What’s more, they’ve gained influence through the force of their personalities, overcoming barriers along the way.

For example, Richard Branson skipped the usual university-to-work course and launched a string of disruptive models that many wrote off as nuts. The Dalai Lama has spent decades in exile, condemned by the Chinese authorities – yet he’s a household name that celebrated his 80th birthday on stage at Glastonbury music festival alongside rock legend Patti Smith.

So just how do they do it?

The most influential leaders all share the same traits. Qualities that win people over and establish them as respected and much-loved figures in the eyes of their colleagues, collaborators and the wider world.

Want to be more influential as a person? Take a look at our list below.

What makes someone influential? Here are the top characteristics of influential people:

1. They have vision

Influential people aren’t just trying to get the job done in the short-term. They have big dreams and ideas of how the world could or should be. Everything they do is a step towards making this vision a reality.

2. They’re clear and consistent

Not only do influential people have a vision, they know how to communicate it. They make sure that their beliefs and aims are reflected in every interaction – and they take pains to avoid contradiction or hypocrisy. Not only does this demonstrate integrity, it helps make sure that their message is reiterated and absorbed, over and over again.

Read on: Jaan Tallinn on the future of business communication

3. They listen

Talk to someone about themselves and they’ll listen for hours.
— Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

Counter-intuitive as it might sound, the best way to get someone on your side is to ask questions about them and really listen to what they say. Try it, it works.

4. They keep their cool

Losing your temper is never a good look. While it’s great to be passionate, calmly outlining your argument will always make you look stronger. This impacts positively on how people perceive you and whether they listen to what you say.

5. They adapt

Influential people understand that while their message is constant, the medium is evolving. They get that you need to adopt new technologies and approaches in order to cope with a changing world and stay relevant and effective.

6. They put people at ease

Anyone can cajole others into doing what they want. While it might make you powerful in the short term, it doesn’t make you influential, it makes you a bully – and the thing about bullies is, everyone wants them to fail.

By inviting contributions from your team and making colleagues feel happy, inspired and excited, you foster a culture of trust and loyalty that drives the business forward. If anything goes wrong, your team has your back. As such, truly influential people really know how to cultivate a positive mindset.

7. They keep the conversation going

Influential people understand that to make a project a success, it needs to stay on track. They’re expert communicators that excel at cutting through the noise and communicating the most vital messages, maintaining regular contact to ensure everyone’s supported and on target.

They may use email in business communication, and keep more casual conversations to chat apps, but they definitely make sure all important communication gets the attention it needs. This is what truly makes them a leader.

Further Reading:

• Team Communication Strategies of top CEOs and leaders
• 14 Team Communication Quotes to Inspire Your Team
• How to Stay True to Who You Are – In Everything You Do

The post Top 7 Characteristics of Influential People appeared first on Fleep Blog.

Often, just taking a break and coming back to a problem fresh is enough to jumpstart your brain and get you back on track.

But what happens when it stops being just a phase? When you slip into the realm of the chronic procrastinator?

Sometimes, it takes a whole new approach to knock your timewasting on the head.

How to stop procrastinating? Here are three top strategies:

1. Build yourself an “ideas playground”

If you’re the kind of person who bounces around from idea to idea and finds it hard to focus, Marianne Cantwell’s playground approach might just be the way forward.

Instead of trying to force yourself to work down a linear list, Cantwell suggests scribbling down a few things that you really need to get done, plus ideas of projects that you really want to delve into but never seem to have time for.

First thing in the morning, she says, try picking just one thing you must do today and spend 20 minutes on it. Then, as your mind starts to wander, allow yourself to drift to something else from your “playground” and explore this for a while before returning to the task in hand.

That way, you get to feel like you’re procrastinating – but really, you’re laying useful groundwork for a project you’d never get started on otherwise.

2. Take a “three pronged” approach

If you feel you need a little more structure to your to-do list, try out Barbara Corcoran’s approach instead.

A leading business guru, Corcoran divides her lists into three parts. The first is a priority section that contains just two or three things she really must do that day, the second is a “review” section of easy tasks that can be dealt with fast, and the third is a list of tasks needed for major long-term projects, which are crucial for business growth.

This helps Corcoran to keep track of the most urgent tasks while making sure that the little things don’t slip through the net – and without losing sight of the big business goals that keep her ahead of the curve.

3. Write down every idea you have

Perhaps one of the most productive people the world has ever seen, Richard Branson is also a prolific list maker – and he has the system nailed.

Similar to Corcoran’s concept, Branson recommends keeping multiple lists – of small tasks that are satisfying to tick off, of big projects that give you a sense of achievement when you finally draw a line through them, and of big, outlandish goals that represent the things you really want to do, someday.

