By Roger Dooley

While few of us will take center stage at Carnegie Hall or step up to home plate at Yankee Stadium, we all have to perform at one time or another. Whether you are speaking to a packed auditorium or presenting to a small group of decision-makers, asking your boss for a raise or closing a sale, it’s a performance. And, being mentally prepared is a big part of delivering a great performance instead of a mediocre one.

Harvard Business Review senior editor Dan McGinn has done a deep dive into the science of mental preparation. McGinn’s new…

Two years ago, I spoke to Dr. Robert Cialdini, the “godfather” of persuasion science and the creator of the celebrated Six Principles of Influence. I asked him if, thirty years after completing his seminal book, Influence, he’d add on another one or two. He declined, saying that while there were many influence techniques, the important ones mostly fit into his original six. (Check out our 2014 conversation for some great persuasion insights.)

Now, things have changed.

Cialdini has written a new, major book, Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade. In it, he acknowledges that one more influence technique…

How would it change your business if you could get twice the leads, subscriptions, or sales from your website? Believe it or not, you can accomplish that goal in less time than you expect and without spending lots of money. The strategy isn’t one of bold, dramatic change. Rather, it’s a strategy composed of small wins that stack up to produce big gains.

How Small Wins Snowball Into Huge Success

When I was speaking at Nir Eyal‘s excellent Habit Summit at Stanford, I had a chance to hear and meet personal improvement expert James Clear. He’s an advocate of doing a lot of things in your life…

While not quite a digital nomad, I do travel quite a bit for speaking engagements and personal trips. When I’m on the go, I want to be able to do anything from anywhere, more or less.

This has sent me on a multi-year hunt for the perfect laptop and gear carrier.

I’m going to share my research and results with you — feel free to chime in with your own recommendations.

My current laptop, by the way, is a Macbook Pro 13″. Most of the solutions I describe could work for a variety of PCs and Macs.

The Paradox of Choice — Alive and Well

Every year, consumers spend more time using digital devices. Every year, more media is consumed digitally. Naturally, advertising dollars are increasingly flowing to digital as well. But, don’t pull the plug on that direct mail campaign just yet.

New research has again shown that content on paper affects our brains in different and more powerful ways.

The latest findings come from Temple University consumer neuroscience researchers. In a study conducted for the U.S. Post Office, they found significant differences in the way our brains process the two ad formats.

Test Methods

Getting your business portrait photo taken? Meeting new people at a networking event? Here’s some counter-intuitive advice: consider having a drink. You may be seen as being more attractive.

We’ve all heard expressions like “looking through beer goggles” that suggest other people look better after you’ve had a few drinks.

Surprising research now shows that a little alcohol can make the drinker look better to others as well.

University of Bristol researchers conducted an experiment in which heterosexual individuals rated photos of an opposite-sex subject under two conditions. …

These days, almost every website wants your email address. It might be for a newsletter, for blog updates, or special offers… whatever the reason, these site owners know that a good email list is a critically important business asset.

But, how do you get visitors to subscribe? In these days of overstuffed inboxes, there’s surprising resistance to giving up one’s email. So, we looked to the top conversion experts in the world to find their secrets for turning casual visitors into subscribers.

Why pick these sites? It’s simple: these conversion pros have at their disposal all of the tools for…

Can the font used for important medical instructions affect how well patients follow them?

The answer probably won’t surprise regular Neuromarketing readers. A study at the University of Manchester and Leeds Beckett University found that the font used to present medical instructions did indeed affect how those instructions were perceived. The scientists found,

• Font influenced pregnant women’s perceptions of an antenatal intervention. • The easier the font was to read, the less complex the intervention was perceived. • The font of written information may also determine adherence to interventions.

According to the lead researcher, Dr. Andrew Manley,

“When it…