A Way of Life

"There are many things in life that will capture your eye, but only a few will capture your heart....pursue those."
Michael Nolan

Someone recently asked my a simple question: what The Rabbit Way is all about. Well, to put it simply The Rabbit Way is a way of life and it's based on three simple pillars:

Three Portuguese words meaning Amor=Love; Família=Family; Coragem=Courage.

Those three words are hand-written by me and my wife on a painting displayed at our house entrance to remind us who we are, why we exist and why we do what we do. However, if you truly want to understand the meaning of these three words, I need to tell you a true story: mine.

Be like Coca-Cola

"You cant climb the ladder of success with the dress of failure" - Zig Ziglar

How many times did you feel like everyone didn't understand how great you are?
You have the skills, the know-how and the will to win... but you're not making an impact. And if you're not making an impact... then no one knows who you are.

In the past, a great company also had this issue. It had a great product but it wasn't making an impact. It's name? Coca-Cola. It's impact in history? Legendary.

Let me show you how you can benefit from Coca-Cola's history, go from being great to be seen as great and change the world!

Software Communications Group Launched

I've talked about how we are making presentations everyday and how critical it is to know how to deliver our message to our audience and persuade them.

Since I realized that, I've been studying how we can take our communication and persuasion skills to the next level.

I'm also a great believer in the power of knowledge sharing and how it can enable us to evolve beyond our own boundaries and beyond our own individualities.

So today a new group is born.

It's called Software Communications.

This group's goal is to help you successfully deliver high impact software communications, persuade your audience and change the world!

Share your knowledge, your know-how and your experiences with us!

I invite you to join Software Communications today!

Top 5 Tools to know your audience

When you build a product, a service, a blog or a presentation you should be thinking in the persons who will buy the product, use your service, read your blog or see your presentation.

They are your audience!

To maximize your chances of success you should know who your audience is.


Knowing your audience enables you to provide them with something of great value, like:

• the product that solves the problem that your audience always complains about;
  
• the service that provides them peace of mind;


• the blog that gives them the information that they need;


• the presentation that shows them what they need to do to succeed.

Show them the benefits of what you have to offer. Show them the WIIFY!

In this article I'm going to show you the tools that you can use to know and understand your audience. So without further ado, here's your Top 5 tools for knowing your audience!

1. Google Analytics





This tool is a must have. With Google Analytics you can access an extensive array of statistics of your site, including information about who visits your site, how and why do they end up in your site.


But how can you leverage this information? Focus on these points:

• Time on Site - This statistic can tell you how well your content is received by your audience. Do they stay long enough to really understand your message or do they stay only for a few seconds? If that's the case, maybe you can try to deliver a more direct high-impact message focused on their WIIFY and leverage the time they spent on your site. This point also links to...
  
• Bounce Rate - Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. A high bounce rate on a page indicates that your visitors don't spend much time on that page. Maybe it's time to try another shot on the way that you're trying to deliver your message.


• Browser and OS capabilities - If you notice that your audience is using other browser and OS other than IE7 and Windows, that could indicate that your audience is technologycal oriented. You should design your content to meet the audience needs and expectations.


• Search Engines Keywords - These show what were the keywords that led the visitors to your site. These show the subjects or areas of interest that you have visibility. You should leverage this oportunity and produce content that meets the search keywords.

Surely, there are more data that Google Analytics provides but I leave those for you to discover.

2. Quantcast

This site can produce an estimate of your audience's demographics. It can tell you if your audience appeals more to males of females.

It can tell what other sites similar to yours your audience visit, i.e. it shows your competition. You can learn from their mistakes and strengths.

It also provides you with an estimate of the household income of your audience.

3. Google trends

The Google trends site shows you how popular is a keyword during a timeframe. You can even compare several keywords.

Google Trends also tells you what are the countries and regions that are most interested in the keywords that you've searched.

Use Google Trends to know if there is an audience for a certain subject. And if there is a market use it to know how you can address them effectively.