The difference, though, is that what most people might think of as procrastinating, Branson sees as a potential future goldmine of ideas:

Write down every single idea you have, no matter how big or small. Include personal goals in your lists, not just business.

That way, you can scribble down your daydreams as they come and know they’re not lost – you’ll revisit the idea later, when you’ve tackled the most urgent things on your list. And, whenever you need a little inspiration or motivation, you can revisit your old ideas and remind yourself what you really want to achieve.

Just don’t forget your notebook!

The post How to Stop Procrastinating appeared first on Fleep Blog.

Before you can figure out how to communicate effectively, you have to find your voice.

It means working out what kind of people you and your colleagues are and what kind of company you want to be.

… And then making sure that everything you say and do is in keeping with the personality you’ve created.

How to Stay True to Who You Are?

A lot of people get this horribly wrong. Knowing what you stand for as a person, as a company isn’t about tacking some dodgy marketing-speak onto a “Values” page on your website. It’s not about forcing your team to sit through a toe-curlingly awkward brainstorming session where they put forward wildly exaggerated, clichéd adjectives like a scene from The Office.

There are hard financial benefits to this, too. Misrepresenting yourself through your marketing materials and messaging is terrible for your customer base – but figuring out your niche can drive sales and boost your bottom line.

It’s daft to say, for example, “oh, we’re a dynamic, creative, innovative company pushing boundaries in our industry” if, in reality, you’re a conservative-minded organisation that strongly believes in sticking to traditional, tried-and-tested practices that you know you can depend on.

Customers that are looking to try out ground breaking new approaches will quickly be disappointed, while you alienate your natural market of cautious, risk-averse customers that want someone solid to rely on.

On the other hand, if you really do value “outside the box” thinking, you have to be prepared to see it through.

Do you try out new ideas that your team members bring to you? Do you find yourself saying “no” automatically when someone asks if they can adopt unusual working styles or flexible hours – or do you give these things a chance?

Claiming to be one thing when your behaviour suggests another is a sure fire way to irritate your team and foster cynicism in your business. That’s why the values you state have to be the values you genuinely believe in.

And why you have to make sure that living by these values applies to your internal company communications, as well as external messaging.

Once you’ve figured out who you are (and how to position yourself in your market), stick to it. Stay true to your vision.

If that means turning down commissions, opportunities and partnerships that jar with your vision, so be it.

It might even mean tempering expansion slightly in the early stages, so that your company doesn’t change beyond recognition – with your values becoming the first casualty of growth.

It means taking your hiring process extremely seriously, sourcing people who truly share your vision and fit with your company culture, rather than looking exclusively at their qualifications or experience.

And it means developing strong, effective communication between colleagues and nurturing close working relationships, so that your team stay on the same page and help you to reinforce your vision in everything they do.

Further Reading:

• Top 7 Characteristics of Influential People
• Team Communication Strategies of top CEOs and leaders
• 14 Team Communication Quotes to Inspire Your Team

The post How to Stay True to Who You Are – In Everything You Do appeared first on Fleep Blog.

Here are the seven main reasons why freelancers choose Fleep over Gmail…

1. You can organize conversations by client

A major frustration for freelancers is keeping on top of different projects for different clients. It can be hard to focus on one thing when updates about other projects pop up in between!

Gmail does allow users to manually organize their contacts and conversations – but not only is this time consuming, it’s prone to bugs that can undo weeks of work.

Fleep, on the other hand, is set up around a “conversation” structure that automatically pulls together all incoming messages and emails from a particular contact.

What’s more, you can use a drop-down system to give conversations an instant, specific label to help you stay organised.

2. Everything’s in one place

Freelancers have to be communication ninjas, able to tap into different clients’ systems of choice.

Fleep allows you to link up to other email addresses, Gmail-style, but you can also use webhooks to pull in selected updates from GitHub, Bitbucket, JIRA and others.

Plus, very soon you’ll be able to access files in Dropbox and Google Drive, making it even easier to keep track of shared projects and documents.

3. It’s easy to add new team members

The trouble with conventional email systems such as Gmail is that every time you brief a new addition to the team, you have to forward all the old email threads for them to trawl through.

If team members reply over the top of each other, rather than to the last email in the chain, this can wreak havoc!

Fleep turns email into a “chat” setup, so that all messages in a conversation are stored together, in order, rather than branching off in their own direction. When you add someone to the conversation, they just scroll back through to check what they’ve missed.

4. You can make calls right from the app

One of the things that makes Fleep so attractive to dispersed teams is that it lets them make phone and video calls directly through the app using its /call integration.

