Saya hanya seorang yang berpikiran sederhana, mencoba memahami dunia penuh kerumitan, mensyukuri setiap langkah yang diberkati, mendoakan harapan dan berharap hidup saya membuat banyak orang merasa sungguh hidup..
Being a good listener has significant benefits. It helps you build critical relationships with clients, bond with customers, and engage with employees.
That, in turn, builds trust and confidence. That trust encourages loyalty, and that confidence motivates productivity. And, of course, this all equates to increased profitability.
Here are seven ways to build your listening abilities and help ensure you're able to reap the rewards when it comes to your business.
1. Clear your head.
When you listen, you cannot be doing anything else. Clear your mind; stop thinking of your beliefs and positions and what you're going to say next. Be ready to truly hear what the other person is saying so you can benefit from their thoughts, opinions, and ideas.
2. Remember that it's more than words.
To truly listen, you must pay attention to what is being said beneath the words. Listen for the essence of what is being said. Look beyond the surface. Make an effort to hear the words that the other person is saying, and, more importantly, to understand the complete message that is being conveyed. Give your full, undivided attention to the speaker at every level.
3. Fight distraction.
Resist the natural urge to be distracted by whatever else may be going on around you, or by forming counter arguments that you'll make when the other person stops speaking. Don't let your mind wander so that you lose focus. All of these contribute to a lack of listening and understanding.
4. Set aside your prejudices.
An essential part of listening is the discipline of setting aside one's own prejudices in order to step into the shoes of another. Learn to silence your personal thoughts and opinions in such a way that you can address the needs of other people directly.
5. Listen with your whole body.
Look directly at the speaker, lean in, and be interested. Listen and learn. Watch your body language and watch the body language of the person speaking. Use smiles, nods, and gestures to signal your engagement and connection.
6. Don't interrupt.
Resist the urge to interrupt; it frustrates the speaker and derails the point being made. Allow the speaker to finish his or her thought before jumping in to ask questions. Don't interrupt with counter arguments or to add your own ideas. When you listen, you listen; when you speak, you speak. There is a time for everything.
7. Respond.
When the speaker has finished talking and it's your turn to speak, be open, inquisitive, and honest with your response. Assert your opinions, ask the right questions, and do it all with great respect. Treat the other person as you would want to be treated.
For leaders, listening is a central competence for success. For business, listening is a competitive advantage.
At its core, listening is effectively connecting and engaging. Your ability to understand the true spirit of a message as it is intended to be communicated, and to demonstrate your understanding, is paramount in forming connections and leading effectively.
Listening is an acquired skill. It takes a lot of determination and concentration. But if done right, it will help you become a better communicator and develop stronger relationships--important elements of success in any field.
Nyatanya, mendengar memang bukan perkara mudah. Lebih enak rasanya berbicara daripada mendengar. Lebih enak mengkritik atau mengomentari daripada dikritik ataupun dikomentari. Dalam mendengar harus ada pengendalian diri. Dalam mendengar perlu ada kerendahan hati untuk diarahkan dan dibentuk.
You received an invitation to connect. LinkedIn will use your email address to make suggestions to our members in features like People You May Know. Unsubscribe
I never intended to get involved in public speaking, and then my life took a dramatic turn: I was out of a job and struggling to make ends meet as an entrepreneur.
I started looking for new ways to gain exposure and expand my network. I researched successful entrepreneurs in my industry and came to one simple conclusion: Successful people are confident public speakers.
I wasn’t comfortable speaking in front of large audiences. Keenly aware of my thick Polish accent – I moved from Poland to New York at 23 – I never believed I could be an effective speaker. But I’ve never walked away from a challenge, realizing early on that invisibility is a fate worse than failure.
Public speaking has allowed me to take my career to an entirely new level, granting access to people and places I never had before. I don’t claim to be a public speaking guru or a particularly gifted orator, but I have delivered a number of memorable keynotes, training seminars and talks around the globe.
