“I got lucky.”

“I don’t belong here.”

“I’m a fraud, and it’s just a matter of time before everyone finds out.”

Sound familiar?

Most of us have experienced feelings of doubt and unworthiness at some point in our lives. But when your accomplishments are a result of your own knowledge, hard work, and preparation and you still feel inadequate … you’re probably suffering from impostor syndrome.

People who suffer from this syndrome often feel like frauds — despite being smart, skilled, capable professionals who actually deserve whatever commendations and praise they’re given. Rather than celebrating their accomplishments, they worry that they’ve somehow tricked people into thinking they’re good enough. As a result, they live in fear of being “found out” or “exposed.”

Impostor syndrome is actually fairly common: Researchers believe that up to 70% of people have suffered from it at one point or another. But that doesn’t make it any less damaging to a person’s confidence and career growth.

So if you feel like you’re suffering from impostor syndrome or something like it, know that there are ways to curb these feelings in a healthy, proactive way. Here are 11 tips to help you get started.

9 Tips for Coping With Impostor Syndrome

1) Know the signs.

We often overlook the signs of impostor syndrome that come up in our day-to-day lives. However, recognizing these signs is the first step toward overcoming them.

You might suffer from impostor syndrome if:

• You feel like you “got lucky” when you actually prepared well and worked hard.
• You find it hard to accept praise.
• You apologize for yourself when you didn’t actually do something wrong.
• You hold yourself to incredibly — sometimes impossibly — high standards.
• You find the fear of failure paralyzing.
• You avoid expressing confidence because you think people will see it as overcompensating or obnoxious.
• You’re convinced you’re not enough.

Pay attention to your language choices, both when you’re talking to other people and when you’re talking to yourself — especially when it comes to talking about work. If you find your own success or the praise others give you uncomfortable, do some reflective thinking on where those types of thoughts came from and what it means in your professional life.

2) Know you’re not alone.

When you have impostor syndrome, some of the most important encouragement comes from realizing how many hugely successful people, both male and female, have built amazing careers even while regularly coping with it.

Which highly accomplished people have spoken about their impostor syndrome? Here are some quotes from The New York Times and Forbes:

Author, Poet & Civil Rights Activist Maya Angelou:

I have written eleven books, but each time I think, ‘uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.'”

Chief of the World Health Organization Dr. Chan:

There are an awful lot of people out there who think I’m an expert. How do these people believe all this about me? I’m so much aware of all the things I don’t know.”

Actor Don Cheadle:

All I can see is everything I’m doing wrong that is a sham and a fraud.”

Actress, Writer & Producer Tina Fey, from her book Bossypants:

The beauty of the impostor syndrome is you vacillate between extreme egomania and a complete feeling of: ‘I’m a fraud! Oh God, they’re on to me! I’m a fraud!’ So you just try to ride the egomania when it comes and enjoy it, and then slide through the idea of fraud.”

3) Distinguish humility and fear.

There’s taking humility in your hard work and accomplishments, and then there’s feeling overcome with fear because of them. Sometimes, simply being good at something can cause is to discount its value. But as Carl Richards wrote in a New York Times article, “After spending a lot of time fine-tuning our ability, isn’t it sort of the point for our skill to look and feel natural?”

It all boils down to feeling unworthy. I like how Seth Godin put it in a blog post: “When you feel unworthy, any kind response, positive feedback or reward feels like a trick, a scam, the luck of the draw.”

But it is possible to feel worthy without feeling entitled, and overcoming impostor syndrome is all about finding a healthy balance between the two. Godin goes on to write, “Humility and worthiness have nothing at all to do with defending our territory. We don’t have to feel like a fraud to also be gracious, open or humble.”

4) Let go of your inner perfectionist.

I recently wrote about how perfectionism, while helpful in certain contexts, can be a major roadblock for productivity. Turns out it can be a major roadblock for overcoming impostor syndrome, too. Many people who suffer from impostor syndrome are high achievers; people who set extremely high standards for themselves and are committed to doing their best and being the best.

But perfectionism only feeds into your impostor syndrome. When you feel like a fraud, it’s usually because you’re comparing yourself to some *perfect* outcome that’s either impossible or unrealistic.

Not only can no one do everything perfectly, but holding yourself to that standard can actually be super counterproductive. At some point, you need to take a step back and ask yourself: When is good enough good enough?

Read this blog post to see what a formula for “good enough” might look like. And if you need further encouragement, read this article from The Guardian.

Bottom line? While striving for perfection is certainly noble, it’s usually not realistic — and often, it’s counterproductive and will only make you feel more like a fraud.

5) Be kind to yourself.

Impostor syndrome often manifests itself as a voice in our heads, berating us with negative messages like “you’re not smart enough” or “you’re a fraud.” Negative self-talk is a bad habit, and it can heavily influence our stress and anxiety levels. “Being kind to yourself” simply means changing the way you talk to yourself in your head by practicing positive self-talk. Not only can it help you become less stress and anxious, but it can also help you build the courage to do things that’ll bring you greater rewards.

Maria Klawe, the president of Harvey Mudd College, suffered from what she called “impostoritis” for most of her career. While she found it hard to silence the negative thoughts completely, she practiced hard to add positive thoughts to her inner voice. “Now I wake up most days with a voice on the left side of my head telling me what an incredible failure I am,” she wrote. “But the voice on the right side tells me that I can change the world — and I try to pay more attention to it.”

First, try to catch yourself whenever you have a negative thought. Then, turn around and challenge your own claim. For example, if you find yourself thinking, “I just got lucky,” challenge that by thinking, “What steps did I take and what work did I put in to get to this point?” Then, you can answer your own question using affirmations, which are short, focused, positive statements about a goal you have. In this case, one might be as simple as, “I worked hard – and I always work hard.”

