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If everything at work feels urgent, it’s not necessarily that your workload is out of control. It could be that you haven’t yet developed a system to decide what’s a priority and what can wait. Without a procedure to list all your tasks, decide what actually matters, and block off time for meaningful work, every The post Everything feels urgent because your system is broken (Here’s how to prioritize work that actually matters) appeared first on RescueTime Blog. View the full article

You are going to want to turn up the volume on your television sets. It’s time for the 68th Grammy Awards, which take place on Sunday, February 1. The movers, shakers, and singers of the Recording Academy are primed to put on one heck of a concert at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. Let’s take a look at the host, nominations, and upcoming changes before we dive into how to tune in and jam. Who is hosting the 2026 Grammy Awards? Trevor Noah is back for his sixth consecutive year as the master of ceremonies. This is going to be his last hurrah, though. In fact, he almost didn’t do the honors this year. Executive producer Ben Winston told the Los Angeles Times that he had to creatively implore Noah to do one more show. “I went back and begged—like, literally sent him a video where I was on my knees,” Winston recalled. The theatrics worked. Noah will be backed up by an impressive group of presenters, such as Carole King, Chappell Roan, Charli XCX, Doechii, Harry Styles, Jeff Goldblum, Karol G, Lainey Wilson, Marcello Hernández, Nikki Glaser, Q-Tip, Queen Latifah, and Teyana Taylor. We’re told there will also be a surprise or two. Who is nominated for a 2026 Grammy Award? While there are 95 different categories in the Grammy Awards, don’t fret. Only about 10 of them will be televised. Leading the pack with the most nominations is Kendrick Lamar. Among his nine nods are album of the year for GNX and song of the year for “Luther,” a duet with SZA. Coming in second are Lady Gaga, Cirkut, and Jack Antonoff, with seven nominations each. Leon Thomas, Serban Ghenea, Sabrina Carpenter, and Bad Bunny all got six nods. Who is performing at the 2026 Grammy Awards? The Grammys are all about the live performances. Following last year’s precedent, all eight nominees for best new artist will sing their hearts out for the telecast. Thomas, Addison Rae, Alex Warren, Katseye, Lola Young, Olivia Dean, Sombr, and the Marías are scheduled to sing. These new kids on the block are not the only ones who’ll be having fun. Veteran performers such as Carpenter, Gaga, Clipse, and Pharrell Williams will also give it their all. And Beliebers can rejoice as Justin Bieber takes the Grammy stage after a four-year hiatus. Reba McEntire, Lauryn Hill, and Post Malone will help the audience remember those we lost this year during the “In Memoriam” segment. Tributes will be paid to Roberta Flack, Ozzy Osbourne, D’Angelo, and more. What’s notable at the Grammys this year? In addition to this being Noah’s last telecast, 2026 will be the final year that the Grammy Awards are broadcast on CBS. Beginning in 2027, ABC will have the honors. According to The Wall Street Journal, this 10-year deal cost the Walt Disney Co., ABC’s parent company, more than $500 million. And 2026 marks the first time that one of the top country music categories has been expanded. There are now two album categories: traditional country album and contemporary country album. So technically, 2025’s best country album (and best overall album) winner, Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, would now fall into the latter category if it had dropped a year later. It’s also interesting to note that Morgan Wallen opted not to submit his latest album, I’m the Problem, for consideration. Wallen has not publicly addressed his decision-making process. An album cover category was added this year as well, giving visual artists some much-deserved recognition. The Recording Academy made efforts to expand its voting bloc leading up to the music industry’s big night. According to the Los Angeles Times, 3,800 new members joined the ranks in November. This diverse group included 58% people of color and 35% who identify as women. Many of these members were invited to join because they were part of the Latin Recording Academy. How can I watch or stream the Grammy Awards? To cheer on your favorite artist, all you have to do is tune into CBS at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT). If you have a traditional cable subscription or an over-the-air (OTA) antenna with reception, you are covered. Watching with an OTA antenna is free. If streaming is more your style, Paramount+ is the answer. You will need the Showtime add-on to watch in real time. Those with the Paramount+ Essential subscription can catch the action the next day. If Paramount+ is not in your streaming arsenal, utilize a live-TV streaming service such as Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV, or Fubo. Be sure to double-check regional differences before committing to a new service, as CBS coverage will vary. View the full article

A new dating app called Known, which went live earlier today in San Francisco, wants to offer users a dating experience that is far less gamified—and far more enabled by artificial intelligence. The app, which uses voice-based conversations with an AI to match people to prospective romantic partners, is the latest evidence that the next generation of dating apps isn’t looking to maximize matches. In other words, there’s no swiping. Known, founded by former Stanford University students Celeste Amadon and Asher Allen, uses an AI-based chat interface that interviews prospective daters and gauges their interests and values. Then, the app uses a model—which the company says was designed in-house and based on compatibility and chemistry research—to pair them with one person (and only one person) for a potential date. Known also takes care of personalized introductions and assists with restaurant bookings. “We’re able to view people on their entire nuanced selves and find people that are most likely to get along and enjoy each other. And that doesn’t have to come from strict principles,” Amadon tells Fast Company. “There are standard things that we need to know to be able to do good matching, like your age, or ‘Do you live in San Francisco or New York?’ But from there, a lot of it is kind of user-guided.” She adds: “The real core difference between us and a large dating app is that we are incentivized and built to try and get people on dates. Other dating apps are incentivized to try and lengthen their retention because they’re subscription-based businesses.” Known’s model, Amadon says, charges people to actually set up a date with their matches, as opposed to subscription tiers of an app like Tinder, where users might pay extra to access certain features and the ability to send an unlimited number of “likes” to other people. (Of course, all dating apps need to focus, in part, on identifying new customers, since some share of their users will, eventually, find love and no longer need a dating app.) The app’s release comes as both newcomer and veteran dating platforms embrace artificial intelligence-based features. Justin McLeod, the founder of Hinge, is planning to launch Overtone, which was initially built from a small team at Hinge, and he says it aims to “combine cutting-edge AI capabilities with deep respect for the messy, human journey of connection.” There’s also the relatively new Rizz app, an AI dating assistant that was designed to coach people through awkward digital small talk. Last fall, another platform, called Three Day Rule, introduced Tai, an AI matchmaker that’s supposed to be trained on compatibility data coalesced by human matchmakers. The big companies are also leaning into artificial intelligence-based features. The Match Group—which owns Tinder, OkCupid, and Hinge—has a whole page dedicated to its principles for using the technology. The company says that when it comes to AI, it prioritizes “explainability” and “authenticity” among its core values to foster trust, safety, and meaningful connections. Match’s hiring page shows that it’s looking to fill plenty of machine-learning roles, too. Last December, Hinge released a new AI feature that’s supposed to help move conversations forward by using generative AI to guide people in crafting their initial messages to others. Tinder has also said it’s using AI-powered matching, which factors in data that can include your app activity, your answers to questions, and the way you’ve tagged photos on the app. Even Facebook Dating is offering AI-powered advice for users. The idea is to aim for quality (rather than quantity) of matches, especially as interest in (and the appeal to pay for) swiping through profiles falls. Bumble has lost 9% of subscribers in the past year, The New York Times reported in November, and the Match Group has lost 5%. The rise of the AI dating interview A smaller number of these companies, including Known, are embracing voice-powered AI, too. Tinder partnered with OpenAI last year to offer a voice-based game meant to evaluate people’s flirting skills. Hinge added audio features and voice notes back in 2021, and the lesser-known Switch dating app encourages users to connect first through audio conversations. At least in Known’s case, people communicate with the app by talking to it. For instance, the app might ask you where you grew up and how you ended up in your current city, and users might end up sharing details about childhood experiences. From there, the system is supposed to pick up preferences that a prospective dater might have, based on what’s said in the conversation, as well as factors like tone and intonation. That information is later fed into the company’s matching model. (Known says that recordings of the calls themselves are not saved.) The app doesn’t currently pick up on the way people’s voices sound, but the company says it’s interested in exploring and analyzing the complexity of people’s speech in the future. It’s still early days for Known, but the model has some traction. Seven thousand people participated in a beta testing round last year, and Amadon says that she and cofounder Allen have heard from several couples that connected and are still together. The company recently raised nearly $10 million, with support from the venture capital firm Forerunner. “After the dates, we actually debrief with users to find out how it went—which means that we’re able to understand more about who you’re looking for and get better at finding that person over time,” emphasizes Amadon. View the full article