Public speaking creates opportunities
Public speaking leads to wealth. It will help you build your network, foster relationships, get new business, get job offers and increase your social media presence.
Most people are not comfortable speaking in front of large audiences: 74 per cent of adults suffer from speech anxiety, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, and I’m certainly one of them. I get anxious every single time I get on stage or in front of the camera.
Taking a proactive approach to developing public speaking skills can boost your confidence quickly. As your speaking confidence multiplies, you will become less anxious. I’ve also read “How to Develop Self-Confidence by Public Speaking” by Dale Carnegie, which made me realize one simple truth: It’s not about you, it’s about your content.
So take a baby-step approach to developing your confidence.
Here are a couple of tips to improve your public speaking game that have worked for me when I was just getting started.
1. Know your topic inside and out. Ken Linder: “If you talk about things you know and are passionate about, that resonates with people.” He also mentions that you know more about your topic than your audience, so it’s your job to educate them.
Confident speakers develop their expertise by knowing their topic thoroughly. The work you put into research will be noticed and appreciated by your audience. Avoid picking topics that you don’t feel strongly about – it’s a sure way to ruin your self-confidence.
Confident public speakers deliver convincing arguments by absorbing as much relevant knowledge as possible. Read, study and memorize key concepts. Accumulate interesting facts, stories, quotes and examples. These will boost your confidence because you’ll have richer and more interesting content to present.
2. Prepare by practicing. No successful public speaker became famous without preparation. The best prepared themselves by speaking for hours in front of mirrors or for a few select friends. Some renowned speakers simply speak at an empty room to hone their skills.
Toastmasters International suggests practicing with a timer and allowing time for the unexpected, as unforeseen events can distract nervous speakers.
Visualize yourself delivering an inspiring speech. Rehearsing the speech in your mind creates a type of dry run which increases your confidence for the actual event.
3. Use visuals and powerful wording. Using visuals like slides, colourful images, graphs, videos and headline-heavy copy draws your audience’s attention like a magnet. It also takes away pressure and attention from your actual delivery. Draw your audience’s attention from you to your content.
Even the most dynamic speakers use imagery to keep audiences on their toes. You want to inspire, inform and entertain by delivering a high energy message. Your audience wants to use the content being presented for their benefit, so make dramatic statements to convey your message convincingly. Pepper your speech with power verbs to inspire audiences.
Using effective wording and enticing imagery requires strict planning. Spend as much time as you can sprucing up your presentation to become more confident.
4. Enter with boldness. Boldness and hesitation will elicit very different responses from your audience. Hesitation creates obstacles, boldness eliminates them.
Start your talk with boldness to appear larger and more interesting – the first impression is critical. Play a video, tell a story or a joke or make a bold statement about your material – just don’t start with a boring agenda.
Boldly entering the stage will also have the magical effect of camouflaging your inexperience and oratory deficiencies. Boldness gives you presence while the timid fade into wallpaper.
5. Learn from other public speakers. Study from the best to improve. Follow your favorite public speakers on social media and sites like SlideShare. I also watch Ted Talks to learn from the best speakers in the world.
Attend live events to learn from and emulate your favorites. Observe how they use their hands to add emphasis to key points. Note how they raise and lower their voice to keep you focused on their message. The best public speakers are masters of inspiring an audience. Study their movements and delivery style to feed off their confidence.
6. Be open to receiving feedback. Both positive and negative feedback can improve your confidence. One of the most painful experiences is watching recordings of yourself. Although I’m uncomfortable every time I view my performance, I push myself to do it and to find places I can improve.
Watch yourself on video and observe your overall delivery. What seemed to rouse the audience? Watching yourself from a third-person perspective can accelerate your growth. Negative reviews help you pinpoint areas for improvement. Even though negative feedback might sting your ego, these points of view usually boost your skills in the long run.