Psychologists have found that repeating affirmations like this can improve stress and anxiety levels, perhaps because these positive statements build a bridge into your subconscious mind.

6) Track and measure your successes.

When you feel like an impostor, one of the hardest things to grasp is how much of a role you have in your own successes. You might default them to luck or others’ hard work, when in fact, your own work, knowledge, and preparation had a lot to do with it.

To help show yourself that you’re actually doing well, keep track of your wins in a private document. There are a lot of different ways to track these successes, and the metrics you use will depend entirely on your job. If you’re a blogger, you might keep track of your posts’ monthly average page views and watch them go up, or compare them to the team average. You might also keep a separate tab to paste kind words people have written to you via email, Twitter, blog comments, and so on.

In the same vein as keeping track of your success metrics, keep a file on your computer of wins and positive reinforcement both at work and in your personal life. One of the best things I’ve done is created a folder on my personal Gmail account called “Happy,” where I’ve stored everything from my college acceptance email to praise from my colleagues and bosses. Whenever I need a lift, I open that Gmail folder and scroll through them.

You can create an email folder for these emails like I did, or create something like a “swipe file” (i.e. a digital file) on your computer or phone to store screenshots of emails, tweets, dashboard metrics … whatever makes you feel good about your hard work and preparation.

7) Talk about it with a mentor and your manager.

No one should suffer in silence. Sharing your thoughts and experiences with someone else will make you better equipped to deal with your impostor syndrome. We recommend sharing them with both a mentor and your direct manager.

Your mentor will be able to help you talk candidly about your struggles with impostor syndrome, while giving you a more objective point of view — especially if they work on a different team or at a different company. When you share your experience with them, you might ask if they’ve ever felt that way, or if they know someone who has. The best mentors are forthcoming about the struggles they’ve gone through and the mistakes they’ve made in their careers, and you may find that they have some helpful stories or advice for how to deal with what you’re feeling.

We’d also suggest that you talk with your direct manager about your experiences, too. Why? Because they’re more likely to have the knowledge and tools to help you overcome your impostor syndrome in the context of your current job. For example, you might ask them to help you find a system for tracking your successes, or figure out which metrics you should measure. Knowing what they know about both you and your role, they may also help you seek out more opportunities to shine and gain visibility on your team or at your company in general.

Speaking of opportunities …

8) Say “yes” to new opportunities.

It’s impossible to say “yes” to everything, especially when you’re feeling stressed or spread thin. But it’s all too common for people who have impostor syndrome to turn down career-making opportunities because they don’t feel like they’d do a good job.

When you’re presented with a new opportunity, it’s important to distinguish between the voice in your head saying you can’t do it because you’re not worthy and the one saying you can’t do it because you have too much on your plate. The former is your impostor syndrome speaking.

But remember: Taking on challenging new work and doing well at it can open a lot of doors for you. Don’t let your inner impostor turn down these game-changing opportunities. They can do wonders to help you learn, grow, and advance your career.

Keep Richard Branson’s famous quote in mind: “If someone offers you an amazing opportunity and you are not sure you can do it, say yes. Then learn how to do it later.” While it might be intimidating to take on a role you’re not sure you can succeed in, know that you were asked to do it for a reason, and there’s nothing wrong with learning new things and asking questions along the way.

9) Embrace the feeling, and use it.

It’s really hard to get rid of impostor syndrome completely — especially if you’ve had it for years and years. The fact that hugely successful people like Maya Angelou and Don Cheadle feel that way after all they’ve accomplished is evidence that it can sometimes be a lifelong condition. That’s why the best angle from which to tackle your impostor syndrome isn’t getting rid of it completely; it’s stopping it from hindering your success.

I like the way Richards put it: “We know what the feeling is called. We know others suffer from it. We know a little bit about why we feel this way. And we now know how to handle it: Invite it in and remind ourselves why it’s here and what it means.”

Richards says he’s been invited to speak about his work and career all over the world, and yet he still hasn’t been able to get rid of his impostor syndrome. What he has learned to do is think of it “as a friend.” Whenever he hears that negative voice in his head, he pauses for a minute, takes a deep breath, and says to himself, “Welcome back, old friend. I’m glad you’re here. Now, let’s get to work.”

What tips do you have for overcoming impostor syndrome? Share with us in the comments.

Thanks to the TV show The Office, many of us have heard of the classic “stapler in Jell-O” trick. But what other, less conventional pranks are out there to add some color to an otherwise average day at the office?

We asked our friends and combed the internet for more examples of some of the funniest office pranks, and pulled together this list to serve as inspiration for your own work pranks. Every company has a story or two about that funny office prank of yore. Whether you’re doing some early April Fool’s Day research or just feeling a little tricksy, it’s time to get a prank of your own in the books. Here are some ideas.

And if you want to make up for the time you spent pranking your co-workers …

Download our free guide here to learn how to be more productive at work. 

31 Funny Office Prank Ideas to Pull on Your Co-Workers 

1) Nothing like caramel onions to perk you up.

Image Credit: Rant Lifestyle

2) This is what nightmares are made of.

Image Credit: Rant Lifestyle

3) Fish food (hopefully) included.

Image Credit: Reddit, jihadaze

4) Just hope nobody actually called 9-1-1 …

Image Credit: BuzzFeed

5) Tighten the zip-tie, throw it … and run for your life.

Image Credit: Emlii

6) The perfect use for those sticky notes piling up in the back of your drawer.

Image Credit: Reddit, Bzbzbzbz

7) They should never have told you their phone password.

Image Credit: Gottabemobile

8) Welp, that’s one way to loosen up before a meeting.

Image Credit: Reddit, JJ0EE

9) At least it’s not glitter.

