Douglas Della Toffalo, Psychology Of Opportunity & Business Success

Administrator — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:37:38 +0000

Undeniably there are certain things that successful business people do with regards to opportunity that others do not. This may be perceived as almost a secret mode of the successful. The various literatures on entrepreneurship agree that there are certainly some traits that are adopted, either by instinct or deliberation.

Innovation and entrepreneurship ? what is the difference?

Innovation is the adoption of ideas and taking action to implement them.

Entrepreneurship, on the other hand, is all about spotting opportunities, gathering the resources and potential and getting the idea to market.

With all this said, what is the psychology of success?

It may be argued that successful people have the habit of doing things failures don?t like to do; they don?t like to do them either but this dislike is put firmly into second place behind the strength of purpose.

Upon analysis, successful people seem to have the habit of doing things in a different way from the unsuccessful, thus showing that attitude is a key factor of the secret to success.

Goals and success

The very fact that goals are present shows that ambition and drive are present.

Goals make people work that much harder and provide a reason to work.

So it is necessary to be clear in one?s desires ? lifestyle, car, house social life etc.

Accept responsibility

It is very obvious that successful people accept responsibility for the consequences of their actions. They don?t blame others and accept failures as being a product of their own behaviour. This enables people to take control of the situation rather than have the situation take control of them.

Self ? limiting beliefs

This is the only ting that holds us back. Fear of failure is drummed into us from a very young age with the result that we are scared to mention our deepest ambitions. Believe it or not, fear of success is yet another limiter on our beliefs. So it is important to examine just what is holding us back, and realise that most fear is mental and not actual.

Developing a positive attitude

If one is surrounded by negative people then it is possible for this negativity to migrate and be absorbed by yourself.

It is essential not to be surrounded by doom merchants who foist their own sense of inadequacy on to you and tell you why this or that will fail.

Believe in yourself

Self-belief and self confidence are probably the most important gifts we can have and pass on to our offspring. The reason for this is that this produces an atmosphere whereby we are willing to experiment and try new ideas.Also, importantly; we don?t measure ourselves by other people?s standards.

Take the decision to be successful

Success does not just happen to you, it must be worked at. Concentrated efforts and trade-offs are required but anything can be achieved.

Time management

Many successful entrepreneurs are habitual list makers. Time must be managed effectively therefore it is a must to have clarity of what you are trying to achieve.

Set goals and achieve them

What are your goals? What do you want to have achieved in the next three weeks, or in the next three months? What is it that you want to achieve in the next three years? A combination of all of the above will certainly improve one?s chance of success, irrespective of the chosen field.

Douglas Della Toffalo, The Psychology of Online Selling

Administrator — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 16:12:04 +0000

Douglas Della Toffalo, The Psychology of Online Selling

Why do we buy things? Well, some thing are out of necessity; we need food and water to survive. But which food do we buy? You see we do have a choice, which means we make decisions to buy one kind of food against another. That means our choice can be influenced - even for ‘essentials’. So even though a principle reason for buying something is ‘out of necessity’ the chances are you didn’t HAVE to but ‘that one’. You made a choice, conscious or otherwise.

A common factor behind such choices is the driver for humans to do things which require least effort. There are all sorts of biological and evolutionary theories involved here, but in essence we tend to do things which help preserve energy and lessen the impact upon our bodies. It may be some kind of essential self preservation in play, but humans tend to avoid excess effort. That means when faced with a choice we tend to opt for things which require least effort on our part. We want things ‘easy’. That’s part of the reason behind the success of convenience foods. They take only slightly less time (apparently) to prepare than normal foods, but this saving is ‘translated’ by us into a benefit. Logically, we realise that fresh foods, freshly prepared are better for us. Logically we realise that the time taken to prepare and cook our own recipes is not that much longer than bunging something in the microwave. But the perceived time saving in convenience foods is enough to convince our subconscious that less effort is required - bingo! - product sold.

Not only does the principle of least effort apply to all our buying decisions, so does the ‘problem-solution’ concept. We tend to buy things which apparently, though not actually, solve our problems. If you have a dishwasher you probably bought it because it solved the ‘problem’ of washing dishes by hand. Partly, this is the ‘least effort’ principle in play. But partly it’s because of your perception that washing by hand is a ‘problem’ that needs solving. Gosh, all that dry skin you might get by doing the dishes by hand! And what about the need to keep buying rubber gloves for years to come! Goodness me - get me something to solve these ‘problems’. When buying things we often ‘invent’ problems that need solving, or we are convinced that a problem exists for which a particular product is a solution.

So how can you use these principles when it comes to selling your products online? The first and most important factor is that your web site needs to make things easy for your buyers. They want the path of least effort. If you require registrations, several pages to click through or complex searches for items, the chances are you will lose buyers because of all the effort involved. Make it as simple and as easy as possible for people to buy. This also includes your text - get straight to the point. You don’t need welcome pages or tons of information ‘about us’. Just direct and to the point information that shows people what you are selling. Make it as easy as possible for your readers - they do not want to commit any effort in making a buying decision.

You could also use the ‘problem-solution’ principle. Instead of providing a list of benefits your product or service offers, instead talk about all the problems people could have which could be solved by your items. These problems do not need to be ‘real’. The dishwasher does not solve any real problems - only perceived ones.

If you are selling online information products, or ebooks, for instance, you need to spell out the problems which your infoproduct will solve. Many sales people will tell you that you need to list benefits, rather than features. That’s true - but people do not actually buy benefits. They buy solutions to problems which will make life easy for them.

So if your web site suggests that your products and services will help people reduce their efforts in a given area and that their problems will be solved, you’ll be tapping into the two key psychological principles of buying decisions.

Graham Jones is a psychologist who has specialized in the way we use the Internet. He is an expert on information products and runs Infoselling.com where you can get a FREE report on how to sell your own infoproducts.

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