Being open to criticism helps you develop thick skin. Grow your confidence from both positive, inspiring feedback and negative, constructive feedback.
7. Speak less to say more. Brilliant public speakers use words economically to make an impact. Remove all unnecessary fillers. Respect your time and the time of your audience. Avoid hesitating unless you want the audience to reflect on some point.
Stick to your speech plan, refrain from adding points on the fly and speak only on your desired topic. Do not add extra examples and stay away from straying off course.
Public speaking changed my life, and I hope it will change yours.
Matthew Capala is an Internet marketer, growth consultant, entrepreneur, international speaker, trainer and author. He is the founder of SearchDecoder.com and professor at NYU, where he teaches advanced graduate course on search marketing.
TheYoung Entrepreneur Council (YEC)is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launchedStartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.
Cyber attacks, advanced persistent threats (APTs), zero-day vulnerabilities and other threats that have been made possible by the Internet and broadening connectivity put any organisation’s information at risk. Should any of these threats come to pass, the repercussions can be significant: from business disruption and reputational damage to going out of business – all scenarios are possible.
While cyber threats cannot be stopped (quite the opposite; they’ll continue to evolve), organisations can considerably reduce the likelihood of being breached by conducting penetration tests.
We spoke toGeraint Williams, head of technical services at IT Governance, to find out why penetration testing is so important to any company. Geraint is a PCI QSA and holds certifications in security and digital forensics including CISSP, CREST Registered Tester, CEH and CHFI.
What is penetration testing?
Penetration testing consists of testing an organisation’s current security posture using the same methods and techniques that actual attackers use in the wild. These tests are often scenario-based and they attempt to assess the impact of various threats. These threats range from the pestering script kiddie who follows YouTube tutorials on how to hack, all the way to advanced persistent threat (APT) groups that are not only well funded and highly skilled, but also have a very specific target.
Why is penetration testing necessary?
Penetration testing is conducted for a number of reasons. It can be done as assurance that your security controls are working or to determine your attack surface area (your exposure to hackers).
It may be necessary as part of certification or accreditation to a standard, a requirement in order to do business with clients, or a requirement of cyber insurance.
Without knowing the state of your security, how can you develop and improve? Knowledge of your attack surface area can help you develop and implement a security programme.
The necessity of penetration testing is no different from any other kind of testing. The fact that an organisation has not yet been breached, for instance, does not necessarily mean that it won’t be at some point in the future. There’s also the possibility that it has already been breached without anyone even noticing.
What’s the best way to determine how often penetration testing is necessary?
There are a multitude of factors to consider when deciding how often a penetration test should be performed. In order to answer this question accurately, an organisation needs to conduct an internal risk assessment and threat analysis to determine its risk appetite.
The testing programme should reflect the organisation’s requirements and be cost-effective. As part of the testing programme, organisations should consider performing vulnerability assessments reasonably frequently and conduct full-scale penetration testing on an annual basis.
IT Governance strongly recommends that penetration tests are conducted at least quarterly. ISO 27001, the information security standard, recommends that penetration tests and/or vulnerability assessments are conducted at various stages of the implementation cycle. It is also recommended that testing is performed after changes to your infrastructure or public-facing web applications.
What needs to be tested?
From the risk assessments, threat analyses and vulnerability management activities, an organisation should identify the systems at risk and have these tested. Because any external system will be scanned by scripting kiddies who will probe any weaknesses they find, it is far better to have a friendly tester rather than a malicious hacker find the weakness.
A common attack vector is trying to get your employees to open malicious attachments or visit malware-infected websites. Malicious software then tries to find a way back out of the network, so it is important to test your defences against the exfiltration of data as well infiltration attempts from outside. Any risk analysis should also consider the malicious insider, which is still a very common threat actor. Internal testing can ensure your assets are protected from those who do not have a business need to access them.
Generally, Internet-facing services are the most common target for attack. In order to accurately answer this question, an organisation needs to conduct an internal risk assessment and threat analysis.