Image Credit: Reddit, williebeth

10) For trolls, by trolls.

Image Credit: Dose

11) One for the international office.

Image Credit: Reddit, 1hhc1

12) For Hasselhoff lovers. (Or Hasselhoff haters.)

Image Credit: Justsomething

13) You said you needed a vacation?

Image Credit: Sanjeev on Imgur

14) That’s it. You’re suspended.

Image Credit: WorldWideInterweb

15) Hey everyone, there’s cake up for grabs in the kitchen!

Image Credit: Reddit, blinhorst

16) Just a little condiment art. Sound effects: optional.

Image Credit: Maluda on Imgur

17) Their boss’ face. EVERYWHERE.

Image Credit: DecentLeaf on Imgur

18) How to make an office disappear.

19) Simple, yet brilliant.

Image Credit: farewelltomediocrity on Tumblr

20) Time to learn to touch type.

21) I’m not even mad, I’m just impressed.

Image Credit: Reddit,  BOOMTimebomb

22) This could actually make your cat-loving co-worker’s day.

Image Credit: Reddit, cstyves

23) “For the man who never has enough time.”

Image Credit: @alicetaywong on Instagram

24) … Or the woman who never has enough time.

Image Credit: 22words

25) Just doing your part for the environment, ya know?

Image Credit: BoredPanda

26) Ingredients: blizzard, shovel, and several hours to kill.

Image Credit: gcbb on Flickr

27) For the prankster with NO SOUL.

Image Credit: @sarcasticfitnessmama on Instagram

28) Just the adrenaline rush you needed.

Image Credit: @duirbran on Instagram

29) Warning: could scare the bejeezus out of you, too.

Image Credit: Reddit, 12q9et

30) When in doubt, just wrap stuff.

Image Credit: Gabe Weinberg

Image Credit: Laura Moran

31) And finally, for those of you who still aren’t over the whole Jell-O thing …

What are your favorite office pranks? Share with us in the comments below!

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in January 2015 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

Nonprofits operate in a crowded digital ecosystem with aggressive marketing tactics and massive advertising spends from the corporate world. It can be tough, as a result, to reach target audiences—especially for membership recruitment. How can nonprofits stand out, build visibility, and drive engagement in a landscape where the average email user sends and receives 122 messages a day?

The answer is simple: do what you already do best by building long-term relationships with the communities and stakeholders that you serve. Rely on your value proposition to stand out and build an emotional rapport with your audience. Communicate your organization’s unique value proposition in a way that sparks interest and action. And of course, be practical: humans need friendly nudges and reminders from time to time. 

For inspiration, we’ve compiled a few ideas a examples. 

 5 Types of Emails Your Association Should Send to Increase Memberships

1)  Tailored, Personalized, Human Invitations

As more visitors spend time on your website, your association will slowly build a repository of data. Using this information, you’ll want to create focused messages around the benefits of joining your association. You can use the following types of data to guide you: 

• Content consumption patterns
• Referral paths and traffic sources
• Time spent on different parts of your site
• Past engagement, online and in person, with your organization

In addition to using this data, make sure that you send your messages from a real person from your team—not a corporate-like mouthpiece. Your target audiences want to feel like you value their time, attention, and participation with your organization. Remember that you’re connecting with a human being on the other side of the computer screen.

For an example from outside of the nonprofit space, take a look at the following message from HubSpot. It’s customized around specific audience interests and tailored to specific actions that audiences have taken on the site (based on the webpages they’ve viewed and the content they’ve read).

2) Diverse Options for Joining

One-size-fits-all memberships are a thing of the past. Today’s consumers are looking for highly personalized complements to their lifestyles—nonprofit affiliations are no different.

In addition to featuring clear benefits for joining, nonprofits need to offer several options for membership, to make joining easy for the largest group possible. You’ll want to consider the following: 

• Payment timings
• Payment amounts
• Value offered
• Perks available

If you’re not sure how to structure these options, your current members are a great resource to leverage. Start by segmenting your member database by demographic and psychographic traits that are relevant to your organization (i.e. household income, cause affiliations, educational interests, etc.). Run a survey and conduct qualitative interviews: you’ll see patterns that are relevant to your messaging.

Your audiences will respond to different incentives. Make sure that your organization’s are fully defined.

As an example, take a look at ProductHunt. The company puts together a curated email newsletter with products and services that its subscribers will find helpful. The company uses social data to piece together its messaging, based on what its subscribers’ connections are upvoting.

 

3) Content-Driven Newsletters

Time is a valuable asset: audiences may be interested in the cause that you support, but they may not be ready to get involved just yet. Instead, they’ll need a bit of warming up and nurturing. You’ll need to engage with them at multiple touch points—to share stories and educational resources around your mission and vision. It may sound counterintuitive, but you won’t want to push memberships too aggressively here. Instead, you’ll want to focus on building a rapport with your audience. Here are some tips for types of content to share:

• News and regular updates about your organization
• Impact reports and stats surrounding the communities that you serve
• Stories about the people you’ve helped

What’s most important is that you reach audiences with information that they’ll care about and find personally valuable. Over time, you can build a feedback loop between your readers’ content consumption patterns and messaging that they’ll find compelling. You can use personalization technology, for instance, to share news and updates that they care about rather than communicating every last thing that has happened over the past month or quarter.

Take a look at the following email from Inbound.org, which curates relevant content into a regular newsletter. Information comes tailored to specific audience browsing patterns and interests.

4) Renewal Notices

Life gets busy, and memberships can fall through the cracks as a result. You’ll want to make it as easy as possible to automate membership sign-ups and to give your audience a friendly nudge to take action. Email makes this process easier.