4. Microsoft AdCenter Labs


Microsot AdCenter labs also gives you an estimate of your audience demographics based on a url or keywords. The statistics are not as rich as Google's but it gives you more data to analyse.


5. LinkVendor


LinkVendor can tell you if your site is designed to be found by your audience.


It provides a site analysis with page rank statistics from the top search engines. It also measures your keyword density and position.

The number of backlinks and link value is also delivered in form of simple graphics.


It's a nice tool to have and it's very simple to use.


Conclusion: use these tools to know who your audience is.

Don't forget that you can always use a simple tool like a survey to ask them how you can provide a better service.


Discover their WIIFY and how you can deliver them something of great value, persuade them
and change the World!

Present, Persuade and Win!

Hi there!

Mission accomplished! I've delivered the last seminar at ISEL entitled: Present, Persuade and Win!

I have to say thank you to Eng. Fernando Sousa for believing in me and to Advantis for their unlimited support.

The seminar worked out great and at the end everybody was talking about how important is to communicate effectively. To transmit your ideas to an audience and change the way they think or act. To persuade them.


This presentation is based on Aristotle's Rethoric, a study about Persuasion that started 367 A.C., and in a great book by Jerry Weissman called Presenting to Win. This proves that knowing how to deliver a persuasive presentation is just as important today as it was in the days of Aristotle.

The presentation began with this quote: "There are more than 30 million presentations every day" - The New Yorker.

Each presentation is unique. Each presentation is a key moment for you to deliver your message. You can't go back and change the way you did it in that particular day to that particular audience.

So how can You take advantage of each presentation you give and persuade your audience effectively?

First, you have to know what persuasion is.

Persuasion is the ability to move an audience from point A to point B. Point B is where you want to leave them. It's your goal! Move an uninformed audience to know your subject. Move a dubious audience to believe in your message. Move an apathic audience to act now!

But to do this you have to prepare your presentation with an objective in mind. Your point B! Aristotle called this teleology. Because if you don't know what's your point B you can't persuade them.

When you're preparing your presentation you should focus on the story you'll tell. A solid story will give you more control on your presentation and it will decrease your nerves. When you are in control of your material you transmit trust to the audience. And when you establish these kind of feelings on the audience you will persuade them more easily.

But to persuade them you have to clearly show what they win if they move to point B. Aristotle called this phatos: the orator's ability to connect to the audience's feelings. Show them the WIIFY: What Is In For You.

One way to do this is to focus on Benefits instead of Features. Because a Benefit by definition is always relevant to the audience. Here's an example:

• Feature: GMail has unlimited storage for you emails.
• Benefit: You will NEVER delete another email message! Because you know that the moment you erase that month old message... you will need it!

So pick up the audience in point A, show them their WIIFY, lead them through a series of ahas and take them to point B!

To leverage this you have to know your audience. Because it has to be their benefits not yours. This is critical to the sucess of your presentation. Put your audience needs at the heart of your presentation!

However, don't get too detailed. Remember: your audience don't have to know everything to know anything. Sometimes it's hard to tell a story when you're too busy living it, so focus on the essencial.

Also, choose a flow structure for you presentation. Remember, when you're reading a book you can slow your reading pace. Get back to previous pages. Go to the index.

When you're presenting your material the audience only as access to one slide at the time. So guide them through your presentation and make it easy to follow your flow. If the audience thinks: "How did he get there?", you've lost them. Maybe for ever. Don't make them think! Because it's impossible for them to hear you and think at the same time.

Finnaly, have your ever heard of a presentation that was too short? I guess not. Time is a expensive resource so use your audience's time well. So train your presentation well and see what time it takes to deliver. Then at the beginning of the presentation make a forecast of the amount of time it will take. It will show that you respect the audience. It will also transmit that you've planned your presentation. Thus, it will transmit control and build a sense of trust. This way you can deliver a persuasive presentation more effectively.

I hope you can take this information and use it now in your presentations to persuade your audience, deliver your message and win the day!