Upselling is a strategic sales approach aimed at encouraging customers to choose higher-priced options or additional features, which can greatly boost your revenue. By grasping various effective techniques, such as premium product integrations and personalized recommendations, you can improve your sales efforts. Nonetheless, it’s essential to identify the right moments for upselling and avoid common pitfalls. Are you ready to explore how to implement these strategies effectively and raise your sales game? Key Takeaways Upselling is the practice of encouraging customers to purchase higher-priced or upgraded products, increasing average order value and revenue. Implement time-limited offers and premium upgrades to create urgency and showcase added benefits, boosting sales effectively. Personalize upsell recommendations based on customer data and preferences to enhance customer satisfaction and drive conversions. Train your sales team on effective communication and product knowledge to confidently suggest relevant upsell options to customers. Build strong customer relationships through trust and genuine value to foster loyalty and encourage repeat business. Understanding Upselling and Its Importance Though many people associate sales techniques with aggressive tactics, upselling is a more strategic approach that can greatly benefit both businesses and customers. So, what does upsell mean? Fundamentally, it’s the practice of encouraging customers to purchase higher-priced products or services, which can lead to an increase in average order value (AOV) and overall revenue. Comprehending the difference between upsale or upsell is vital; upselling focuses on presenting higher-end options, whereas cross-selling suggests complementary products. What does it mean to upsell, you may wonder? It means enhancing customer satisfaction by providing options that better meet their needs, which in addition builds trust and loyalty. Generating revenue through upselling is often more cost-effective than acquiring new customers. Successful upselling can greatly boost profits; for instance, just two upsells could generate an additional $93,000 in annual revenue for your business. Effective Upselling Techniques To effectively upsell, consider integrating premium product upgrades that showcase added benefits, which can encourage customers to opt for higher-priced options. Implementing time-limited offers creates urgency, prompting quicker purchasing decisions, whereas personalization and customization elevate the perceived value of products. Premium Product Upgrades When considering premium product upgrades, it’s essential to recognize how these options can greatly improve your sales strategy. Offering higher-end products with improved features helps increase your average order value by appealing to customers’ preferences for quality. Utilizing side-by-side comparisons allows them to evaluate the benefits of upgrading, such as better durability and additional functionalities. You can likewise leverage pricing psychology by displaying tiered options, making the premium product more appealing and justifying the price difference. Highlighting additional benefits, like longer warranties or exclusive features, boosts user experience and can lead to significant revenue increases. Some businesses report generating upwards of $93,000 annually from just two successful premium upsells, showcasing the potential impact on your bottom line. Time-Limited Offers Time-limited offers act as a strong upselling technique by creating a sense of urgency that compels customers to make quicker purchasing decisions. By emphasizing limited availability or exclusive deals, you can greatly increase conversion rates. Here are some effective strategies: Use phrases like “limited stock” or “offer expires soon” to improve perceived value. Implement countdown timers on your website or emails to visually reinforce urgency. Place time-limited offers strategically during the checkout process to maximize visibility. Highlight potential savings to trigger fear of missing out on benefits. Research shows that adding a time constraint can boost sales by 20-30%, encouraging customers to act quickly on upsell opportunities. Personalization and Customization Personalization and customization are potent techniques that can greatly improve your upselling efforts by aligning product offerings with customer preferences. By tailoring product recommendations based on individual preferences and past purchases, you can amplify engagement and boost conversion rates considerably. Utilizing data analytics allows you to track these interactions, leading to relevant upsell suggestions that resonate with each customer’s unique needs. Customization options, like color choices or feature add-ons, not only increase perceived value but likewise improve customer satisfaction and loyalty. This approach can lead to higher average order values and even a 20% increase in sales. In the end, personalized experiences cultivate long-term relationships and encourage repeat purchases, making personalization and customization crucial strategies for effective upselling. Best Practices for Training Your Sales Team To effectively train your sales team, focus on developing their communication techniques and product knowledge. Providing regular sessions on how to articulate the value of upsell offers will help them connect with customers and meet their needs. Furthermore, equipping your team with in-depth knowledge about your products guarantees they can confidently suggest relevant upsells that improve the customer experience. Effective Communication Techniques Effective communication techniques are essential for training your sales team to excel in upselling, as they directly influence how well your representatives engage with customers. To improve your team’s effectiveness, consider these best practices: Active Listening: Encourage team members to listen carefully to customers’ needs and preferences, tailoring their recommendations accordingly. Role-Playing Exercises: Use simulations to build confidence and skills in upselling scenarios, allowing for constructive feedback. Clear Product Explanations: Focus training on articulating the specific benefits and value of upselling clearly and concisely. Utilize Analytics: Train teams to leverage customer data to identify upselling opportunities and understand behavior patterns. Implementing these techniques can greatly enhance your sales team’s communication and upselling success. Product Knowledge Development Product knowledge development is crucial for training an effective sales team, as it directly impacts their ability to upsell successfully. Thorough training equips you with the skills to communicate features and benefits of higher-end products, boosting your confidence in making upsell recommendations. To improve your effectiveness, engage in real-life scenarios and role-playing during training sessions, which can help you identify customer needs and tailor your strategies. Regularly updating you on product changes guarantees you highlight the latest upselling opportunities. Implementing quizzes can reinforce learning and identify areas needing improvement. Finally, ongoing education through workshops and webinars nurtures a culture of continuous learning, enabling you to remain adept at upselling techniques and improving overall sales performance. Identifying Opportunities for Upselling How can you effectively identify opportunities for upselling within your customer base? By utilizing various strategies, you can pinpoint moments that are ripe for upselling. Here are four key methods to contemplate: Analyze Customer Data: Look at purchase history and browsing behavior to find trends, especially when customers approach usage limits or seek upgrades. Engage Customers: Use surveys or feedback forms to uncover unmet needs and preferences, guiding your upselling proposals more effectively. Monitor Market Trends: Keep an eye on competitor offerings to identify gaps in your product range, allowing you to better align your upsell options with customer demands. Utilize CRM Tools: Implement customer relationship management systems to streamline the collection of data on preferences and behaviors, making it easier for your sales team to spot