Send follow-up reminders when memberships are about to expire, and make renewing as seamless as possible. You can start by filtering your list based on expiration date: contact your members two months out, one month out, and then within a few days.

Be attentive and sensitive to the fact that your audiences are busy. Make sure that ‘next steps’ are easy and clear. By automating the processes and reaching out to audiences ahead of time, you’ll ensure that no member falls through the cracks.

A great example to follow comes from domain registrars. Well ahead of expiration day, these companies reach out to their customers for renewals. Consistency and tactful persistence are key for moving the needle.

5) Opt-Out Surveys

If you’re losing members, you need to figure out why. Email can help you identify pain points and identify improvements to make in your messaging, moving forward. 

Start by running a simple form or email survey to ask members why they’ve decided to leave. You could then use that data to send more personalized follow up emails that ask your former members to come back, while telling them about new features that make them want to join again. 

Last But Not Least

Always thank your members—this small gesture can go a long way. When someone new joins, thank him or her, and drop a reminder of the benefits of the memberships upfront. Find subtle ways to make your audience feel appreciated. Make connections stronger, as a result.

 

How often do you take a step back from your day-to-day job to ask “why?” 

It’s so easy to get caught up in the busy routine and forget why humans actually do what they do. On the consumer side, you might ask yourself, “Why am I drawn to cars that emphasize safety features?” or “Why do I buy shampoo that claims it’ll make my hair feel soft?” As a marketer, you might ask yourself, “Why do I think this marketing campaign will appeal to our personas?” or “Why would someone click on this call-to-action?”

The answers to many of these questions can be traced back to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which identifies basic human needs as physiological, safety, belonging, esteem, and self-actualization:

Now, after looking at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, let’s try to answer a few of the questions I posed above. When marketers want to market a safe car, they likely try to target consumers’ safety needs. If a marketer wants to sell shampoo to make a person’s hair feel softer, they could position that product as a solution to belonging or esteem.

For more on this concept and various other principles of human behavior, download our latest ebook: An Introduction to Marketing Psychology.

This guide will help you:

• Get a grasp on Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs
• Learn the most important principles of human behavior
• Understand how marketing can influence how people think, feel, and behave
• Look at your marketing activities through a psychological lens

Download the introductory guide to marketing psychology here.

How are you using psychology to make smarter marketing decisions? Let us know in the comments below.

Today, the world is more connected than ever before. If you need to quickly reach someone who isn’t nearby, you simply fire off an email, instant message, or social post, and you’ll likely receive a response within minutes. 

That’s where things might get tough. Even though we can reach each others quickly and easily, you may still face some communication challenges.

For example, you might notice a few discrepancies between your communication styles. Maybe the other person likes to cut to the chase, while you prefer to build rapport first. Or maybe the other person expects several rounds in the negotiation process, while you want to get to realistic discussions right away.

Want a few good jumping-off points for communicating better with people in 23 countries around the world? Flip through the SlideShare below. 

This year’s Christmas was a huge success for me on a number of different levels. Not only did I check everyone off my list with at least one heart-felt present but I was also able to do it for next to nothing. But how?

Let’s take a step back first.

Over the last 4 or so Christmas’ (the ones where I actually had money to spend on those closest to me), I have averaged right around $500 spent on presents for everyone (girlfriend, parents, sibling, extended family, coworkers, boss, friends, etc.). I enjoy finding just the right gift for the people closest to me and don’t mind at all spending a relatively large chunk of my paycheck getting them something unique.

Now, this year for me was different. Due to unforeseen circumstances, I found myself with less money than normal to purchase the types of presents that I wanted to for my family and friends. Luckily for me though, there were alternative options available that allowed me to supplement a large majority of my Christmas budget: Software Reviews.

As you well know, review sites such as G2 Crowd, TrustRadius, Capterra, Cloudswave and GetApp have grown in popularity over the last year or so and are now some of the first places both businesses and consumers go for information regarding different consumer and business software.

Much like Yelp, users create profiles (or connect their profiles to their LinkedIn accounts) and then leave product or service reviews regarding different, specific elements about the company’s offering. These reviews are then authenticated by the site’s review team before they are published on the company’s profile. Seems legitimate and something that could ultimately be helpful to consumers looking to get unbiased information regarding different solutions they are considering. There’s just one problem…

A certain, unknown percentage of these reviews have been paid for.

Now, when I say “paid for”, I don’t mean that there are people in some foreign country being paid $2/hour to write consumer product reviews. No, every review on these websites is from real consumers who have at least some knowledge and experience with the product. When I say “paid for”, I’m referring to the now-common act of exchanging product reviews for gift cards.

How it works

There are two ways that a person might be approached and solicited gift cards in exchange for reviews, one seemingly more “black hat” than the other.

Scenario 1: Review Site Reaches Out

As new review sites like Cloudswave and GetApp come online and begin to fight for search engine rankings against some of the bigger, more established sites, they will begin to reach out to people who have left product reviews on their competitor’s pages and offer gift cards in exchange for honest and helpful reviews (often establishing a word or character limit to ensure enough detail).

Depending on the site and the number of products you have knowledge of, you could make anywhere from $10 to $25 in gift cards (most likely Amazon) per review! All that needs to be done once contact is established by the review site is for the reviewer to notify the site of the products they will review, receive approval or notice on which ones will be paid for and then have the reviews be written, reviewed and approved before a digital gift card is sent.

Overall, this scenario and the review site is less worried about specific product reviews and more worried about building awareness and clout surrounding their library of real, honest and detailed reviews across a wide spectrum of categories. Reviewers are encouraged to leave honest reviews, whether positive or scathing and reviewers often have to prove their access to the different platforms they are reviewing (through screenshots of login screens or dashboards mainly).

