Showing posts with label Shrink's Corner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shrink's Corner. Show all posts

18 Feb 2010

Success or Failure - How Color Determines The Fate

Recently I have been writing about the effect color has on our decision making. Yesterday I came a cross another article that explores how different brands choose colors for their logos.

Has it ever occurred to you why you feel safer in one store and more energetic in another one? Have you ever noticed that landing on some web page you feel like clicking some button/link and keep browsing the site? While other pages prompt you to stay and keep reading?

Research conducted by the secretariat of the Seoul International Color Expo 2004 documented the following relationships between color and marketing:
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11 Feb 2010

What Budgeting can Learn from Dieting

Getting spending under control has something very similar to loosing weight. Spending money gives us a "good mood" kick as a piece of chocolate does too. As with dieting - budgeting is all about helping spend less than you earn (eat less than you normally would), it's about identifying why you overspend (overeat), what triggers your behaviour and what to do about it.
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2 Feb 2010

Which Budget Personality Are You? 13 Questions to Help You Choose

What would you prefer? A quick test to help you pick the right budgeting tool

Here is a quick test I’ve created to help you match your approach to budgeting and the tools available to you.

Answer each question assigning a value from 1 to 9 with 1 being least important (or least true) statement and 9 – most important one, than total the score and read the description at the bottom of this post:


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1 Feb 2010

Trolley Psychology in the Supermakret

If you are a smart shopper you might think you are in control of what you buy. But there is the whole science behind how products are organised, priced, labeled and how sections are ordered. Nothing is left to the chance!
There is a wealth of tricks based on psychological theories that in the end help convert you from a visitor to a buyer.
Watch the video a fun look at some of the tricks used by marketers in the retail trade. They talk about the use of layout, product placement and color, something I've posted about in "Which color is your Shopping Trolley" recently.






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28 Jan 2010

What Colour Is Your Shopping Trolley

Now, we all might think of ourself as quite smart shoppers, armed with a shopping list, adhering to a set budget, but unfortunately for us our decisions are much more guided by our subconscious rather than rational thinking. There is a whole science behind how products are organised, labels are written and sections are ordered to guide us through the shops. According to the research
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26 Jan 2010

Money Can Buy You Happiness!


There is new peace of research suggesting that actually money does make us feel better, happier even. The trick is in how we get access to the money as well as when and how we spend it.

People surveyed after they won a substantials amount of money reported to be very happy straight after finding out about their luck, but after a while their level of happiness was back to normal.

Now, the research that I am talking about says
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25 Jan 2010

Job loss survival strategies


It was supposed to be a good year but yesterday one of my friends called to share the news – he was just made redundant... Bugger! We met up for drinks – no fancy bars any more or cocktails. We headed straight to a pub for a beer “you know, better to cut spending now. Who knows how long it’s gonna take”...

There are several problems and at least one opportunity we might have to deal with when facing redundancy. So, let's have a closer look...
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21 Jan 2010

Discover Your Personal Model of Success in 10 minutes

Let’s have a look at what success means for you and what do you REALLY want?
Once you’ve identified what type of success you really want and what underling values fuel your motivation you than also can identify how your money spending behaviours tie in with the overall picture and hence it should become easier to adjust them if you need.

Your definition of success is likely to fall into one of the following three categories:

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18 Jan 2010

This Will Help You Change Your Spending Habit

Every day while commuting from and to work I use the blissful 25 minutes on the train to read feeds from over thirty different blogs, covering most of my interests: from personal finance to positive psychology, from I-will-teach-you-to be-rich blunt self-promotion to academic Harvard business review bog.

Recently I stumbled upon an HRB blog post that I first thought was one of those nice sounding self-help coaching bla-blas. Interesting to read - impossible to follow…

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15 Jan 2010

It's Friday, Amen!

Something very interesting happened this morning. You know how obsessed I am with changing my "spending on coffee" habit!

I think today I have unintentionally experienced the impact of what they call "setting small achievable goals"!

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12 Jan 2010

Spending: 4 Things To Watch Out For On a Menu

The bad news first: even if you are aware of the influence a carefully designed menu will have on your decision making you won’t be able to do much about it! The good new is: at least you could try and sometimes re-consider your choices!
There is a lot of research on how combination of products presented to us and
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9 Jan 2010

Reading Our Mind

Martin Lindstrom, an advertising and marketing consultant and the author of "Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy", sais:
"The problem is, online people are not aware of how stupid they can be"
There has been a lot of research in
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6 Jan 2010

The Actual Value of Spending

I don't know if I am a shopping addict, I presume I am not, but...
Recently I found a spending Weigh-in journal very interesting and indeed an eye opener! It's a simple table that you suppose to fill out the same way as you would fill out a weight-in table if you were on a diet.

It is quite interesting that most books and psy-articles compare spending and personal finance management to eating / overeating and well ... to dieting!

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1 Jan 2010

What is MBTI?


If you google MBTI types you will be presented with an endless list of literature and tests that should help you understand yourself better and resolve difficulties when dealing with others.

You would benefit most if you use your understanding of MBTI for your personal growth and development.

If you want to do this than you would need to take a personal inventory test and ask a registered practitioner to interpret it with you.

What is MBTI?

MBTI is a test and a systematisation of human preferences when dealing with incoming information. It is based on C. Jung works in the late 19th century.

The theory both approaches share is as follows:

We all have different ways to process information that comes from the outer world; we also make decisions based on a different algorithm and we prefer to make those decisions in different ways. Well, that is hopefully nothing that you didn't know without MBTI.


What keeps us going?

E (extraversion) - to get energy back we need to go amongst people, talk to them and become part of their activities. We may sometimes say that we "only can think when we hear ourselves talk"

I (introversion) - when we are tired we want to be alone, our ideal holiday is spent with one or two closest friends or alone. We'd rather think first and then talk.

What information do we trust more?

S (sensing) - Facts, something that we know exists, the more details are available the better informed we feel , "if I can't touch it then it's not there".

N (intuitive) - Gut feeling is enough, a hunch is as good as a fact, just a couple of facts are enough to build a much more complex picture and trust it without particular proof

How do we make decisions?

F (feeling) - When I need to decide something I feel better when I can place myself inside the situation, when I can look at all aspects as if I was in the middle of it. Feelings and emotions are real things and should be considered alongside other facts.

T (thinking) - Decisions are best when they are based on logical considerations, involving emotions and feelings stops you from making a truly good, sustainable decision. You can make an objective decision if you distance yourself from the situation and consider facts only.

How do we implement decisions?

J (judging) - the world is at its best when we can plan our activities and next steps, when we can than also execute our plan in exactly the same way we've just agreed. There is also place for flexibility and unexpected development, and we probably planned for this as well.

P (perceiving) - we will make a decision when we feel that the time is right for it. We will wait until that particular moment in time even if it is five minutes before the deadline. The most important thing for us is to make the optimal decision that fits the moment and the situation as it has unfolded.

What next?

MBTI becomes really complicated when the four dimensions presented above are combines into profiles providing us with 16 different types. And as if it is not enough each type has two different ways of expressing each of their dimensions.
If you are interested in understanding more about how it works "behind the scene" I would strongly recommend booking a course or at least read come academic literature about this topic.



Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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