upselling opportunities. Common Mistakes to Avoid in Upselling Though upselling can boost revenue and improve customer satisfaction, numerous pitfalls can undermine these goals. One major mistake is offering irrelevant products that don’t align with what the customer is already purchasing, which can lead to frustration and distrust. Moreover, being overly aggressive with high-pressure sales tactics can alienate customers, making them uncomfortable and less likely to buy anything at all. Neglecting to understand customer needs can likewise result in missed opportunities; effective upselling should provide genuine value. It’s important to pay attention to price sensitivity, as suggesting upsells that are excessively priced compared to the original item may deter customers. Ideally, you should cap upsell prices at about 25% higher than the initial purchase. Finally, lack of personalization can diminish effectiveness; tailoring recommendations to individual customer preferences is vital for driving conversions and ensuring a positive experience. The Role of Customer Relationships in Upselling Building strong customer relationships is essential for effective upselling, as trust plays a pivotal role in influencing purchasing decisions. When customers trust your brand, they’re more likely to contemplate upsell suggestions. Here are key ways to strengthen these relationships: Personalize Interactions: Use past purchase data and feedback to tailor your communication, making customers feel valued. Engage Through Communication: Regularly check in and understand customer needs, which helps you identify relevant upsell opportunities. Provide Genuine Value: Make certain that upsell suggestions improve the customer’s experience, making them feel the purchase is worthwhile. Leverage Referrals: A positive relationship encourages customers to refer others, creating new opportunities with potential customers who already trust your brand. Frequently Asked Questions What Is the 3-3-3 Rule in Sales? The 3-3-3 Rule in sales emphasizes connecting with prospects through three interactions. You should focus on three key benefits of your product or service and address three common objections. This structured approach helps you build rapport and trust during ensuring you meet customer needs effectively. What Is the Best Way to Upsell? The best way to upsell is by offering premium options that match your customer’s interests. Timing matters—introduce these offers during checkout or right after they’ve committed to a purchase. Use data analytics to target customers likely to respond positively based on past behavior. Clearly communicate the value of the upgrade, ensuring they understand its benefits. Finally, implement easy options like one-click purchases to create urgency and encourage acceptance of the upsell. What Are the 4 C’s in Sales? The 4 C’s in sales are Customer, Cost, Convenience, and Communication. When you focus on the Customer, you prioritize their needs to cultivate loyalty. The Cost emphasizes delivering value, ensuring your offerings align with their budget. Convenience means making the purchasing process easy and accessible, removing any barriers. Finally, effective Communication is essential; it helps you convey your product’s benefits, address concerns, and build trust throughout the sales process. What Are the 5 P’s of Successful Selling? The 5 P’s of successful selling are Product, Price, Place, Promotion, and People. You need to guarantee your product meets customer needs and has appealing features. Set a competitive price that reflects its value, as you consider customer expectations. Choose the right place for distribution, making your product easily accessible. Implement effective promotion strategies to raise awareness, utilizing channels like social media. Finally, focus on the people involved, as relationships are key to sales success. Conclusion In summary, upselling is a valuable strategy for increasing sales and enhancing customer satisfaction. By employing effective techniques, training your sales team, and nurturing strong customer relationships, you can identify opportunities that benefit both parties. Avoid common pitfalls to guarantee your upselling efforts resonate with customers. Ultimately, when done correctly, upselling not just boosts revenue but additionally enriches the overall shopping experience, leading to repeat business and long-term loyalty. Image via Google Gemini This article, "What Does Upselling Mean and How to Boost Sales?" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Upselling is a strategic sales approach aimed at encouraging customers to choose higher-priced options or additional features, which can greatly boost your revenue. By grasping various effective techniques, such as premium product integrations and personalized recommendations, you can improve your sales efforts. Nonetheless, it’s essential to identify the right moments for upselling and avoid common pitfalls. Are you ready to explore how to implement these strategies effectively and raise your sales game? Key Takeaways Upselling is the practice of encouraging customers to purchase higher-priced or upgraded products, increasing average order value and revenue. Implement time-limited offers and premium upgrades to create urgency and showcase added benefits, boosting sales effectively. Personalize upsell recommendations based on customer data and preferences to enhance customer satisfaction and drive conversions. Train your sales team on effective communication and product knowledge to confidently suggest relevant upsell options to customers. Build strong customer relationships through trust and genuine value to foster loyalty and encourage repeat business. Understanding Upselling and Its Importance Though many people associate sales techniques with aggressive tactics, upselling is a more strategic approach that can greatly benefit both businesses and customers. So, what does upsell mean? Fundamentally, it’s the practice of encouraging customers to purchase higher-priced products or services, which can lead to an increase in average order value (AOV) and overall revenue. Comprehending the difference between upsale or upsell is vital; upselling focuses on presenting higher-end options, whereas cross-selling suggests complementary products. What does it mean to upsell, you may wonder? It means enhancing customer satisfaction by providing options that better meet their needs, which in addition builds trust and loyalty. Generating revenue through upselling is often more cost-effective than acquiring new customers. Successful upselling can greatly boost profits; for instance, just two upsells could generate an additional $93,000 in annual revenue for your business. Effective Upselling Techniques To effectively upsell, consider integrating premium product upgrades that showcase added benefits, which can encourage customers to opt for higher-priced options. Implementing time-limited offers creates urgency, prompting quicker purchasing decisions, whereas personalization and customization elevate the perceived value of products. Premium Product Upgrades When considering premium product upgrades, it’s essential to recognize how these options can greatly improve your sales strategy. Offering higher-end products with improved features helps increase your average order value by appealing to customers’ preferences for quality. Utilizing side-by-side comparisons allows them to evaluate the benefits of upgrading, such as better durability and additional functionalities. You can likewise leverage pricing psychology by displaying tiered options, making the premium product more appealing and justifying the price difference. Highlighting additional benefits, like longer warranties or exclusive features, boosts user experience and can lead to significant revenue increases. Some businesses report generating upwards of $93,000 annually from just two successful premium upsells, showcasing the potential impact on your bottom line. Time-Limited Offers Time-limited offers act as a strong upselling technique by creating a sense of urgency that compels customers to make quicker purchasing decisions. By emphasizing limited availability or exclusive deals, you can greatly increase conversion rates. Here are some effective strategies: Use phrases like “limited stock” or “offer expires soon” to improve perceived value. Implement countdown timers on your website or emails to visually reinforce urgency. Place time-limited offers strategically during the checkout process to maximize visibility. Highlight potential savings to trigger fear of missing out on benefits. Research shows that adding a time constraint can boost sales by 20-30%, encouraging customers to act quickly on upsell opportunities. Personalization and Customization Personalization and customization are potent techniques that can greatly improve your upselling efforts by aligning product offerings with customer preferences. By tailoring product recommendations based on individual preferences and past purchases, you can amplify engagement and boost conversion rates considerably. Utilizing data analytics allows you to track these interactions, leading to relevant upsell suggestions that resonate with each customer’s unique needs. Customization options, like color choices or feature add-ons, not only increase perceived value but likewise improve customer satisfaction and loyalty. This approach can lead to higher average order values and even a 20% increase in