Scenario 2: Software Company Reaches Out

More and more companies online today have noticed the power and influence that these new review sites have begun to attract and have taken quick measures to ensure that their presence on these sites are positive overall.

Much like the review sites from Scenario 1, a software company that you already work with will contact you with a proposal for a positive review in exchange for a gift card. Often times, customers will only be contacted if they are known to be power users or evangelists (often tracked within the software company’s CRM) and will be told that they will only receive gift cards if they leave the highest level and most favorable review (5 stars, 90+%, etc.) possible.

Once the review is written, reviewed and approved by the review site, the reviewer will then take their live review link and send it back to the software company for verification and payment. Since there is only one review to be made by a consumer, they are often paid anywhere from $20 to $50 in gift cards (often Amazon) for their glowing review.

Unlike in Scenario 1, most of these companies (but not all) require that the content in their reviews be favorable toward their software in order to receive payment which opens up a number of ethical questions and an overall debate surrounding this new and growing practice.

Now back to me…

Over the course of a month and a half (November-December 15^th), I wrote approximately 25 reviews across 4 different review sites and received around $250 in Amazon gift cards that helped me pay for nearly all of my Christmas presents.

I was approached by review sites themselves as well as directly by companies and ultimately spent about 6 hours of my weekend time putting together honest and detailed reviews of both software that I was knowledgeable on, as well as some that I had used once over a year ago. There were some platforms that I couldn’t stop writing about when it came to functionalities and benefits and others that I had to read reviews on just to get myself to the required word limit.

How these practices may be ruining consumer trust

A recent advertising study put on by Nielson showed that only two thirds (66%) of internet users trust consumer opinions online, a statistic that is down 2% from 2013. While still a majority of consumers seem to hold trust in these B2B software review sites, recent events within the B2C review world raise questions on how long this trust will last.

B2C online review sites such as TripAdvisor and Yelp have seen public pushback over the past decade, thanks mainly in part to competitor review and paid review scandals. As the public began to learn more about these various scandals, more scrutiny from the public, users and businesses alike was applied to reviews, ultimately leading to the loss of consumer trust.

Using another example, the literary world was in shock a few years back after it was shown that many authors were paying for “honest reviews by verified purchasers” of books on Amazon. While these authors made arguments that they were merely incentivizing people to leave reviews, the grey area they most certainly had stepped into was not well received by the public. Sound familiar?

While it is currently unclear if the “gift cards for reviews” model is erroding consumer trust of these new software review sites, history shows that the larger a review site or industry gets, the more scrutiny their reviews and practices will receive.

The final question: Is this right?

When it comes down to it, there are 4 positions that we must consider when questioning if the practice of exchanging reviews for gift cards is right or not: the review site, the reviewer, the software company and the review reader (end user).

The Review Site

From a review site’s standpoint, there is very little to question when it comes to providing gift cards for reviews so long as there are a certain number of checks and balances in place (which nearly all of these sites have). These sites often need more reviews with more detail so that they can provide their site’s users the best information possible to aid them in their purchasing decision.

Much like any other review platform out there, few people willingly leave reviews unless they are on one of the extreme sides of the customer satisfaction spectrum, leaving very little helpful information from the rest of the users. The problem is that most users of the software who fall in the middle of this spectrum are busy and require incentive to take any amount of time out of their day to leave a review.

So, in exchange for a relatively small gift, these review sites are able to bring in users with experience and knowledge surrounding the products people want reviews on and can ensure they are leaving quality advice and information thanks to their internal review process.

If done correctly, everyone connected to this practice wins. The review site gets a quality review in an area they are looking for, the reviewer gets a gift card and the review site’s users get helpful reviews that can ultimately aid them in their purchasing decision. If done poorly and with little reviewer oversite, poor or duplicate review content can slip through the cracks and ultimately hurt the end user’s experience.

The Software Company

From a software company’s standpoint, the practice of exchanging gift cards for favorable reviews lands in a moral grey area. You know that customer reviews are extremely important in today’s world and while you know that you have a number of happy customers who most likely wouldn’t mind leaving you a review on some of the major sites you also know that they are busy people who require (and deserve) incentive to take time out of their busy day to do so.

Depending on the size of your happy customer list and the amount you are willing to gift for a review, your company could be spending anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars on these reviews that will not only help you become more visible on these review sites but also allow you to gather (potentially) honest feedback that your product team can then use to improve your overall offering in the future.

Ultimately, you know that your profiles on these review sites need to have overwhelmingly positive reviews for you to see any kind of ROI on this venture, so you most likely are asking for positive feedback only (or are making it easy for your customers to read between the lines that this is what you want).

At the end of the day, the review site gets more reviews on your software which helps them, reviewers receive incentive and compensation for the time spent writing detailed, potentially honest reviews, the review site’s users may or may not have gotten helpful information to use and you received positive reviews to help establish yourself on the site.

The Reviewer

From a reviewer’s standpoint, your conscious may or may not be clear at the end of this process depending on who approached you and how helpful you believe you actually were with your review.

As a user, you most likely use a number of different products out there on a daily basis and know plenty about them but just don’t have the time or feel the drive to share your experiences with others out there. When approached by either a company or a review site, you are more likely to leave a review in exchange for some sort of compensation and will spend the necessary time to meet the requirements set so that you can walk away from the site with money to spend.

You most likely left a good review (the site approved it, right?) but the information in there may or may not have been entirely yours depending on how much you needed to write vs. how much you knew or if you had to sway your responses one way or another to meet the requirements set.

At the end of the day, the review site and the software company got their review, you got your money but it may or may not be clear as to if the review site’s users actually got a helpful review or just a generic post.