Are there certain organisations or industries that should or should not do it more often?
There is probably no business that is not at risk from attack by automated scanning tools, which are operated by anyone from script kiddies to organised criminals and activists. Motivation is often financial – all data can be monetised by criminals – but other motivating factors may be in play. Activists try to score political points, for instance, while script kiddies are looking for kudos or recognition for their activities. Organisations dealing with financial and personally identifiable information are especially at risk, along with those that are reliant on the Internet for profit, such as gambling sites
The motivation for the majority of attacks is financial gain. Information such as bank details, personal records and so on are highly sought after due to their market value.
Which frameworks or standards require proof that penetration tests have been conducted?
Penetration testing is a major requirement for compliance with standards such as ISO 27001 and the PCI DSS. The UK Cyber Essentials scheme is a baseline certification that requires a different level of testing known as internal and external vulnerability scanning. The banking industry uses a higher level of accreditation such as CBEST to demonstrate security profiles.
How should you select your penetration testing provider?
Given that you will be entrusting your testing provider with access to your systems, it is important only to use providers that are accredited by a recognised certification body. In the UK, that would be CREST. A penetration testing provider should be able to provide a detailed technical report on the nature of the vulnerabilities found on the system and an executive summary.
IT Governance provides fixed-price CREST-accredited testing services that can be deployed by any organisation looking for better protection.
Many suppliers of pen testing services in the UK provide very effective technical tests but often fail to deliver a comprehensive Penetration Testing Report. The quality of the information contained in the report and its relationship to the identification of the potential threats, is crucial to ensuring your networks and…
Ask any digital marketing expert about the major trends they expect to see in 2015, and he or she will likely answer with one word: mobile.
This should come as no surprise. Mobile devices get more eyeball time than TV screens these days, according to recent research from Yahoo's Flurry. Mobile search is expected to exceed desktop search in 2015, according to eMarketer, and mobile marketing is the fastest growing digital advertising channel in the United States, saysBI Intelligence.
Mobile will be king in 2015, but it represents just one component of the equation. Here are some other predictions and tips for the New Year, from a set of search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) experts.
SEO and SEM Predictions for 2015
All About Mobile
Marketers spent 49 percent of their paid search dollars on mobile platforms during the 2014 holiday season, according to a report from Marin Software, and many marketers expect the focus on mobile to increase in 2015.
"The top search marketing trend to watch in 2015 is the continued shift to mobile," says Carmen Vetere, vice president of marketing, Gazelle. "We increasingly see more and more consumers searching for information, products and prices from mobile devices. Brands need to be prepared to monetize traffic from mobile search, which has historically been harder to do than from desktop. Site experience, content and transactional flows need to be optimized to meet the increasing flow of users from mobile devices. As consumers use mobile devices to comparison shop, we may also see Google put more of the shopping experience right on the search results page to make it even easier."
"If your Website isn't mobile-friendly, you can lose out on search marketing," according to Sherry Holub, creative director, JV Media Design. "Google now blatantly prefers mobile-friendly sites, and if you haven't considered mobile users in your search marketing plan, you're missing a huge chunk of the market."
Andrew Akesson, technical SEO strategist, Venn Digital, says Google could eventually force all sites on the first page of its search results to be mobile-friendly. Google's main concern is user experience, and it could push websites that aren't mobile-friendly to the second page of search results. This will "inevitably lower mobile organic traffic to the sites that aren't playing the game with mobile search," he says.
"For any website that doesn't currently have a responsive website, now is the time to act," according to Akesson. "Not only will it enhance your customer experience, it will likely increase on-site conversions and dwell time, as well as lower bounce rates, which can only ever have a positive impact on your business's bottom line."
