Category: Psychology

Marketing Psychology Startups

Read The Room.

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
When folks ask me about how best to do marketing right now, my answer is consistently turning into the same three words: Read the room. Imagine you’ve walked into a religious space. This room is sacred to the people inside it. When you speak, whatever you say will be viewed through the context of where you are. That’s exactly what…
Marketing Psychology

Marketing Right Now Is #$%*ing Hard.

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Over the last couple weeks, I’ve talked to dozens of startup founders, small business owners, and web marketers of all kinds. Folks are scared, and rightfully so. Staring into the face of an uncertain period of quarantining followed by what most estimate will be the worst economic downturn of the last 50 years, and maybe 100, is sobering. The most…
Events Marketing Psychology Startups

Extraordinary Times Call For Extraordinary Measures

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
There can no longer be doubt: the majority of people in advanced economies are living through the most life-altering event of the last forty years. Natural disasters, wars, economic turmoil, political shifts, technological disruption — all of these pale in comparison to COVID-19’s breadth, speed, and the raw quantity of prolonged, global change. That’s in no way meant to minimize…
Hiring Psychology Startups Team

Why Elon Musk’s “People as Vectors” Analogy Resonates

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
In his keynote at INBOUND last year, Dharmesh Shah (Hubspot’s cofounder) shared a personal story of meeting Elon Musk and their short but powerful conversation about aligning people on a team as you would vectors in an equation. Unlike many folks in the startup world, I’m not a die-hard Musk fan. I appreciate his creativity and accomplishments, but also find…
Moz Personal Psychology Startups

A Long, Ugly Year of Depression That’s Finally Fading

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Yesterday morning I woke up early to speak at the Business of Software conference in Boston. It was my first time there, and it’s an exceptional group. Then, after some meetings, I spoke in the afternoon at Hubspot’s Inbound conference (thankfully just across a long skybridge that connects Boston’s World Trade Center from its Convention Center). This morning, I woke…
Moz Personal Psychology

Can’t Sleep; Caught in The Loop

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
During the worst weeks of this year, I’ve had this weird mental cycle that, despite being incredibly exhausted, keeps me awake. In my head, I’ve taken to calling it “The Loop.” (photo credit: Geraldine in Paris) The Loop starts out with something small. I’ll be lying awake, in bed, trying to fall asleep, and thinking (as I do most of…

Keep up with SparkToro®