The Review Reader

From an end-user standpoint, reviews are reviews to a certain extent. Visiting a site to either look at reviews for a single company or to compare features and reviews of different options is only helpful when you have reviews to work with. But while having a library of reviews to peruse is good, your overall experience and the amount of helpful information you walk away with will only be as good as the quality of reviews left.

It can be difficult to tell whether or not a review is honest and helpful, especially if you are aware of the incentives being provided to reviewers. A sea of similar reviews and ratings can be just as unhelpful as no reviews and can call into doubt the validity of any statements being made throughout the site.

When all is said and done, the user only found this review site because they showed up well on an initial internet search. The company has a presence and reviews on the site and a number of users were compensated for their honest reviews, but it is unclear whether or not the end user will find the information they are looking for or if they will trust the information they do find.

The author’s final thoughts

Having looked at the practice of exchanging gift cards for reviews, I’ve found that the positives outweigh the negatives if and only if the proper steps are taken by the review site to fully authenticate any and all reviews. Without proper and through authentication, poor reviews can slip through and ultimately hurt the website’s reputation in the eyes of the end user. Furthermore, software companies practicing gift cards for reviews must ensure that they are requesting only honest reviews and not requiring positive reviews in return for payment.

Both the review sites and the software companies on them have a lot to risk when exchanging gift cards for reviews, especially when it comes to their reputations. Consumer trust is something that can be hard to earn back once lost, and as a resource claiming to be agnostic, reviews sites must ensure that they are promoting only practices and procedures that will ensure reviews that help the end user.

Ever misjudge a hug for a handshake and wind up trapped in some sort of unforgivable in-between? I have.

Ever stumble your way through a few floors of elevator small talk, only to regret 99% of what you said upon returning to your desk? Yup. Guilty of that, too. 

While these confessions don’t appear to give me much ground to stand on when writing a post about being “less awkward” with your boss, just hear me out. Navigating your relationship with your boss can prove complicated for anyone — from the graceless (like me) to the smoothest of smooth talkers. 

To develop a rewarding and productive relationship with them, you’ve got to find a way to overcome those confusing non-verbal cues, painfully awkward silences, and overly formal conversations. But how?

To help shed some light on the situation, I turned to my boss, my boss’ boss, my boss’ boss’ boss, and a few of my trusted colleagues to come up with a list of tips that’ll have you feeling (and acting) less awkward with the person you report to. 

11 Tips for Being Less Awkward Around Your Boss

1) Remember that they’re human, too.

We’ll be the first to admit, it’s hard not to read into every comment your boss makes — both good and bad. But overanalyzing their word choice and tone can lead us down a bad path. 

Did she really think I was doing a good job? Was she being sarcastic? Should I be worried about my job security?

Overanalyzing feedback will often make your interactions with them more awkward than they need to be. So before you go overthinking things, remind yourself that your boss is only human.

“If they respond awkwardly from time to time, don’t read into it. They could’ve just come from a stressful conversation. They could be distracted. Or maybe they just slept poorly last night. Push past those instances and don’t let the awkwardness build on itself,” explains HubSpot’s Director of Content Corey Wainwright.

2) Learn to read body language.

When you’re talking to your boss, tune into their non-verbal communication. What kind of hand gestures do they make? Do they typically fold their arms? Do they use these same mannerisms when speaking with your other colleagues?

Many times, people read into their boss’ body language and assume that it’s a direct reflection of their performance. For example, if they notice their boss furrows his brow, they’re quick to assume he’s displeased with their work. However, the simple truth is, that may just be how he acts. In fact, he may furrow his brow when he finds something particularly interesting. 

It’s equally as important to be aware of your own body language when communicating with your boss. Depending on how you act, it’s easy for your body language and your words to send conflicting messages, which is a recipe for misunderstanding.

To learn even more about body language in the workplace, check out this helpful infographic.

3) Follow the 80/20 rule.

There’s nothing worse than an awkward silence — especially with your boss. And while it’s tempting to fill those conversation gaps with small talk about the weather, having a meaningful conversation is a better use of both their time and yours. 

But what constitutes a meaningful conversation? And how does one approach the situation?

“Keep it to an 80/20 rule in conversations — 80% about successes, interesting projects, things you’ve read that are work-related, and 20% about how that bleeds into you or him/her as a person,” Wainwright explains. “Not only does that open up the conversation to go into that personal direction if you’re both up for it, but over time, these nuggets of personal information can add up to a more well-rounded picture of one another as a person.”

And when they do share personal information with you, make note of it. “Memorize the names of their spouse, girlfriend/boyfriend, kids, pets … anyone they talk about on a regular basis. That way, in an effort to build a connection (or break a silence), you can ask how someone important in their life is doing,” advises my colleague, Lindsay Kolowich.

4) Have an answer for “How’s it going?”

When we’re asked general questions, we tend to fall back on general answers. For example, we’ve all experienced a conversation like this:

“How’s it going?”
“Good, and you?”
“Good.”

Trouble is, having dead-end conversations like this with your boss can draw attention to your level of discomfort. 

“‘How’s it going?’ is really an invitation for you to give them some insight into what you’re thinking about or what’s worrying you. Take advantage of it. You can start with the standard, ‘Good,’ but pivot that into a conversation,” explains HubSpot’s VP of Marketing Meghan Anderson.

The more you put yourself out there, the easier it will be for your boss to get to know you, your interests, and your abilities. 

5) Be on time. 

Have you ever showed up to a party or event too early and found yourself struggling to make small talk with the host? What about showing up late? Often times, that can be even more painful, as you’re forced to poke around the room trying to make your way into someone else’s conversation. 

Well, the same can be said for a meeting with your boss. While you’d think that showing up early is a sign that you’re prepared or punctual, resume consultant Adam Sterling suggests that showing up too early to a meeting actually implies you’re disruptive to other people’s work schedules. Awkward.