sales. In the end, personalized experiences cultivate long-term relationships and encourage repeat purchases, making personalization and customization crucial strategies for effective upselling. Best Practices for Training Your Sales Team To effectively train your sales team, focus on developing their communication techniques and product knowledge. Providing regular sessions on how to articulate the value of upsell offers will help them connect with customers and meet their needs. Furthermore, equipping your team with in-depth knowledge about your products guarantees they can confidently suggest relevant upsells that improve the customer experience. Effective Communication Techniques Effective communication techniques are essential for training your sales team to excel in upselling, as they directly influence how well your representatives engage with customers. To improve your team’s effectiveness, consider these best practices: Active Listening: Encourage team members to listen carefully to customers’ needs and preferences, tailoring their recommendations accordingly. Role-Playing Exercises: Use simulations to build confidence and skills in upselling scenarios, allowing for constructive feedback. Clear Product Explanations: Focus training on articulating the specific benefits and value of upselling clearly and concisely. Utilize Analytics: Train teams to leverage customer data to identify upselling opportunities and understand behavior patterns. Implementing these techniques can greatly enhance your sales team’s communication and upselling success. Product Knowledge Development Product knowledge development is crucial for training an effective sales team, as it directly impacts their ability to upsell successfully. Thorough training equips you with the skills to communicate features and benefits of higher-end products, boosting your confidence in making upsell recommendations. To improve your effectiveness, engage in real-life scenarios and role-playing during training sessions, which can help you identify customer needs and tailor your strategies. Regularly updating you on product changes guarantees you highlight the latest upselling opportunities. Implementing quizzes can reinforce learning and identify areas needing improvement. Finally, ongoing education through workshops and webinars nurtures a culture of continuous learning, enabling you to remain adept at upselling techniques and improving overall sales performance. Identifying Opportunities for Upselling How can you effectively identify opportunities for upselling within your customer base? By utilizing various strategies, you can pinpoint moments that are ripe for upselling. Here are four key methods to contemplate: Analyze Customer Data: Look at purchase history and browsing behavior to find trends, especially when customers approach usage limits or seek upgrades. Engage Customers: Use surveys or feedback forms to uncover unmet needs and preferences, guiding your upselling proposals more effectively. Monitor Market Trends: Keep an eye on competitor offerings to identify gaps in your product range, allowing you to better align your upsell options with customer demands. Utilize CRM Tools: Implement customer relationship management systems to streamline the collection of data on preferences and behaviors, making it easier for your sales team to spot upselling opportunities. Common Mistakes to Avoid in Upselling Though upselling can boost revenue and improve customer satisfaction, numerous pitfalls can undermine these goals. One major mistake is offering irrelevant products that don’t align with what the customer is already purchasing, which can lead to frustration and distrust. Moreover, being overly aggressive with high-pressure sales tactics can alienate customers, making them uncomfortable and less likely to buy anything at all. Neglecting to understand customer needs can likewise result in missed opportunities; effective upselling should provide genuine value. It’s important to pay attention to price sensitivity, as suggesting upsells that are excessively priced compared to the original item may deter customers. Ideally, you should cap upsell prices at about 25% higher than the initial purchase. Finally, lack of personalization can diminish effectiveness; tailoring recommendations to individual customer preferences is vital for driving conversions and ensuring a positive experience. The Role of Customer Relationships in Upselling Building strong customer relationships is essential for effective upselling, as trust plays a pivotal role in influencing purchasing decisions. When customers trust your brand, they’re more likely to contemplate upsell suggestions. Here are key ways to strengthen these relationships: Personalize Interactions: Use past purchase data and feedback to tailor your communication, making customers feel valued. Engage Through Communication: Regularly check in and understand customer needs, which helps you identify relevant upsell opportunities. Provide Genuine Value: Make certain that upsell suggestions improve the customer’s experience, making them feel the purchase is worthwhile. Leverage Referrals: A positive relationship encourages customers to refer others, creating new opportunities with potential customers who already trust your brand. Frequently Asked Questions What Is the 3-3-3 Rule in Sales? The 3-3-3 Rule in sales emphasizes connecting with prospects through three interactions. You should focus on three key benefits of your product or service and address three common objections. This structured approach helps you build rapport and trust during ensuring you meet customer needs effectively. What Is the Best Way to Upsell? The best way to upsell is by offering premium options that match your customer’s interests. Timing matters—introduce these offers during checkout or right after they’ve committed to a purchase. Use data analytics to target customers likely to respond positively based on past behavior. Clearly communicate the value of the upgrade, ensuring they understand its benefits. Finally, implement easy options like one-click purchases to create urgency and encourage acceptance of the upsell. What Are the 4 C’s in Sales? The 4 C’s in sales are Customer, Cost, Convenience, and Communication. When you focus on the Customer, you prioritize their needs to cultivate loyalty. The Cost emphasizes delivering value, ensuring your offerings align with their budget. Convenience means making the purchasing process easy and accessible, removing any barriers. Finally, effective Communication is essential; it helps you convey your product’s benefits, address concerns, and build trust throughout the sales process. What Are the 5 P’s of Successful Selling? The 5 P’s of successful selling are Product, Price, Place, Promotion, and People. You need to guarantee your product meets customer needs and has appealing features. Set a competitive price that reflects its value, as you consider customer expectations. Choose the right place for distribution, making your product easily accessible. Implement effective promotion strategies to raise awareness, utilizing channels like social media. Finally, focus on the people involved, as relationships are key to sales success. Conclusion In summary, upselling is a valuable strategy for increasing sales and enhancing customer satisfaction. By employing effective techniques, training your sales team, and nurturing strong customer relationships, you can identify opportunities that benefit both parties. Avoid common pitfalls to guarantee your upselling efforts resonate with customers. Ultimately, when done correctly, upselling not just boosts revenue but additionally enriches the overall shopping experience, leading to repeat business and long-term loyalty. Image via Google Gemini This article, "What Does Upselling Mean and How to Boost Sales?" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

The The President administration’s partial retreat will not mend the damage to trust and livesView the full article

The technology hasn’t yet hit employment notably, and could create more openingsView the full article

Ukraine finds equipment in Russian attack drones that allows them to access US satellite systemView the full article

