Making the World a Better Place - One Web Page at a Time
This is where I’m going to keep interesting Internet Facts.
When a Customer thinks about buying, they start by doing a web search – and 9 times out of 10 they do it on Google. -http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=20330
Americans have consumed more than 33 Billion videos in the month of December 2009. Find more detailed stats: http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/02/06/americans-consume-33-billion-online-videos-in-december-2009/
I’m finishing up a four year adventure in Korea. A lot has happened in these past four years. I originally came through a poker game with God. Life’s funny. I leave with a Korean wife. God does amazing things. This is a late-post since I’ve been in the US for over a month.
Without further ado:
10. Public Transportation – For 1,000 won (approximately 1 US dollar) you can travel anywhere in Seoul. The Seoul Public Transit system is amazing, both the subways and bus system. I enjoyed using’s Seouls BMW (Bus, Metro, and Walking.)
9. High Speed Internet / High Speed WiBro – The whole country is on a fiber optic LAN. I got 100MBPS to my house, both up and down with servers within Korea. They’ve already started planning to get the whole country on a Gigabit system. It only costs 30,000 ($30 bucks) a month for it too. I used to download large files in a few seconds.
8. Customer Service in General – Overall customer service at Family Restaurants, Hotels, Toll Gates, and Korean Government offices tend to be very friendly and do their best to serve you quickly and respectfully.
7. Fast Delivery – I would imagine if I lived in New York it would be similar. Whenever I ordered anything, food would show up 10-15minutes, stuff I bought online would show up the next day and sometimes even the same day.
6. Ice Cream – I don’t know what it is, but the packaged ice cream tastes better. My favorite is the “Sun-lai-im” by Lotte, it’s in the blue packages with a plastic cap, I felt stupid having them, but they tasted so good.
5. Schwarma / Kebabs (Itaewon Area) - I enjoy the Itaewon area for its diversity, you can share and mingle with people from all over the world. I thoroughly enjoyed the authentic food from each nation, however my favorite was Petra in Itaewon. Their schwarmas are mouth watering.
4. No tips - You don’t have to tip anywhere and people won’t give you attitude if you don’t. I thoroughly enjoyed paying a flat price for food being delivered and eating at dine-in restaurants.
3. Always something to do - Because the city is huge there is always something going on and you can participate in.
2. Security – Seoul is a huge city, but there is very little violent crime. You never hear gunshots and you can walk around the city at 3 AM and you’ll feel safe.
1. The People – I’ll miss the “jung”, it’s like loyalty/love mushed together. When Koreans make friends with you as long as you keep in touch you’ll be friends for life. Sure there are flaws in the culture and nobody is perfect, but overall I enjoyed my four and a half years living in Seoul.
If you ever get a chance I highly encourage you to check out the land of the morning calm.
I read this in the past and wanted to keep it fresh and located somewhere I could quickly access it. Influence by Robert Cialdini is a marketing and psychology classic.
Here is a quick summary of the book borrowed from: Influence Summary
An Influence Summary by Robert B. Cialdini, Ph. D.
“It is through the influence process that we generate and manage change.
As such, it is important for those wishing to create and sustain practical change to understand fully the workings of the influence process. Fortunately, a vast body of scientific evidence now exists on how, when, and why people say yes to influence attempts. From this formidable body of work, I have extracted six universal principles of influence–those that are so powerful that they generate desirable change in the widest range of circumstances.
Dr Cialdini explained these principles in his book and gave numerous examples.
In summary, these principles are:
• Reciprocation. People are more willing to comply with requests (for favors, services, information, concessions, etc.) from those who have provided such things first. For example, according to the American Disabled Veterans organization, mailing out a simple appeal for donations produces an 18% success rate; but, enclosing a small gift–personalized address labels–boosts the success rate to 35%
• Commitment/Consistency. People are more willing to be moved in a particular direction if they see it as consistent with an existing or recent commitment. Consider how small that commitment can be and still motivate change forcefully: Gorden Sinclair, a Chicago restaurant owner, was beset by the problem of no-shows—people who made table reservations but failed to appear and failed to call to cancel. He reduced the problem by first getting a small commitment. He instructed his receptionists to stop saying, “Please call if you change your plans” and to start saying, Will you call us if you change your plans?” The no-show rate dropped from 30% to 10% immediately.
• Authority. People are more willing to follow the directions or recommendations of a communicator to whom they attribute relevant authority or expertise. One study showed that 3 times as many pedestrians were willing to follow a man into traffic against the red light when he was merely dressed as an authority in a business suit and tie.
• Social Validation. People are more willing to take a recommended action if they see evidence that many others, especially similar others, are taking it. One researcher went door to door collecting for charity and carrying a list of others in the area who had already contributed. The longer the list, the more contributions it produced.
• Scarcity. People find objects and opportunities more attractive to the degree that they are scarce, rare, or dwindling in availability. Even information that is scarce is more effective. A beef importer in the US informed his customers (honestly) that, because of weather conditions in Australia, there was likely to be a shortage of Australian beef. His orders more than doubled. However, when he added (also honestly) that this information came from his company’s exclusive contacts in the Australian National Weather Service, orders increased by 600%!
• Liking/Friendship. People prefer to say yes to those they know and like. For example, research done on Tupperware Home Demonstration parties shows that guests are 3 times more likely to purchase products because they like the party’s hostess than because they like the products.”
This is an influence summary of Dr Robert Cialdini’s work.
In his presentations, Professor Cialdini describes and emphasizes the ethical use of these principles. Only through its nonmanipulative use can the influence process be simultaneously effective, ethical, and enduring. And only in this fashion can it enhance a lasting sense of partnership between those involved in the exchange.
Robert B. Cialdini is Regents’ professor of Psychology at Arizona State University in the United States.
Whenever you are crafting an offer try to take into account as many factors as you can.