Even better, this can be used as a conference call system for group conversations, with members just clicking “join” to drop in when they’re ready.

5. You can find things quickly

We’ve all suffered the tearing-out-you-hair frustration of searching through hundreds of emails, trying to find the one with the right attachment. For freelancers working offsite, this can be a nightmare.

Fleep tackles this with the “file drawer” feature, which shows all the files that have been sent at any point during the conversation on a handy side tab.

6. It supercharges productivity

Time is money, and even more so when you’re a freelancer and don’t get paid for any time you waste at work!

Checking endless, unwanted emails are a major productivity killer. While email systems such as Gmail have tools to cut down spam and categorize mail, they can only go so far.

With Fleep, freelancers have their conversations organised automatically – and they can hit the “snooze” or “mute” button any that they don’t want to be sidetracked by right now.

What’s more, if project chats do start going off piste (hey, it happens), there’s a “pinbar” next to each thread to highlight just most essential updates, tasks and notes.

7. It does all the things Gmail does – and more

Fleep offers full Gmail integration, so you can pick up your messages and reply from inside the Fleep app, either with your Gmail address or with your Fleep ID.

This means that freelancers using Gmail don’t have to make the full switch until they’re totally confident they can do all the things Gmail does inside the Fleep system – and have tapped into the amazing features that Gmail doesn’t offer!

Got a question about a specific feature, or want to make sure that Fleep has the right tools for you?

Take a look at our features page or get in touch with us directly – we’d love to hear from you!

The post 7 Reasons Freelancers Choose Fleep Over Gmail appeared first on Fleep Blog.

As freelancers, you never truly clock off from work – and anything that can make your life and projects run more smoothly and effectively is virtually gold dust. Here’s our pick of the three most exciting gadgets for freelancers, which promise to do just that.

The All-Rounder: The LG G4

When you’re a one man band, you have to be very good at playing all the parts.

For a freelancer, that typically involves running every part of your business on the move, from your phone, and making use of the best mobile tools to streamline operations.

And, of course, when your smartphone is the main channel for all these overlapping workflows, picking the right one for you is essential. While iPhones and Samsung Galaxies remain popular choices, the very best smartphone of 2015 for freelancers might just be the LG G4.

With its huge, seriously high definition screen and intuitive keyboard, it’s great for writing notes, emails, messages and updates, checking proofs, editing images and generally getting your work done remotely.

It comes with Google Office pre-loaded and 100GB of Google Drive storage space that’s free for two years, helping you to tap into key cloud services for team collaborating and project management.

It’s fast and responsive, thanks to a top-of-the-range processor and a shortcut for waking it up when locked, and comes with expandable (on top of its 32GB internal) storage, fingerprint security and wireless charging.

Plus, it looks great, has a built-in 4K camera and clever image stablisation tools for high quality, gorgeous photos, and offers a “Smart Tips” feature to help you to stay productive while clearing out the junk you never use – keeping your phone (and you) a slick, lean, high-performing machine.

The Practical Lifesaver: LinearFlux Lithiumcard Pro

Having your phone, tablet or other devices die on you when you’re out and about can be a disaster, especially when you’re working remotely or need to be reachable from wherever you are.

Luckily, a wave of great new portable chargers is helping to knock the problem on the head once and for all, and the LinearFlux LithiumCard Pro is one of the lightest, trimmest, sleekest variations on the theme.

Roughly the size of a credit card, the LithiumCard nonetheless has the capacity to fully recharge your smartphone (at a rate of around 1% per minute) and can even be used to back up your data.

Store it in your bag or even your wallet to ward off any project-wrecking, communication-breakdown crises while you’re out and about… just don’t forget to charge it first!

The Fun One: GoPro Hero4 Black

Everyone loves a GoPro. They’re cool, they’re sexy and they have a way of making even your most mundane stunts feel worthy of Tony Hawks.

And, of course, they take tremendous shots.

When you’re freelancing, particularly in fields like media, technology and design, self-promotion is key, but creating a steady stream of great, gripping content for your website and social media channels is a constant challenge.

Even more so when you have to be able to create it quickly, on a tiny budget – and on your own.

As the ultimate self-shooting device, with a bit of thought a GoPro can help you take stunning, creative and engaging videos and images, in a short time frame and often with very little video production expertise.

Plus, it can cope with just about any terrain or treatment, is wifi enabled for quick upload or transfer, and is so much fun that you won’t want to put it down. So no more excuses for sub-standard content!

The post The Fleep Top 3: Our Pick of the Hottest New Gadgets for Freelancers appeared first on Fleep Blog.