The world’s biggest tech companies are facing a legal showdown that could fundamentally change the way that social media is designed. The trial is taking place in the Los Angeles County Superior Court, where jury selection started on January 27. It’s testing out a new legal theory intended to spur greater regulation of social media platforms like TikTok, Snap, YouTube, and Meta’s Facebook and Instagram: Lawyers are gearing up to argue that the companies behind these platforms are designing their sites to be deliberately addictive, resulting in direct personal injury to users, especially children. Overall, the trial is expected to consist of nine cases, which have been compiled by judges across the nation as some of the strongest bellwethers for this new argument. First on the docket is a case brought by a 20-year-old plaintiff identified as K.G.M., who says that a lack of sufficient guardrails on social media sites during her youth led to compulsive use and mental health concerns such as depression, anxiety, body dysmorphia, self-harm, and risk of suicide. The defendants named in K.G.M.’s initial suit were Bytedance, the former majority owner of TikTok; Snap, which owns Snapchat; Google, the owner of YouTube; and Meta. However, both Snap and TikTok settled the suit in the days leading up to jury selection for undisclosed sums, leaving just Meta and Google. The results of these initial decisions are expected to serve as a testing ground for a second set of federal cases, scheduled for trial this summer, wherein several school districts, states, and attorneys general plan to argue that social media is a public nuisance and addictive to children. At the crux of all of these suits lies a design-based claim: These tech companies are using intentionally engineered tricks to foster addictive behaviors among young users. Court documents point out several specific user experience (UX) choices as evidence of this pattern. Here are a few of the key examples in question. Endless scroll “Endless (or infinite) scroll” is a chief concern across almost all of the cases that have been filed. It refers to any feature that allows users to continuously scroll through video content without disruptions. One court document, filed by the Florida attorney general’s office against Meta, claims that infinite scroll “makes it difficult for young users to disengage [from the content] because there is no natural end point for the display of new information.” In a court filing before Bytedance’s settlement, K.G.M. testified that TikTok’s endless scroll feature disrupted her sleep and caused her to become addicted to the app. According to confidential internal messages obtained by NPR back in October, TikTok is aware of the addictive nature of its central endless scroll “Explore” page, and even calculated the number of videos required to become hooked to the app to be 260. Ephemeral content Another pattern of social media design that’s frequently cited in these legal documents is “ephemeral content.” This refers to any kind of post that can only be viewed under certain time parameters, like a once-viewable snap on Snapchat or an 24-hour Instagram story. The Florida attorney general’s office specifically called out Meta’s visual design cues on Instagram Stories indicating that “the content would soon disappear forever,” noting that this tactic made young users feel more compelled to keep clicking on new content to avoid potential social consequences. “Meta designed such ephemeral content features to induce a sense of ‘FOMO’ in young users, that is, a ‘fear of missing out,’ which would drive teen engagement,” the filing reads. Algorithmic recommendations One of the most concerning details in K.G.M.’s testimony regards the algorithmic recommendations that she’s encountered on social media, which she says have repeatedly directed her to content with disturbing or damaging themes. “I have gotten a lot of content promoting that kind of stuff—just like body checking, posts [of] what I eat in a day—just a cucumber—making people feel bad if they don’t eat like that,” she said in her deposition. Per the Florida attorney general’s filing, Meta’s algorithms direct users to concerning content like this by design. Its platforms, the document reads, “periodically [present] users with ‘emotionally gripping content to provoke intense reactions’ (e.g., relating to eating disorders, self-harm, suicide, violence, body-image issues, and more), a result of what Meta purportedly refers to as the algorithms’ ‘preference amplification.’ Despite Meta’s representations to the contrary, this design results in harm to young users.” For their part, K.G.M.’s lawyers are grounding their arguments in past precedents established by cases ruling that products with purposefully addictive designs should be off-limits to kids. “Borrowing heavily from the behavioral and neurobiological techniques used by slot machines and exploited by the cigarette industry, [d]efendants deliberately embedded in their products an array of design features aimed at maximizing youth engagement to drive advertising revenue,” the lawsuit alleges. It adds: “Like the cigarette industry a generation earlier, [d]efendants understand that a child user today becomes an adult user tomorrow.” View the full article

Recently, I have developed a conflicted relationship with Lego. I love it. There’s so much Lego in our apartment that you can remove the brick and mortar, and I would still have a standing home. But lately, I’m getting fed up with how hard the Danish company is pushing it. Pushing the absurd licensing deals. Pushing nostalgia. Pushing the gigantic sets that adults want, kids dream of, but so many parents can’t afford. And sure. I can’t really blame Lego for wanting to make money. It’s a private company, and they are in the business of, you know, selling stuff. But by pushing so hard in every department, Lego risks brand exhaustion. At least, it’s exhausting the brick out of me. Lego is one of the greatest, most beloved brands in the world. One that resonates with adults and kids at many levels. Emotionally, millions have that memory that makes us teary. I think back on recent memories of crafting Lego worlds with my son, as well as distant memories, like assembling spaceships with my father and siblings. Rationally, there’s a definitive appeal in the engineering of building complex designs from very simple pieces. Culturally, Lego is iconic on its own and often becomes entangled with other iconic brands, from Star Wars to Harry Potter. Sensorially, the touch, the clickity-clack-click of the building experience itself brings calm and anchors you to the present, making you forget problems and worries. Clearly, Lego has many paths to our pocketbooks. It’s just that now, it feels like the worldwide Lego craze is on overdrive, and it’s becoming way too much. There are many things that bother me. The company’s increasing reliance on licensed IP themes is one of them. While some licensed sets from Star Wars and Ghostbusters are great because of their clever design and engineering, many others feel like cash grabs. Like the recent Marvel logo set, a monument to shilling that lacks both the creativity and playability that these toys always strived for. Others feel out of place, like their deal with FIFA, a shady sports organization plagued with corruption scandals and wrongdoings. That cannot be further away from the Danish company’s alleged innocent spirit and its learning-through-play philosophy. For a company that bans miniature replicas of guns from its sets, it’s appalling to see it associated with brutal dictatorial regimes, even if it is only by proxy. Plus, Lego’s World Cup trophy looks as hideous as Donald The President’s FIFA Peace Prize. Enough already The 1×1 plate that spilled my mental Lego cup was the ad that introduced its latest toy line: Pokémon. It is such a smarmy play for millennials that—while I love both Pokémon and Lego—I couldn’t help but have an instant visceral hate for it. That licensing deal also highlighted another huge problem, which is the proliferation of expensive sets. The company traditionally aims big multi-thousand-piece sets at adults. But it’s one thing to sell adults the Taj Mahal, the Titanic, or the Roman Colosseum, and it’s another to put out a $1,000 Death Star or this $650 Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise set. Both sold out in a few hours. Sure, adults will buy those, but do you really expect kids to look at those toys and not want them? Lego has always sold the occasional pricey set—especially in the Star Wars line—but the size (and price) increase is nuts. Data from the popular Lego set tracker Brickset shows that, in the entire pre‑2000 era, there were only 28 sets with over 1,000 pieces. By mid‑2025, there were already 80 such sets released in six months alone, showing a huge increase in the annual volume of big sets. The same data shows that there has been a big price increase. In 2016, the average Lego set cost about $40. From 2024 to 2026, that average had grown to around $70. That’s about a 75% price increase over the last decade, caused by the increase of licensed IP sets (which add an extra margin to pay the intellectual property owners around 20%). Six years ago, Lego licensing worked from the “physical world” to the “brick world.” External partners were primarily car manufacturers or entertainment studios like Disney and Warner Bros., which resulted in some fun toys. For decades, however, Lego was fiercely protective of its brand, rarely allowing it on products it didn’t manufacture. Starting in 2020, this strategy flipped. Lego began aggressively pursuing “lifestyle partnerships” to make the brand a status symbol for adults in fashion and home decor rather than just a toy for kids. From that point on, Lego has been launching collaborations with Adidas, Levi’s, Ikea, Nike, Target (with products for pets too!), Moleskine, Concept One, Hype, and even Pottery Barn. I’m sure I’m missing some. I find the latest collab with Crocs to be particularly offensive, and the news drove me over the edge when it popped up in my social media feeds in late January. The Lego Brick Clog features a molded brick design on the midsole. There’s nothing else to it. It just looks dumb. Given its shape and giant size, it could serve as a bento box, one can only imagine. It’s possible this is a “me” problem. Maybe others don’t notice or don’t care. But there’s a danger of being so overexposed, everywhere. Maybe you need to slow it down a bit, Lego. Not everything has to be AWESOME all the bloody time. View the full article

US president demands Tehran accept ‘no nuclear weapons’ as regional allies try to de-escalate tensionsView the full article

