Analyze people’s goals to communicate effectively — Jesper Lindström
Today the guest of my weekly interview is Jesper Lindström ( https://jesperlindstrom.me ) .
He’s a 20 year old computer geek from a small town in the southern parts of Sweden. He’s studying at the second year of Bachelor in Software Engineering.
In his spare time he keeps working on the web crafting stunning websites and apps.
His first website was created at the age of eleven and he hasn’t stopped ever since.
R: Do you do some ritual every day? How do you practice it without errors(skipping one part)?
Jesper: Bad answer, but not really. I don’t have any special routine or ritual that I think of. Apart from the mandatory morning cup of coffee haha.
R: What do you do that allows you to work efficiently, do you have any ritual or daily/weekly activity?
Jesper: I’m obsessed with task/project management tools, so I try to make sure I always have bite sized tasks to pick from, which makes it a lot easier to “get started” when I have some time to spare.
I also live by my calendar and schedule basically every awoken hour of my life… I guess most people would call me a “control freak”, but I find planning very important to handle a busy life where I need to balance both full time studies and running a business on the side.
I normally spend half an hour every sunday to plan one week ahead in detail, so that’s a weekly ritual of mine.
R: Ok what’s your bucket list dreams after university?
Jesper: Building my own product company is the dream. The agency is the “safe path” to getting started in business, build up some capital on our own etc.
While it can be fun helping customers succeed, being able to put lots of love into every detail of a product that you own yourself is something I miss and that I would like to pursue later.
Our long term goal is to make enough money from clients to be able to invest into building and launching our own products.
If we’re talking cities, I’d definitely like to work in the tech Mecca — Silicon Valley, at least for a while.
R: what was the last useful thing you bought on Amazon, that you couldn’t find in a store?
Jesper: I’m not sure. To be honest I don’t order stuff online very often. The last (tech) thing I bought online was an Apple magic mouse I think.
R: What thought or tip would you give to yourself in the past?
Jesper: I’m a pretty techy person, but something I’ve come to realize and reflect on a lot in the past year or so have been social skills and salesmanship, and about being more self-aware about how I interact with people.
Relations and social skills matter a lot in life, from building friendships to landing deals with clients — but normally communication it’s just something that happens and not something you proactively think about.
The tip I would give my former self would be to think more proactively about communication and relations, and especially to analyze people’s goals and motivations and communicate effectively around those.
For instance, if you’re trying to sell a service, don’t just explain how good your service is, but instead explain how the potential client would benefit from it.
To be able to analyze other people’s motivations is something I think is key to succeeding in many things in life.
This kind of insight is something I believe also helps me design and build better products, since I now spend a lot more thought on user experience and on optimizing for the visitors’ goals instead of just making the product look pretty.
A book recommendation on the topic is “How to win friends & influence people”. It’s what sparked my interest.
R: Do you have any study tips?
Jesper: I prefer university classes for the more difficult things that I wouldn’t normally look into myself, so I’d have to say that.
Study method depends on the type of subject, but just attending lectures and doing plenty of exercises tend to work well.
For programming and other more practical knowledge I prefer to watch video tutorials, for instance TutsPlus and Udacity.
R: And final question for real … Windows or mac?
Jesper: Easiest question so far: Mac 🙌
Check out his website to see all his awesome projects/work. ( Jesper Lindström)
