Sally Hogshead > Quotes

“When you stop trying to be all things to all people, you can stop worrying about being liked and start building relationships that allow you to be loved. If you are not creating a negative response from somebody, you’re probably not very fascinating to anybody.”
― Sally Hogshead, How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination

“Different is better than better. Different doesn’t try to turn you into something else. Different allows you to highlight the singular traits you already have within you. You aren’t necessarily better than your competition. But you are already different.”
― Sally Hogshead, How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination

“Fascination takes many forms, but all tap into instinctive triggers, such as the need to hunt, to control, to feel secure, to nurture and be nurtured. Some fascinations last only a heartbeat, while others last beyond a seventy-fifth wedding anniversary.”
― Sally Hogshead, Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation

“THREE COMMUNICATION LESSONS FROM THE MOST FASCINATING BRANDS       1.   Don’t focus on how you are similar to others, but how you are different. Leading brands stand out by sharpening their points of difference. The more clearly and distinctly a brand can pinpoint its differences, the more valuable it becomes. If a brand can carve out a very clear spot in people’s minds, the product or service ceases to be a commodity. As we’ll see in Part II, different personality Advantages can be more valuable than similar ones. 2.   Your differences can be very small and simple. The reality is, most products are virtually indistinguishable from their competitors. Yet a leading brand can build a strong competitive edge around very minor differences. Similarly, you don’t need to be dramatically different than everyone else—your difference can be minute, as long as it is clearly defined. The more competitive the market, the more crucial this becomes. 3.   Once you “own” a difference, you can charge more money. People pay more for products and people who add distinct value in some way. And just as customers pay more for fascinating brands, employers pay higher salaries for employees who stand out with a specific benefit. If you are an entrepreneur or small business owner, your clients and customers will have a higher perceived value of your time and services if they can clearly understand why you are different than your competitors. The more crowded the environment, the more crucial these lessons become.”
― Sally Hogshead, How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination

“People don’t want to connect with brands. They want to connect with each other. Fascinating companies create more opportunities for people to connect with each other, through the brand.”
― Sally Hogshead, Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation

“The reality is, strengths can be copied. It’s true for your company, and also for you. Products can be replicated. Benefits can be improved upon, secret formulas uncovered, winning systems beaten. People can outdo your strengths. But nobody can outdo who you are. Your personality is the only aspect of your work that nobody can copy. People can copy your product, your pricing, your actions, your recipe or program or formula. But they can never replicate who you are. Who you are is the greatest differentiator you’ve ever had.”
― Sally Hogshead, How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination

“Throughout your career, you will compete against people who are more established, more famous, more connected, more specialized. But they can’t be you. They can’t capture your highest distinct value. Only you have you.”
― Sally Hogshead, How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination

“One of the hardest tasks of leadership is understanding that you are not what you are, but what you’re perceived to be by others. —EDWARD L. FLOM”
― Sally Hogshead, Fascinate: How to Make Your Brand Impossible to Resist

“Why would our brains throw us into a temporary insanity? What’s the evolutionary purpose for this whacked-out loss of control? To understand why fascination grasps us so irresistibly, keep in mind the illogic of flirtation, and the lunacy of love. Fascination, as we’ve seen, is a visceral and primal decision-making process, one that’s largely involuntary. Fisher says that our brains are literally “built to fall in love” because it’s in our evolutionary best interest not to think clearly during the two-year time period it takes to meet, court, and produce a child, or else we might come to our senses and avoid the inconvenience of child rearing altogether.”
― Sally Hogshead, Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation

“But over time, people can lose their innate ability to fascinate. They acquire layers of boring.”
― Sally Hogshead, How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination

“Who you are is the greatest differentiator you’ve ever had.”
― Sally Hogshead, How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination

“Forbes describes how Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize-winning psychologist, discovered that “people would rather do business with a person they like and trust rather than someone they don’t, even if the likeable person is offering a lower quality product or service at a higher price.”
― Sally Hogshead, How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination

“I call these ingredients “fascination badges” because they’re emblematic of what you represent. So how, exactly, are you fascinating? Seven potential areas:   1. Purpose: Your reason for being; your function as a brand.   2. Core beliefs: The code of values and principles that guide you; what you stand for.   3. Heritage: Your reputation and history; the “backstory” of how you came to be.   4. Products: The goods, services, or information you produce.   5. Benefits: The promises of reward for purchasing the product, both tangible and abstract, overt and implied.   6. Actions: How you conduct yourself.   7. Culture: All the characteristics of your identity, including personality, executional style, and mind-set.”
― Sally Hogshead, Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation

“Your personality is your natural weapon against distraction, competition, and commoditization. The more value you add, the less you have to compete on price, and the less likely you are to become a commodity.”
― Sally Hogshead, How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination

“Competition might motivate you at first, urging you to expend more dollars and energy to win. But if competition leads you down the wrong path, you’ll be stuck playing someone else’s game.”
― Sally Hogshead, How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination

“If you want to increase perceived value for you and your work, you need to focus on who you are, rather than what you do.”
― Sally Hogshead, How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination

“You don't need to find the light, you ARE the light; and when you let your personality shine you can light up the world.”
― Sally Hogshead, How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination

“tip for applying this learning: To get people to “fall in love” with your ideas, don’t solely rely on numbers and data. People can tune out this type of input relatively easily. But if you communicate with a story or experience, you create an emotion. Start your next meeting with a story instead of a spreadsheet. Make your audience feel as well as think. Connect emotionally with them by telling a personal anecdote that reinforces the point of your presentation. Or draw upon a nostalgic shared memory. Once you inspire emotion, your listener will be less likely to disengage, and more likely to remember and respond to your message.”
― Sally Hogshead, How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination

“An eternally favorite deadly sin, lust fascinates through experience: our appetites and passions of sight, sound, taste, touch, and scent. We anticipate what it might be like to fulfill a craving, and that anticipation pulls us closer. As early as the sixth century AD, lust emerged as public enemy number one for Christians. And not without reason. Overcoming desire is no easy task. Buddhism presents the overcoming of desire as an ideal.”
― Sally Hogshead, Fascinate: How to Make Your Brand Impossible to Resist

“Fascination is not the same as interest. It’s a neurological state of intense focus, one that creates an irresistible feeling of engagement.”
― Sally Hogshead, How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination

“Your influence is determined by your ability to get people to take action.”
― Sally Hogshead, Fascinate: How to Make Your Brand Impossible to Resist

“Finally it was time to go into the operating room, and the nurse came to wheel her away from me. My heart tightened. To ease her fears, the pediatric nurses gathered around her and created a “bubble parade,” blowing little soap bubbles as they went into the operating room. To create this fairy-tale experience, they used a wand. Specifically, a bubble wand. All the worry and fear melted from my daughter’s face as she was captivated by the magical moment. As a parent, I felt a great deal of gratitude for this small but meaningful touch. As a marketer, I was awed. I’d just witnessed my daughter’s customer experience switch from anxiety to anticipation in less than ten seconds.”
― Sally Hogshead, Fascinate: How to Make Your Brand Impossible to Resist

“It matters less how you see the world. It matters more how the world sees you. If you fail to understand what your audience truly values, then you can’t communicate yourself in a way that makes people want to build connection and loyalty.”
― Sally Hogshead, How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination

“Psychologists suggest that when people are no longer in charge of basic elements of a situation (such as where they sit, or when they go to the restroom), they must give over some degree of control that they normally use to define their independence, and thus themselves.”
― Sally Hogshead, Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation

“Today, every piece of your communication faces three enemies: distraction, competition, and commoditization.”
― Sally Hogshead, Fascinate: How to Make Your Brand Impossible to Resist

“develop your own compelling way of attracting business, and getting results.”
― Sally Hogshead, How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination

“The addictive nature of Web browsing can leave you with an attention span of nine seconds—the same as a goldfish.”
― Sally Hogshead, How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination

“You will not win by being quiet. You will win by being heard.”
― Sally Hogshead, Fascinate: How to Make Your Brand Impossible to Resist

“To become more fascinating, you don’t have to change who you are. You have to become more of who you are.”
― Sally Hogshead, Fascinate: How to Make Your Brand Impossible to Resist

“I’ll do the black magic. Then, I’ll hand you the wand.”
― Sally Hogshead, Fascinate: How to Make Your Brand Impossible to Resist