Google Refines Local Search
"With the Pigeon update last year, it became clear Google would continue to improve its local search result listings," says Arham Khan, senior digital marketing executive,HighQ. Khan predicts this trend will continue. "As the number of users searching on mobile devices grows, it makes sense for Google to tailor listings according to the local area. I expect smaller businesses to capitalize on this trend by updating addresses, phone numbers and locations on their websites so that they match with off-page directory listings."
"Localization of search is poised to be a big trend for 2015, even for large brands that have previously focused on centralized search marketing campaigns," according to Kevin Souers, CTO, Revenew. "Today's consumers are performing more and more searches for local solutions with an increasing number of those searches on mobile. Search engine algorithms are continually evolving to favor local results, identifying them as more relevant to the searcher. In 2015, national brands will place more emphasis on not only localizing their search but leveraging big data insights to improve local search strategies and launch more targeted, relevant search campaigns that deliver results."
Content marketing emerged as a significant trend in the SEO community during the past few years, and it's becoming essential for marketers. In 2015, quality content will be "more important than ever," according to Samuel Oh, CEO of Smohzie Inc. and founder of Money Journal. "People have become less patient with Web spam and have learned to spot it more quickly, resulting in higher bounce rates and lower time and page sessions for many website owners." To be successful today, content needs to be thorough, as well as engaging and useful, Oh says.
Paid Content Distribution Grows
"The mantra of content as king will not diminish in 2015," says James Rice, head of digital marketing, WikiJob. "Marketers will not only be focusing on how to create great content, but how to distribute it effectively at scale. Paid content distribution, such as promoted posts on Facebook, will become a much more standard practice. As marketing budgets in this area increase, the amplification providers will offer much more detailed analytics to allow marketers to test and justify the effectiveness of their spend." Rice suggests testing paid amplification on Facebook, Outbrain, StumbleUponand Taboola, using "benchmark analysis to compare the effectiveness of each for different types of content."
Bloggers, Media Increasingly Important to Search Rankings
"Journalists will play a big role in SEO, because Google pays a lot of attention to authoritative, recognized media sites," according to Borja Obeso, CEO of Mind Ahead and an online marketing blogger. "Networking with journalists will be another important strategy for search marketing in 2015."
Structured Data Represents Significant SEO Opportunity
Structured data lets Websites display more information in Google search results than just the basics, such as links and meta descriptions. However, only 0.3 percent of Website domains actually take advantage of structured data, even though sites with structured data rank four positions higher on average in Google search results than those without structured data, according Orun Bhuiyan, marketing specialist, SEOcial. Bhuiyan's comments are based data from a recent Search Metrics report. (See Search Engine Journal's"Structured Data for Dummies" for more information.)
Search Results Get Personal
Devices will increasingly integrate "passive listening" in order to predict search queries and intent, and to deliver the most relevant results, says Justin Emig, search marketing manager, Web Talent Marketing. Emig citesAmazon's Echo and Google Now cards as two examples of passive listening technologies that will drive the delivery of more personalized search results.
"Google will also place a heightened focus on answering consumer queries directly from the search results pages," according to Emig. Websites that employ structured data markup and rich snippets, and that optimize for the kinds of questions Google Now users ask, will benefit from this trend.
Marketers Shift Dollars to 'Less-Crowded' Platforms
"The top search marketing trend to watch out for in 2015 would be marketers shifting a lot of their budget to untapped, less crowded and unconventional platforms," says Taruna Manchanda, digital marketer, Wingify Software Pvt. Ltd.Bing Ads will become a stronger player in search marketing as a result of this trend, according to Manchanda. "Even though Bing's traffic volume is low, this leads to lower competition and less costs" for digital campaigns. Marketers can purchase leads on Bing for half the price of leads on Google AdWords, Manchanda says.
Video Advertising Accelerates
Video advertising on sites such as YouTube "is still less competitive and comparatively cheaper" than other forms of online ads, but it offers a lot of potential for raising brand awareness and increasing conversion rates, according to Manchanda. For example, video viewers may experience your brand for 30 to 60 seconds, compared to a 5- to 10-second glance at search or display ads.
