• Have you made up your mind yet?

    Do you know who you’ll be voting for in the upcoming presidential election?

    Well, whether you’ve already made up your mind, or you haven’t… I want you to choose who you would vote for and who you wouldn’t (if the election were today and you had to choose).

    But wait, because before you cast your imaginary vote – I want you to remove politics from your decision. Instead of thinking about the candidates’ positions on issues that are important to you – think about the candidates as people, just normal human-beings like you and I.

    You see, Presidential elections can be an extremely valuable gift for entrepreneurs in the Attention Age.

    While I can’t go into details right now, what I can tell you is that I actually work with one of the major political parties. And from an insider’s perspective I can assure you that a tremendous amount of research, thought, and analysis goes into each of the candidates’personas. In fact, for many voters, the issues take a back seat.

    Hard to believe? Maybe, but let me share with you the findings from a somewhat dated yet still relevant article titled:Beauty or the Beast? The Effects of Appearance, Personality, And Issue Information on Evaluation of Political Candidates, from the journal - Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

    In the article two different studies were used to determine what impact physical appearance and personality had on voters.

    The results showed:

    • Physical appearance influenced voting even when personality information was provided.
    • Voters were less influenced by their agreement with candidates’ positions on issues when image or personality information were provided than when they weren’t.

    Now, since we are dealing with real, living people, as opposed to fictional characters only so much tweaking can be done. But nonetheless, you can bet that what is coming across isn’t by happenstance. Instead, they are cleverly crafted personas designed to resonate with the voting public.

    So, have a go at it. Take a moment right now to describe what you believe is the dominant personality trait of the candidates.

    Democrats Dominant Personality Trait
    Hillary Clinton _____________________
    Barack Obama _____________________
    John Edwards _____________________

    On the other side of the aisle:

    Republicans Dominant Personality Trait
    John McCain _____________________
    Mitt Romney _____________________
    Rudy Giuliani _____________________
    Mike Huckabee _____________________

    What you’ve just done is evaluated the performance of how these politicians come across. You actually do it all the time, each and every time you hear and watch them speak. The only difference is this time you are doing it consciously.

    That’s important because now I want you to do the very same analysis on yourself. Evaluate your own performance on how well you come across.

    Do you come across (in email, on the phone, in person, etc…) as:

    • Disciplined or Lazy
    • Reliable or Flaky
    • Egotistical or Timid
    • Trustworthy or Dishonest
    • Ambitious or Laid-back
    • An Expert or An Average Joe
    • A Trusted Advisor or An Aggressive Salesperson

    You see, even though you’re not running for office – people vote for you or against you each and everyday.

    And while you can’t know how well you are doing by looking at the polls. You can witness the results in:

    • the emails that get opened and the ones that go straight to the delete folder
    • the sites that are visited versus the many that are ignored
    • the blogs that get read versus the ones that are hardly visited
    • the products that achieve best seller status versus the ones that bomb

    So, when you look at your own results are you a front-runner? Or are you currently trailing?

    Either way, if you want to improve your business’ performance you can take a page from the politician’s play-book.

    The first step is to figure out who makes up your base. These are your current buyers. What characteristics do they have? What type of personalities do you think resonate with them as a group? Why have they chosen you – what is it about you that originally appealed to them?

    Second, think about your “swing voters”. For our purposes, these are your prospects. They’ve opted-in, so you’re on their radar screen. But they haven’t yet voted for you with their wallet.

    Think about how this group might be different from your base. And more importantly how you can reach out to them in a way that doesn’t turn off your current customers.

    Next, figure out all the different ways people vote for you.

    My list might include:

    • open my emails
    • read my blog
    • consider my product recommendations
    • purchase my own products
    • attend my seminars
    • etc….

    For your final step, start thinking about how you would need to come across to win a greater share of the vote. How do you need to come across to win your own personal election.

    Are you currently interacting, working, managing, communicating in a way to get more and more of your marketplace, your team, and your partners to vote for you?

    No matter how good you currently are – I guarantee if you look closely enough you’ll find at least 2 shifts you could make to your current style.

    Now, just for the record – I am not suggesting you pretend you’re something your not or that you have no interest in becoming. That would be dishonest, and the odds are you’ll be found out eventually.

    But, as a sidenote: pretending you are already a person who is “(insert your goal here)” is one of the fastest ways to become the person you want to be. In fact, whenever I embark on a new goal, I always clearly define for myself how a person who already achieved the goal would be. Then I do my very best to alter my behavior.

    So there you have it. If you’ve been following along you’ve no doubt picked up a few pointers on how you could better come across.

    Plus, the next time you watch any of the political candidates try to take an objective view on how the candidate is attempting to come across. If you do, you can turn the entire election process into a valuable lesson on improving your business.

    To higher profits,
    Rich schefren

    PS - I am saddened knowing that many of you who read this will not take the few short minutes an exercise like this requires.I suggest that if you’re the type of person who enjoys reading, but never actually goes to the next step of actually applying (which is where the real improvements come from). Why not decide to change that about yourself starting right now. And go through the exercise above as if (pretending) you were someone who always did the suggested exercises and extracted the valuable lesson.

    PPS – If you came up with any interesting observations or realizations, why not share them with the rest of us? Besides - I am always interested in what my base and swing voters have to say ;-)

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