Bitwarden is one of the more likable tech companies. It offers a great password manager for free, charges modestly for its paid version, and has mostly stayed in its lane with its focus on security products. So it’s disappointing that it isn’t being more transparent about the first price hike in its 10-year history. Bitwarden’s Premium version now costs $20 per year, up from $10 per year previously. But instead of announcing the change directly, the company buried the news in a blog post about new features, such as more attachment storage and alerts about weak passwords. Meanwhile, Bitwarden isn’t rushing to let customers know about the increase. They’ll only get an email about the price hike (or, as Bitwarden calls it, “updated pricing”) 15 days before their next renewal. Those emails don’t spell out the actual yearly price, either. Instead, Bitwarden follows the SaaS industry scourge of listing a monthly price for an annual subscription, further obscuring the actual price. The company doesn’t offer a monthly subscription, yet it’s telling customers that they’ll pay “$1.65/month, billed annually.” (Existing customers are getting a onetime discount, at $15 for their next year.) The extra $10 per year doesn’t bother me much. I’ve been a happy paying Bitwarden customer for a couple of years now, and I find value in Premium features like two-factor authentication code storage, password hygiene checks, and Emergency Access, which will let my wife access my vault if something happens to me. Proton Pass Plus and 1Password are the only other paid password managers I’ve considered, and they’re both nearly twice the price, at $36 per year. But the way Bitwarden announced the price hike gives me pause. Like a lot of Bitwarden users, I switched over from LastPass in 2021. At the time, LastPass had started limiting free users to a single device type, which meant no more syncing passwords between a phone and a computer. Bitwarden had no such restrictions, and moving my passwords over was easier than I expected. As its founder, Kyle Spearrin, later told me, LastPass’s various blunders (including a major security breach in 2023) helped drive a lot of new business to Bitwarden over the years. The company has since grown from Spearrin alone to roughly 200 employees, with a business model that largely revolves around enterprise customers. When Bitwarden has raised money—an undisclosed Series A in 2019, then a $100 million round in 2022—it has been to satisfy business demands such as security certifications or to invest in workplace features like developer API key management. Individual users, meanwhile, have served as a funnel for the more lucrative enterprise business, with CEO Michael Crandell calling it a “virtuous circle” between the two. Those who get Bitwarden from their work get lifetime access to its Premium plan for families, even when they change jobs. Why, then, is Bitwarden sneakily announcing a price hike for individuals instead of owning it? Is the consumer side so fragile that Bitwarden can’t stand behind the value of a $20 annual subscription? Is the consumer-to-business funnel not working the way it used to? Is it a sign that Bitwarden has lost touch with the community that helped build it up in the first place? I don’t know, but I’m not alone in thinking this way. Here’s a sampling of comments from Bitwarden’s Reddit thread about the news: “This is disappointing … not because of the price increase itself, but because of how it was handled and communicated.” “These premium ‘enhancements’ don’t really seem worth the extra $10 a year. Just be honest with us and say it’s for rising costs.” “Thing is, I don’t mind the increase (it was bound to happen sooner rather than later) so much as the way it’s being handled.” “A price increase had long been overdue, but still not so abruptly and not under the guise of adding marketing features nobody needs.” The company said via email that its vision of helping individuals and companies manage sensitive information has not changed. I hope this is just a marketing blunder, and not anything bigger to worry about. View the full article

Whether you call him groundhog, woodchuck, or whistle-pig, or use the full genus and species name, Marmota monax, the nation’s premier animal weather forecaster has been making headlines as Punxsutawney Phil for decades. The largest ground squirrel in its range, groundhogs like Phil are found throughout the midwestern United States, most of Canada, and into southern Alaska. M. monax is the most widespread marmot, while the Vancouver Island marmot (M. vancouverensis) is found only on one island in British Columbia. In total, there are 15 species in the genus Marmota, found around the world from as far south as the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico and the Pyrenees Mountains of Spain, and as far north as regions of Siberia and Alaska so dark and cold that the marmots must hibernate for up to nine months of the year. Hibernating to escape tough times Marmots, including all the actors who have played Phil over the years, are the largest “true” hibernators: animals that enter a torpor that reduces their biological functions to a level closer to dead than alive. Because this phenomenon is so interesting, scientists pay attention to all aspects of marmot anatomy and physiology. Basic observational science like this is important to advance our understanding of the world, and it sometimes leads to discoveries that improve human lives. Marmot studies are the foundation for experiments to address obesity, cardiovascular disease, mpox, stress, hepatitis, and liver cancer, and they may inform work on osteoporosis and organ transplantation. Aging seems to nearly stop during hibernation, as the marmot heart rate drops from nearly 200 beats per minute when active to about nine during hibernation. Similarly, their active body temperature can be 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius)—about the same as a dog or cat—but plummet to 41° F (5° C) when hibernating. Humans, in comparison, become hypothermic at a core temperature of 95° F (35° C). Fueling feast and famine Marmots’ only source of energy during the hibernation period is stored fat, which they may metabolize as slowly as 1 gram per day. But even that is a large amount when it must suffice for more than half a year. So, marmots need to double their weight during the summer, even in places where the season is only a few months long. To do so, they double the size of their hibernation-state gastrointestinal tract and liver, and then carefully select the most nutritious plants, including legumes, flowers, grains, and grasses. Despite their corpulence, they can also climb trees to eat buds and fruit. Gardener, architect, and menu item The digging and seed dispersal that accompany foraging create flower-filled meadows. Some marmots, like Mongolia’s Tarbagan marmot (M. siberica), are keystone species whose presence is associated with increased diversity of plants and predators. Marmot burrows are a key architectural component of many other animals’ habitats. Abandoned marmot excavations can provide temperature- and humidity-controlled housing for dozens of species, from frogs and foxes to snakes and owls. The same activities can make groundhogs a pest to people. In most of the Midwest, groundhog predators were largely eliminated at the same time that agricultural fields became vast marmot buffets. Today, many groundhog populations are tightly controlled by invasive coyotes, as well as recovering populations of bobcats. Because they are such a high-quality meal, marmots are an important conduit of energy from plants to carnivores. Everything from hawks to eagles, weasels to wolves, may eat them. And, like most native birds and mammals, marmots are on the menu of house cats, too. Humans also have long exploited marmots for meat and fur. As a result, once-common marmot species are rare in many places. But marmots breed like the proverbial bunnies and so have the potential to come back quickly from population declines. They can be reintroduced to former haunts, benefiting the ecosystem. Hibernation must end at the right time Shortly after waking from hibernation, marmots mate, giving birth about 4½ weeks later to half a dozen or more offspring. Ideally, pups are born just as the first plants peak through the snowmelt—maximizing the time available to pack on fat for the coming hibernation season. Given the food needs of these big ground squirrels, and the fact they may be seen poking their heads above the snow before any food is available, it seems reasonable to assume that they have some power of weather prediction. Indeed, people celebrate scores of individual groundhogs across the U.S. and Canada for their ability to anticipate weather six weeks hence. This American groundhog tradition apparently started with German immigrants recalling the spring emergence of badgers and hedgehogs in the old country. Brown bears have a similar spring schedule and are still celebrated in Romania and Serbia. People ascribe weather-predicting abilities to other species, too, including woolly bear caterpillars, sheep, cats and dormice. One tradition holds that tree squirrel nests, called dreys, can predict the severity of the coming winter. Leafy dreys are well ventilated and private—good choices if you need less protection during a warm winter. More insulated hollow trees are cozy in the cold but communal, and so come with the risk of sharing parasites. As a squirrel researcher, I have noted the