Today’s quote of the week comes from Josh Kaufman:

“Whoever best describes the problem is the one most likely to solve it.”

1. 3 questions that changed my life

The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier is one of my top book recommendations for anyone who wants to give better advice and excel in important conversations.

This book will help you improve in sales, consulting, and relationships – crucial soft skills for online business builders.

Here’s the 1-2-3 question combo to open productive and meaningful conversations:

1. The Kickstart Question: What’s on your mind?

This gets to the heart of the conversation. It’s another way of saying let’s talk about the thing that matters most. The person we’re talking to will be relieved on multiple levels:

– we’ve skipped the small talk
– we’re letting them immediately address the main issue
– they’re being listened to.

This clears the air and creates a favorable setting for coaching and advice-giving conversations.

2. The AWE Question: And what else?

Asking ‘and what else?‘ stops us from diving in with advice too soon after hearing someone’s problems.

It also gets all of the issues on the table, because the first-level answer to what’s on your mind may not address the biggest issue.

For example, ‘I feel like Anna doesn’t listen to me’ could turn into ‘and actually, I feel like no one in the flat really cares about what I have to say’. Having even a little bit more context makes our advice-giving at least 20-30% better.

3. The Focus Question: What’s the real challenge here for you?

Everyone loves fixing problems, ticking them off on the to-do list. But we rarely stop to ask “are we solving the right problem?”

When we ask what’s the real challenge here for you, we give our conversation partner time to slow down and think about what their real problem is, before they put loads of work into a possibly pointless solution.

This also saves us from discussing multiple problems and going round in circles.

2. Hilarious marketing insights on LinkedIn

I recently discovered this cool LinkedIn page called Totally Marketing. Their content is a great mix of entertainment and education, often offering great advice alongside funny memes, which makes the insights easy to internalize.

Couple this with their high volume of posts and activity in the comment section, and it’s no surprise they’ve quickly grown to more than 15k followers.

Here are a few examples of their posts – check out the rest here.

3. The 4 things it takes to be an expert

Practicing for 10 000 hours? Starting young? Great mentorship?

Turns out that none of these things will necessarily make you an expert. However, there are 4 different quantifiable things that need to be in place for someone to get there: Valid Environment, Many Repetitions, Timely Feedback, Deliberate Practice.

Veritasium, one of the greatest educational channels on Youtube, covers this in a recent video, bringing unique examples from varying fields like athletics, science and finance.

Veritasium also reveals that there are some fields where becoming an expert will never be guaranteed, because your performance is too dependent on factors outside of your control.

Watch the video and think about whether you could do something about your environment to fast-track your way to true expertise.

4. Free tool for more productive video meetings

It can be difficult to explain your idea with just words – that’s why people around the world use whiteboards for brainstorming and strategy work.

However, we aren’t taking advantage of this in the age of online meetings; therefore, we spend our meeting time less productively and risk miscommunicating our message.

That’s where Witeboard comes in and it’s just as simple to pick up as you would hope. Open the link and you’ve got an empty whiteboard waiting to be filled in. 

The functionality is superb – the tools are easy to learn, you can chance colors or zoom in and out effortlessly. At the end of your session, you can copy the link to your whiteboard for future reference.

Give this tool a shot in your next online meeting!

See you again next week.

Whenever you’re ready, there are 2 ways I can help you:

1. If your agency, company, or marketing team struggles with creating your weekly content and finding new clients on social media, I’d recommend considering my course:
   ​Content Production Masterclass: A 7-step system to attract a steady stream of clients online by writing a high-impact newsletter and outstanding daily content in less than 8 hours a week.
2. If you’d like me to coach or consult you in private, I offer a 1-on-1 coaching program and a 1-hour consultation call. Learn more about my services here.