And if you thought that was bad, try showing up late. While situational tardiness is forgivable, making a habit of it will signal to your boss that you struggle with organization and responsibility.

Need help showing up on time? Try limiting distractions (television, radio, text messages, etc.) while you get ready, prepping your belongings the night before, or setting reminders on your phone or work calendar to leave a few minutes early.

6) Talk about something that excites you.

When in doubt, talk about something that you’re excited about — whether it be a change in the industry, a book you’re reading, or a project you just completed.

Many people tend to shy away from sharing their passions or big ideas for fear that they’ll be judged or misunderstood, but your boss wants to see that you’re enjoying what you’re doing.

“Unabashed interest is the best way to get past polite or overly formal conversations,” explains Anderson. “Share something your working on or — and sometimes this is even better — it could be something you’ve seen in the field that you think is really interesting and worth emulating. Excitement is infectious. Share yours.”

7) Cap yourself at two drinks.

While drinking too much in front of your co-workers is a slippery slope, drinking too much in front of your boss is best classified as an egregious offense.

It’s okay to have a drink (or two) as a way to break the ice, but don’t exceed that. If you do, you’re opening up the door for yourself to say things you don’t mean — or say things you do mean, but you don’t want your boss to hear.

Thought you felt awkward around him or her before? Well, drunken confessions will only make it worse. A lot worse.

So next time you’re out in a drinking situation with your boss, have a couple drinks. Loosen up and talk shop. But be sure to politely excuse yourself — or switch to water or soda — after that. You’ll be happy you did.

8) Try solving a problem together.

When we achieve something truly awesome at work, it’s typically easy for us to convey these wins to our boss. We’re proud of our accomplishments, and we want them to be proud of us, too. However, when it comes to hashing out problems we’re facing, we tend to be more reserved. We beat around the bush.

While letting your boss know that things are going south isn’t ideal, it does present an opportunity for the two of you to work on the problem together.

“Stronger relationships are forged when there are problems you have to overcome than when everything’s coming up roses,” Anderson told me. 

Working towards a solution together will help you get to know your boss better, as it’ll reveal a lot about how they think, handle stress, and arrive at solutions. Just make sure that you bring a few ideas to the table when you present the issue. This will help to show your value and reinforce why you’ve been hired to do your job in the first place. 

9) Brush up on your business meal etiquette.

I’ve flung quinoa, flailed noodles, and mishandled table bread one too many times to not include this tip on the list. 

When dining with your boss, there’s a lot to keep in mind. But if you spend the majority of the meal silently freaking out about what to order or how you should place your napkin, you’ll run the risk of not being present — and they’ll notice.

Luckily, my colleague Lindsay put together an awesome guide to business dinner etiquette to help you get acquainted with how you should behave next time you share a meal with your boss. With tips on what to wear, when to arrive, how to handle your utensils, and more, you’ll learn the insights you need to make a great impression. 

10) Set up more face-to-face time. 

If you work at a large company — or you or your boss works remotely — scoring face-to-face time can be challenge. Thanks to email and internal messaging apps, it’s easy to stay in touch, but without that real in-person interaction, it can be kind of awkward when you’re trying to get to know one another.

If you work in the same building, make an effort to check in with them more often, suggests Mike Renehan, a writer for the HubSpot Sales Blog. If their schedule permits, set up time to touch base with them every other week. If they’re really tied up, seek other opportunities to score some time with them. For example, you may want to volunteer for a project that requires one on one time with them, or attend an event they’ll also be heading to. 

If you work remotely or in a separate office from your boss, try video calls. While it’s slightly less natural than real face-to-face time, it’s a close second. And if you’re struggling to learn more about them, follow them on Twitter and be sure to connect with them on LinkedIn, too. 

“Simply reading his LinkedIn profile may help you find common ground if you know where he went to school and companies where he used to work,” explains Ellie Eckhoff, VP of ClearRock, a leadership development and executive coaching firm.

11) Read up on their personality profile.

Does your company issue a workplace personality profile such as DiSC?

A DiSC assessment — short for dominance, influence, steadiness, and conscientiousness — is designed to help you increase your self-knowledge by highlighting “how you respond to conflict, what motivates you, what causes you stress, and how you solve problems.”

“It’s a great way to learn more about your boss’ communication style,” suggest Emma Snider, Section Editor for the HubSpot Sales Blog.

If you find it’s difficult to resolve conflicts with your boss or communicate challenges without upsetting them, try taking a look at their profile to reveal more effective ways to approach these situations that better align with their personality type.

How do you overcome awkwardness with your boss? Share your tips in the comments section below.

Your LinkedIn profile is a place for you to build your professional brand, showcase your achievements and skills, share content with other professionals, and connect with colleagues, business partners, and even potential employers.

And people will come across it in a variety of ways — whether they’re searching for employees at your company or in your industry, or they met you in person and want to remind themselves what you do or learn more about your accomplishments. No matter how or why they stumble on your profile, it better be darn impressive.

What makes a LinkedIn profile stand out? How do you get more recommendations? What hidden features can help you enhance your profile? (Keeping hidden relationship notes is my personal favorite.) And finally, what does an optimized LinkedIn profile actually look like?

To help you achieve LinkedIn profile perfection, the folks at LeisureJobs created the infographic below. It’s a fully comprehensive, visual guide covering everything from the dos and don’ts of a LinkedIn profile to SEO tips to help your profile show up in search results. 

Download the full guide here to learn how to use LinkedIn for professional networking, business, and marketing.

This post originally appeared on HubSpot’s Sales Blog. To read more content like this, subscribe to Sales.

We all want to be as efficient as possible, but that can be a challenge — especially if we have an overwhelming to-do list.