Ensure Your Website Design is Responsive, Mobile-Friendly
"If your budget is tight, I recommend at least having a few responsive landing pages designed specifically for your pay-per-click (PPC) traffic," says Anthony Myers, founder,Preeminent Productions. "If you're not actively running any PPC campaigns, find out what your best converting pages are. These are the pages that organic traffic is landing on and converting visitors to leads or customers. Have your three to five best pages redesigned to be responsive. And make sure to offer a great user experience for small screens. Even if you're not displaying the full content [of your desktop site], get visitors intrigued enough with your mobile site to leave their email addresses. Use a call to action like: 'We know you're on the go, so let us email you the full version to read at home later.'"
Test Your Website's Mobile-Responsiveness
You can use Google's Mobile-Friendly Test Tool to "diagnose any areas where your Web pages aren't meeting best practices for mobile," says WikiJob's Rice. "Aim to have all your pages labeled with the 'mobile-friendly' snippet, to differentiate your pages from competitors and gain an advantage in click-through rate from search. Also, be mindful of the rise of voice search, and how people will phrase queries differently on mobile and expect concise, location-based answers to their questions."
Test Your Website's Speed
Search-result rankings factor in Website load speeds, according to many digital marketing experts. After using Google's Mobile-Friendly Test Tool, HighQ's Khan recommends testing your site's mobile and desktop speeds with Google's PageSpeed Insights tool. Most of the time, the issues it discovers are easy for developers to fix, and those tweaks "can have a positive impact on mobile website and SEO performance," Khan says.
Tailor Your Online Ads to Mobile Devices
Ads designed for mobile have "less text and a richer image," according to Leo Polanowski, head of client services, Yahoo! "Put your main points and calls to action in headlines or at the front of descriptions. Use images that will emotionally resonate with consumers. Provide searchers with the easy answers they're looking for. An effective way to do this is with enhanced site link extensions. This format lets you add two lines of descriptive text in bigger, bolder type to your site links. We've seen enhanced site links boost click-through rates by 22 percent compared to traditional site links."
Take Your Time and Build Great Content
"Instead of rushing a bunch of articles out, seriously slow down and spend another hour or two on each of them," says Myers. "Do more research. Have you looked at other related niche articles out there? What's missing in those articles? Is there a gap you can fill? Give your users the best, unique content they've ever seen on your topic. Make sure it's so good and different that they can't help to share it with others. Then, get in your users' heads and think about what they might need next [after reading your article]."
Spread Your Stories Across Platforms
In 2015, storytelling across various media platforms, including social networks, blogs and video, will be more important. "It's essential to create a diversified marketing strategy and a variety of media for consumers to interact with your brand," according to Kathryn Bisson, marketing master, Technology Seed. "The brand's mission and story needs to begin on a strong website and then share that story on other media, including Google AdWords and Bing Ads, to direct people to a story about your services. Use social media to display the corporate culture, or YouTube and Vine to tell your story via video. Every piece will work together to encompass all aspects of an organization and all people to relate to the brand as a personality."
Know Your Target Audience
"Persona definition is a mandatory prerequisite to optimizing for search," says Ashley Paris, research analyst, demand creation strategies, SiriusDecisions. "As part of that exercise, pay attention to the lexicon of your buyer. What are the words they use to describe their initiatives, challenges and questions? How do those words and phrases vary by industry, geography and stage in the buying process? When those questions are answered, you can originate content and a digital footprint that's truly relevant to the type of searches your buyers are performing."
Ensure Your Website is Secure
"Google will reward sites [in its rankings] that are secure and punish those that are less secure," says Mike Ryan, director of marketing, Keeper Security. "As more sites get hacked, Google will take further action in protecting their users from cyber attacks. Google has said that security is a top priority. It even announced in August that going HTTPS [adding an SSL, 2048-bit key certificate on your site] will give you a minor rankings boost."
