Master the “Six U’s” to Perfectly Pitch an Idea

Master the "Six U's" to Perfectly Pitch an Idea

Delivering an elevator pitch or even telling your boss about an idea can be nerve-wracking. Entrepreneur James Altucher has crafted "the six U’s of persuasion" to make sure your idea gets heard.

In case you don’t know Altucher, he’s also an investor, a hedge fund manager, an author, and has participated in our How I Work series. In a post on persuading anyone about anything, he expands on the traditional "four U’s" formula to add two more:

Urgency

Why the problem you solve is URGENT to your demographic. For example: "I can never get a cab when it rains!"

Unique

Why is your solution unique: "We aggregate 100s of car services into one simple app. Nobody else does this."

Useful

Why is your solution useful to the lives of the people you plan on selling to or deliver your message to: "We get you there on time."

Ultra-Specific

This shows there is no fluff: "Our app knows where you are. Your credit card is pre-loaded. You hit a button and a car shows up in 4-5 minutes." Of course the example I give is for Uber but you can throw in any other example you want.

User-friendly

In other words, make it as easy as possible for someone to say "yes". Like a money back guarantee, for instance. Or a giveaway. Or higher equity. Or testimonials from people you both know. Etc.

Unquestionable Proof

This can be in the form of profits. Or some measurable statistic. Or testimonials. Or a good wing-man. Whatever it takes.

As Altucher writes, executing these six steps in your pitch will address most of the instinctive objections people have. He also recommends some body language tricks and other tips, so you should read his full post linked below.

How to Persuade Anyone of Anything in Ten Seconds | The Altucher Confidential

Photo by africaniscool.


via Lifehacker
Master the “Six U’s” to Perfectly Pitch an Idea

Access OS X’s Secret Terminal Hidden in the Login Screen

Access OS X's Secret Terminal Hidden in the Login Screen

If you ever need to enter console commands without logging all the way into the desktop, Macworld has an old tip that shows you how to get access to the Terminal without going through the whole login process.

All you need to do is type >console into the username field of the login screen, and you’ll get dumped into a Terminal screen. Here, you can run pretty much any commands you need without logging all the way into the desktop. You still need a login and password to do anything, but it’s a nice way to get quick access to your computer. This should work in pretty much all modern versions of OS X.

Enter console mode from login screen | Macworld via Jacob Salmela


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Access OS X’s Secret Terminal Hidden in the Login Screen

Most Popular Online Glasses Store: Warby Parker

Most Popular Online Glasses Store: Warby Parker

These days, you can have the perfect pair of glasses come to you, instead of going to the mall or eye store to deal with salespeople selling subpar frames. Last week we asked you for your favorite online retailers, then looked at the five best online glasses stores. Now we’re back to highlight the crowd favorite.

Most Popular Online Glasses Store: Warby Parker

Internet startup, fashion forward, and charity focused Warby Parker took the top spot with over 43% of the overall vote. They may not be the oldest, the cheapest, or offer the broadest selection in the bunch, but they certainly have significant mindshare and a great try-at-home service that lets you find the perfect frames for you before you spend a ton of money.

Second place went to the always affordable Zenni Optical, which offers tons of frames in a wide variety of styles (and qualities, ranging from cheap plastic you won’t feel bad about sitting on to higher-end designer materials) at consistently low prices. Zenni pulled in 27% of the overall vote. Third place went to Coastal with over 12% of the vote, thanks to its massive stock of designer frames. Fourth place went to Eye Buy Direct with close to 12% of the votes cast, and Goggles 4 U brought up the rear in fifth with 5% of the overall vote.

For more on each of these and the honorable mentions not listed here, head back to our full Hive Five feature to read more.

The Hive Five is based on reader nominations. As with most Hive Five posts, if your favorite was left out, it didn’t get the nominations required in the call for contenders post to make the top five. We understand it’s a bit of a popularity contest. Have a suggestion for the Hive Five? Send us an email at tips+hivefive@lifehacker.com!


via Lifehacker
Most Popular Online Glasses Store: Warby Parker

iTerm 2 Updates with a Toolbelt, Trigger Support, and More

iTerm 2 Updates with a Toolbelt, Trigger Support, and More

Mac: iTerm 2, our favorite terminal emulator for Mac, updated today with a ton of handy new features. These include support for triggers, a toolbelt feature, and more.

The new toolbelt gives you a place to take notes, shows your paste history, and shows all your running jobs. The new trigger features makes it so you can set it up so errors are highlighted in red, a dock icon bounces, or so that prompts are responded to automatically. Finally, there’s also a bunch of new customization options, automatic profile changes, and a bunch more other improvements.

iTerm 2 (Free)


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iTerm 2 Updates with a Toolbelt, Trigger Support, and More

Spooky underwater photos reveal Nazi submarine off the coast of Texas

Spooky underwater photos reveal Nazi submarine off the coast of Texas

Robert S. Ballard and his team of ocean explorers have taken new crystal-clear photos of a Nazi submarine in the Gulf of Mexico, right off the Texas’ shoreline: U-166 was one of the many Kriegsmarine U-boats that swam like sharks waiting for prey around the United States’ coast. Admire it in all its decrepit glory—in high resolution.

Spooky underwater photos reveal Nazi submarine off the coast of Texas

The U-166 was a type IXC U-boat built in 1940, a revision of the IX long range submarine series. The C version carried an additional 43 tons of fuel, which further extended the Kriegsmarine’s area of influence right to the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, the U-166 was the only U-boat of any class ever sunk in that coast.

While in the Gulf the U-166 destroyed four ships in the month of July 1942: the Carmen—a sailing vessel with Dominican Republic flag—the Oneida—an American steam merchant—the Gertrude—an American fishing ship—and the Robert E. Lee—an American passenger steamer that was sunk on July 30, 45 miles off the mouth of the Mississippi River. 25 people died of a total of 404 people aboard. The Robert E. Lee lies only a few miles from the U-166.

Spooky underwater photos reveal Nazi submarine off the coast of Texas

The Robert E. Lee, a passenger ship sunk by the U-166.

Right after the attack against the Robert E. Lee, the escort US Navy patrol craft PC-566 launched deep charges against the U-166, sinking her and all of her crew members, 52 sailors.

Spooky underwater photos reveal Nazi submarine off the coast of Texas

Spooky underwater photos reveal Nazi submarine off the coast of Texas

Spooky underwater photos reveal Nazi submarine off the coast of Texas

Spooky underwater photos reveal Nazi submarine off the coast of Texas

Spooky underwater photos reveal Nazi submarine off the coast of Texas

The wreck was discovered in 2001, first the Robert E. Lee at a depth of 5,000 feet (1,500 m) then the U-166, two miles away from the site, but the photos above were just captured this month.


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Spooky underwater photos reveal Nazi submarine off the coast of Texas

20 Free Dashboard UI Mockups: Graphs, Diagrams, Charts and Functional Widgets


  

Admin panels are one of the bare necessities of modern web sites. Yet, as they are only seen by very few people, designers tend to not put too much effort into them. This is perfectly understandable, while at the same time too narrowly considered. The customer who will have to work with these panels for years to come will be much more likely to stay satisfied if you provide him with a dashboard, that is both beautiful and easy to handle. Keep in mind, that getting existing customers to place the next order is much easier than the acquisition of new ones. So, let’s do something to better your customer relationship. The so-called “backend” is going to be today’s topic. We have collected 20 of the best free resources we were able to find…
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20 Free Dashboard UI Mockups: Graphs, Diagrams, Charts and Functional Widgets