags: branding agency, branding and marketing, branding consultants, branding strategies, business consulting, business growth, celebrity agent, celebrity branding, celebrity lawyer, expert agent, music lawyer, nick nanton, Orlando Franchise Lawyer, Orlando Marketing, Orlando Music Lawyer, Personal branding, personal branding expert
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About the Author: Nick Nanton RSS for Nick's articles - Visit Nick's website Nick Nanton, Esq. is known as The Celebrity Lawyer and Agent to the top Celebrity Experts for his role in developing and marketing business and professional experts, through personal branding, to help them gain credibility and recognition for their accomplishments. Nick is recognized as the nation’s leading expert on personal branding as Fast Company Magazine’s Expert Blogger on the subject and lectures regularly on the topic at the University of Central Florida. His book Celebrity Branding You® has been selected as the textbook on personal branding at the University. Nick is recognized as one of the top thought leaders in the business world and has co-authored five best-selling books, including the breakthrough hit Celebrity Branding You!®. Nick serves as editor and publisher of Celebrity Press™, a publishing company that produces and releases books by top Business Experts. CelebrityPress has published books by Brian Tracy, Mari Smith, Ron Legrand and many other celebrity experts and Nick has led the marketing and PR campaigns that have driven more than 100 authors to Best-Seller status. Nick has been seen in USA Today, The Wall St. Journal, Newsweek, The New York Times, Entrepreneur® Magazine, FastCompany.com. The Huffington Post and has appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX television affiliates speaking on subjects ranging from branding, marketing and law, to American Idol.
Click here to visit Nick's website   Five Easy Ways to Destroy Your Personal Brand Personal Branding Have You Made It to It Depends Status Celebrity Branding You Tweeting and Why its Not Just for the Birds Im a Insert Your Career Here Not a Celebrityor am I Personal Branding Tips Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them |
Related Forum Posts
How To Build Great Pillar Content For Your Internet Business
- I’ve found that a successful Internet businesses must start with a solid foundation. As I’ve seen, most Internet businesses will integrate a blog onto their website and start to build a solid foundation of pillar content. Pillar content or pillar articles are posts that are written to help a consumer establish what your Internet business is all about.
What Is Pillar Content?
This termed was first coined by a famous blogger called Yaro Starak at his website Entrepreneur’s Journey. Yaro provides the following detailed definition:
“A pillar is blog content, usually an article, which does some very important things:
* It will bring in a rush of new readers and backlinks (other sites linking to your blog).
* It will continue to bring in more readers over time as you and other people refer to it, even though it may be buried in the archives of your blog.
* Eventually it will bring in traffic from search engines (this is largely because so many other web pages link to it).
* You can list it in a separate area (like an articles page) with all your other pillars so your best content can easily be accessed and your value clearly demonstrated.
* It is not time dependent, so in twelve months’ time it will still be relevant and popular.”
Why Is Pillar Content Important?
Looking at the bigger picture, pillar content is your foundation of your Internet business as it will continue to bring consumers and readers to your website. You may think that just having a product or service to sell is all that’s needed to run a successful business. Not quite so. Consumers today are very hungry for information and want to know more about your business. Therefore providing pillar content relating to your products or services can add value for your consumers and generate more sales for you.
For example, if I were selling a watch online and it had a description and listed features, it may not be enough for a consumer to purchase the watch from my site. Reason being, most people would want to read reviews from others who have purchased this watch and see their feedback. What if I wrote an article about the watch talking about the history and make of it and asked an expert to state their opinion, and had other consumers respond with comments and feedback. Then this would provide social proof and adds value to your product without the consumer leaving your site and spending time looking for more information elsewhere.
Examples Of Pillar Content
Most pillar content articles are longer than 500 words and have lots of practical tips or advice. There are many different forms of pillar content you can create and I have listed some examples below for you to apply to your industry:
1. How To Article - shows people how to do a certain task or instructions on building something
2. Definition Article - defines a term in your industry
3. Present A Theory Or Argument - writing to present some unique thought
4. Release A Significant Resource - a report, podcast, video
5. A “List” Article - it’s very easy to scan and share. Can be a top 10 list or action points
6. Technical Or Visual Guide - a screen capture presentation or how to fix something using a video presentation. It is also a very detailed step by step blueprint on exactly how to complete a task.
Pillars I’ve seen how effective pillar content can be for any Internet business and I recommend you have at least 10 pillar articles on your website before marketing to consumers. That way you’ll provide them with something valuable to read and also gain their interest to come back again. If you can write an article each day using the above examples, then you can build a very strong foundation for your Internet business.
Tyrone Shum
Pillar Article Writer
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