How do we determine which tasks on our to-do list are most important? Some productivity experts advocate for “eating the frog” and doing your most difficult task first. Others theorize the “two-minutes or less” approach is the best tactic.

But if neither of those work for you, I’d suggest trying a new technique: the impact vs. effort analysis. Before you begin a task, ask yourself: How much effort will this take and what will the immediate impact be?

Running an impact vs. effort analysis allows you to quickly determine which of your tasks is going to have the most immediate impact in the least amount of time. 

Have two minutes to spare? Try running your own impact vs. effort analysis by following the steps below.

How to Conduct and Use an Impact vs. Effort Analysis

1) Write down your to-do list.

Writing down a to-do list allows you to determine the most important five to 10 tasks you have on a given day. Studies show when we write down our goals, we’re more likely to achieve them. With a clear list, we don’t have to waste time thinking about what’s next.

2) Rank the tasks on impact and effort.

Go through each of the tasks on your to-do list and rank them on both impact and effort. Based on these rankings you can determine which tasks on your to-do list are the most crucial. Rewrite your to-do list based on this analysis.

You’ll end up with four distinct types of tasks, which you can plot on the quadrant below:

3) Start with the high impact, low effort goals.

By focusing on the high impact, low effort goals first, we can establish some success early in the day, making the high effort goals easier to accomplish. Studies have shown that by accomplishing a multitude of small goals, we are more likely to complete larger goals.

4) Then conquer high impact, high effort goals.

Once you’ve built up enough steam completing your high impact, low effort goals, move onto your high impact, high effort goals. These tasks are going to be more difficult, but their impact means that they need to be dealt with as soon as possible.

5) Next, focus on your low impact, low effort goals.

After a long day of making waves, turn your attention to your low impact, low effort goals. For example, this is the perfect time to respond to emails and clear out your inbox, organize your desk, or set up meetings for the next week. Low effort, low impact goals are easy wins, and as I pointed out earlier, easy wins add up to larger wins.

6) Finally look at your low impact, high effort goals.

Tasks that require hard work but offer little benefit will arise from time to time. When it comes to low impact, high effort goals, focus on chipping away at them over time as opposed to tackling them all at once. By doing this, you will achieve these goals over time without losing the necessary energy to make a high impact every day.

For an easy visual reminder of how this system works, keep the following quadrant handy:

Being productive comes down to managing your time as best as you can. By running all of your tasks through an impact vs. effort analysis, you can weed out unimportant ones and focus your attention on the critical goals you have for each day.

This post originally appeared on HubSpot’s Sales Blog. To read more content like this, subscribe to Sales.

We’ve all heard that you should never check your email when you first get to the office if you want to start your day at peak productivity. If you’re not careful, you’ll be lost in a black hole of links, articles, and email chains that don’t deserve your morning attention.

But if this is the case, how should you start your most precious working hours?

In Claire Diaz-Oritz’ book Design Your Day, she reminded me of one of my favorite productivity analogies involving a jar, a couple of big rocks, and a ton of small pebbles. If you start by pouring in all of the small pebbles, you won’t be able to fit the larger rocks. Now, flip your process. Begin with the big rocks, and all of your pebbles fit in nicely. Consider Ortiz’ thinking:

Life is the same way. It’s easy to fill up a day or a life with an endless series of pebbles and then not have the time, energy, or resources to fit in the big rocks. A life well designed is about making sure that the important stuff stays important, day in and day out.”

In other words, start your day with the largest, most intensive task. If you’ve prioritized your to-do list during yesterday’s end-of-day ritual, you should already know what that task is.

However, when you come back in the morning, there is a large possibility your mind is either racing because of all the tasks you need to get done or you’re groggy from a severe lack of caffeine. Neither of these states are ideal places to be when you need to tackle that “big rock” first thing.

Enter the brilliance of freewriting. Before you start your day — and yes, even before you log into your laptop — have a notebook and pen in hand. Check the clock. For 10 minutes, just write.

Before you think freewriting is just for a middle school English class, consider this: According to a study from Harvard Business School, regular workplace journaling is one of the best ways to improve professional performance. Not to mention research shows that occasionally writing by hand improves both memory and creativity.

Writers, of course, use this exercise to get past writer’s block. But for anyone else, freewriting will bring perspective to your work and narrow down the focus of your day. Even if your job involves absolutely no writing, this quick morning ritual will help you move past the mindset of prioritizing and ease into the heavy lifting of your day.

Does this mean your writing has to center around what you need to get done that day? Of course not. That would defeat the purpose of this being freewriting. Although it may take some time, train yourself not to stress over what words to put on the page. It could be as trivial as the song stuck in your head from your morning commute.

Consider mine from this morning:

Today, I am starting to get stressed about the number of things I need to get done in the coming weeks. Writing my blog post will definitely be my priority. But after lunch, my focus has to be design. For this ebook, I need to brainstorm data visuals earlier in the writing process … “

The idea is, by writing what you know — whatever it may be on that particular morning — you’ll be able to sort out your thoughts and leave behind anything clouding your best thinking.

If you’re stuck, use these prompts:

• Recently, I’m struggling with …

• If I had more time in the day, I’d use it to …

• Today, I’ll relieve stress by …

• I feel out of my comfort zone when …

• My work is motivated by …

• This week, I’m thankful for …

• Today, I should avoid …

• I feel fulfilled at work when …

• From my team, I’m proud of …

• I work best when …


Remember, with freewriting there is no wrong answer. It doesn’t have to be pretty, or even legible for that matter. Embrace the stream of consciousness purge to clear your mind. Besides, what better way to boost your morning morale than to start with an automatic win?

Before long, your mornings will become a coveted part of your day — a time you can rely on to release tension and generate fresh ideas.