location, number, and size of nests for years but seen no discernible patterns related to weather. Weather responders, not weather predictors Despite traditional claims, you’ve probably already guessed that Phil and his friends are about as good at predicting the coming weather as that kid who answers “C” for every multiple choice question. A 2021 study on the subject reported that groundhogs’ “predictions of spring onset (are) no better than chance.” That’s right, groundhogs are correct 50% of the time. One big problem with relying on any species on a specific calendar day is that seasons follow latitude and altitude. Anyone who has hiked the Appalachian Trail can tell you that trekking from south to north maximizes your time in cool spring weather. Similarly, if you venture to the peaks of the Rockies in August, you’ll find spring wildflowers. For this reason, groundhogs in Alabama emerge from their dens much earlier than those in Wisconsin. As one Canadian newspaper put it in 1939: “Here in Manitoba, no woodchuck in his senses would voluntarily emerge into the cold on February 2.” Animals’ senses are tools for survival Modern technology can accurately predict the average weather—that is, climate—far into the future, and the precise weather five days in advance. But the accuracy of a forecast at a given point on Earth 10 days in the future is only about 50%—as good as a groundhog. However, many animals are sensitive to phenomena that humans need tools to even notice. Flocks of warblers, sparrows, and other birds sometimes seem to appear out of nowhere before a storm. These species often migrate at night, navigating across land and sea by the stars and Earth’s magnetic fields. To avoid getting lost in fog or blown off course, they’ll “fall out” of the sky at good resting spots when bad weather is building. At such times, take the warbler’s advice and don’t venture out on the water. Frogs chirping in spring indicate that water temperatures are warm enough for eggs, while air temperatures influence caterpillar hatching and activity. Farmers over the centuries have recorded the blooming dates of flowers over the years as a way to predict when to plant and harvest. Noticing and tracking timing of annual events Phenology is the study of these natural phenomena and their annual cycles, from the first springtime peek of a groundhog to the last autumn honk of a goose. When does the first flower bloom in your neighborhood, the first thunder clap rumble, or the last cricket chirp? No individual observation, even Phil’s, has the power to predict the weather. But in aggregate, these observations can tell us a lot about what the world is doing and predict how it will change. You can be like Phil and look for your shadow, or for a nice legume to eat, and then contribute to science by adding your observations to the National Phenology Network. Traditions don’t need to be factually true to be useful. Groundhog shadows bring people together at a cold time of year to look at the clouds, notice buds on the trees, and track down the earliest green sprouts, such as skunk cabbage, which warms the snow around it. This Groundhog Day, get out there and enjoy nature as you celebrate the lengthening days and increased activities of the organisms we share this planet with. Steven Sullivan is the director of the Hefner Museum of Natural History at Miami University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. View the full article

Eat this, not that. This one food will cure everything. That food is poison. Cut this food out. Try this diet. Don’t eat at these times. Eat this food and you’ll lose weight. With society’s obsession with food, health, and weight, statements like these are all over social media, gyms, and even healthcare offices. But do you need to follow rules like these to be healthy? Most often the answer is no, because health and nutrition is much more complex and nuanced than a simple list of what to eat and what to avoid. Despite this, rules about health and nutrition are so common because of diet culture—a morality imposed by society that sees falling outside the arbitrary ideal of thinness as a personal failure. Diet culture and the people promoting it expect you to pursue or maintain thinness at all times. Diet culture norms have led to a multibillion-dollar industry promoting diets that each come with their own set of rules, with each claiming it’s the only way to be healthy or lose weight. When access to nutrition information is at an all-time high online, people are often left digging through conflicting information when trying to figure out what to eat or what a healthy diet look likes. As a registered dietitian specializing in eating disorders, the majority of my clients have been, and continue to be, harmed by diet culture. They wrestle with guilt and shame around food, and their health is often negatively affected by rigid rules about nutrition. Rather than improving health, research has shown that diet culture increases your risk of unhealthy behaviors, including yo-yo dieting, weight cycling, and eating disorders. If the solution to health isn’t following the rules of diet culture, what is the answer? I believe an all-foods-fit approach to nutrition can offer an antidote. What is “all foods fit”? “All foods fit” may sound like “eat whatever you want, whenever you want,” but that is an oversimplification of this approach to nutrition. Rather, this model is based on the idea that all foods can fit into a healthy diet by balancing food and nutrition in a way that promotes health. It does this by enabling flexibility in your diet through listening to internal body cues to decide what and when to eat instead of following external rules. All foods fit allows for nuance to exist in health and nutrition. Diet culture is black and white—foods are either “good” or “bad.” But nutrition and health are much more complex. For starters, many factors beyond diet affect health: exercise, sleep, stress, mental health, socioeconomic status, access to food, and healthcare, to name a few. Similarly, while general guidelines around nutrition are available, everyone has individual needs based on their preferences, health status, access to food, daily schedule, cooking skills, and more. The flexibility of all foods fit can help you make empowered food choices based on your health goals, tastes, exercise habits, and life circumstances. All foods fit in action A common pushback to the all-foods-fit approach is that you can’t be healthy if you are eating “unhealthy” foods, and giving yourself permission to eat all foods means you’ll primarily eat the “bad” ones. However, research shows that removing the morality around food can actually lead to healthier food choices by decreasing stress related to food decisions. This reduces the risk of disordered eating, resulting in improved physical health. To see what an all-foods-fit approach might look like, imagine you’re attending a social event where the food options are pizza, a veggie and dip tray, and cookies. According to the diet you’re following, pizza, cookies, and dips are all “bad” foods to avoid. You grab some of the veggies to eat, but are still hungry. You’re starving toward the end of the event, but the only food left is cookies. You plan on eating only one, but feel so hungry and guilty that you end up eating a lot of cookies and feel out of control. You feel sick when you go home and promise yourself to do better tomorrow. But this binge-restrict cycle will continue. Now imagine attending the same social event, but you don’t label foods as good or bad. From experience, you know you often feel hungry and unwell after eating pizza by itself. You also know that fiber, which can be found in vegetables, is helpful for gut health and can make you feel more satisfied after meals. So you balance your plate with a couple slices of pizza and a handful of veggies and dip. You feel pretty satisfied after that meal and don’t feel the need to eat a cookie. Toward the end of the event, you grab a cookie because you enjoy the taste and eat most of it before feeling satisfied. You save the rest of the cookie for later. Rather than following strict rules and restrictions that can lead to cycles of guilt and shame, an all-foods-fit approach can lead to more sustainable, healthy habits where stress and disruptions to routine don’t wreak havoc on your overall diet. How to get started with an all-foods-fit approach It can be incredibly hard to divest from diet culture and adopt an all-foods-fit approach to nutrition and health. Here are some tips to help you get started. Remove any moral labels on food. Instead of good or bad, or healthy or unhealthy, think about the name of the food or the nutritional components it has. For example, chicken is high in protein, broccoli is a source of fiber, and ice cream is a dessert. Neutral labels can help determine what food choices make sense for you in the moment and reduce any guilt or shame around food. Focus on your internal cues—hunger, fullness, satisfaction, and how food makes you physically feel. Becoming attuned to your body can help you regulate food choices and determine what eating pattern makes you feel your best. Eat consistently. When you aren’t eating regularly, it can be hard to feel in control around food. Your hunger can become more intense, and your body less sensitive to fullness hormones. Implement an eating schedule that spaces food regularly throughout the day, filling any prolonged gaps between meals with a snack. Reintroduce foods you previously restricted. Start small with foods that feel less scary or with a small amount of a food you’re anxious about. This could look like adding a piece of chocolate to lunch most days, or trying out a bagel for one breakfast. By intentionally adding these foods back into your diet, you can build trust with yourself that you won’t feel out of control around these foods. Check in with yourself before eating. Ask yourself, how hungry am I? What sounds good right now? How long until I can eat again? And sometimes, more support is needed. This can be especially true if you’re experiencing disordered eating habits or have an eating disorder. Consider working with a dietitian to help challenge nutrition misinformation and heal your relationship to food. Charlotte Carlson is the director of the Kendall Reagan Nutrition Center at Colorado State University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. View the full article

Latest commentary details ambitions for ‘powerful currency’ to play a greater role in trade and forex View the full article

There is a deeply unsettling paradox in how aging women are represented today. The louder the discourse on inclusion and diversity becomes, the fewer women we see who actually look like women over 45. Women who age “normally”—who live in their bodies, with their features, their lines, their visible age—have almost vanished from public view. When women in their 50s or 60s do gain visibility, it is often with a body and a face that belong to the strange category of Forever 35: perfectly smooth, ageless, suspended in time. This is not a trivial aesthetic issue because it has major consequences for work, careers, and power. When women disappear from view as they age, they lose access to role models at exactly the moment when careers are supposed to stretch and evolve. If you are expected to work for 50 years but can only see the first 20 years of that life represented—in leadership, in organizations, in the media—then most of your working life remains unimaginable. There is no shared script for what professional authority, ambition, or success look like at 60. When women in their 50s or 60s are made visible, it is often on the condition that they look 10 or 20 years younger. As a result, women in their 60s are effectively invisible—present only if their age is erased. This narrows ambition, encourages self-censorship, and makes later-life leadership or reinvention seem abnormal rather than expected. It quietly redistributes power away from aging women by making long careers harder to imagine, claim, and inhabit. There’s no point in blaming the women Let us be absolutely clear: This is not about condemning women’s individual choices. Gray hair or dyed hair. Injections or not. Surgery or not. Filters or not. To suggest that women are responsible for their own invisibility because they “give in” to beauty standards would be both unjust and profoundly naive. We do what we can with the constraints and possibilities we have. We do what we can with the contradictory injunctions we receive. The problem is not that women try to look younger. That’s perfectly understandable. The problem is that older women are either not there or only tolerated if they do not look old. As a result, the “normal faces” of aging women—to borrow the central idea of a brilliant newsletter by author Caroline Criado Perez—have almost disappeared from our visual landscape. This disappearance is anything but accidental. It reflects the demographic structure of power in which men are allowed to age as they move up the ladder, while women in the workspace are expected to remain in their place—submissive, at the bottom of the hierarchy, there to please the eye, whatever their job and position. A double disappearance: organizations and media Sociologists have long documented the progressive invisibilization of women in U.S. organizations, and the numbers tell a familiar story. In Fortune 500 companies, women now make up roughly 30% of executive leadership roles, but this progress is uneven and heavily skewed toward younger cohorts. Women over 50—and especially over 60—are dramatically underrepresented at the highest levels of visible power, despite decades of accumulated experience. This organizational invisibility mirrors what happens in the media. Research by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media consistently shows that women are both underrepresented and age-erased on screen. Women over 50 account for a small fraction of speaking roles, even though they represent more than a third of the U.S. adult population. As women age, they quite literally vanish from movies, television, and advertising. And when they are allowed to reappear, it is often on the condition that their age be visually erased. Across film, TV, and ads, female bodies are tolerated—even in leadership or expert roles—only if they are filtered, smoothed, lifted, and polished. We want women leaders, but not their wrinkles of concentration nor the visible marks of 25 years of work. When aging becomes a “defect” to be corrected Criado Perez describes how she started “collecting” images of actresses whose faces have not been artificially rejuvenated—Emma Thompson, Keira Knightley, Kate Winslet—because encountering a female face over 35 that looks real has become a rare event. Seeing such faces should be familiar and banal. On-screen, it’s exceptional. Thus, we have lost our collective visual memory of what women in their 40s, 50s, or 60s actually look like. Perfectly normal features—lines of expression, changes in skin texture, sagging—are now perceived as signs of neglect and personal failure. The traits of a normal age have been reframed as flaws. New generative AI tools are making this visual amnesia even worse. Ask an image generator to show you a 50-year-old woman, and you will usually get either a smoothed, poreless face that could be 35—or a woman who looks closer to 70. The technology merely reproduces and amplifies the biases of the image databases it is trained on. AI does not show us women of 50; it shows us what the internet imagines they should look like. It is just as pervasive in corporate stock photography, in recruitment materials, and in the visual representations of the business world more broadly. The “world of work,” as it is depicted today, is populated by smooth, vaguely thirtysomething faces, where age is either erased or reduced to a stereotype. Women in their 50s or 60s are largely absent—except when they are used to illustrate end-of-career narratives, mentorship, or decline. The enduring “double standard of aging” This brings us back to a concept articulated more than 50 years ago by Susan Sontag: the double standard of aging. Male aging is associated with added value—authority, gravitas, experience, power—while female aging is framed as decline. Nothing fundamental has changed. After 45, women are expected either to fade into the background or to invest enormous energy into looking younger, but never to show visible signs of aging without consequence. Many describe a feeling of literal disappearance, what French journalist Sophie Dancourt has memorably called the “convent syndrome”: an unspoken injunction to withdraw from public life once youth, fertility, and sexualized visibility are presumed to be over. This logic is brutally familiar in the entertainment industry, where women’s careers are still shaped by narrow and unforgiving norms of desirability. Aging men are cast as mentors, leaders, or lovers; aging women are quietly written out, unless they conform to increasingly unrealistic beauty standards. The result is not only professional marginalisation, but also a cultural message that equates women’s worth with youth—and treats aging as a problem to be managed rather than a reality to be lived. That is precisely what makes the sketch “Last Fuckable Day,” from Inside Amy Schumer, so powerful. Schumer unexpectedly runs into her show-business heroes—Tina Fey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Patricia Arquette—who are celebrating a darkly comic milestone: the age at which women are deemed no longer desirable or castable. Made 10 years ago, the sketch does not feel dated at all. It turns ageist erasure into a sharp piece of feminist satire—one that feels even more relevant today than when it first aired. Why this matters so much at work The absence of older female role models is extremely costly. First, it deprives younger women of projection. How can you imagine a long, evolving career when most, if not all, visible success stories stop at 40? In a world where working lives are getting longer, this lack of role models is deeply destabilizing. Second, it reinforces discrimination. When women over 45 are rarely seen in leadership, those who succeed are perceived as exceptions rather than as the norm. This fuels stereotypes about “atypical” careers and legitimizes bad decisions in hiring, promotion, and training. Third, it creates collective anxiety around aging. When the only acceptable image of professional success is youth, aging becomes something to fear. This anxiety affects all women—not just those who are already older. Finally, organizations lose out. Women over 45 represent a massive pool of experience, skills, and leadership potential. Treating them as obsolete is economically irrational. It’s about diversity Calling for more older female role models does not mean prescribing how women should age. There should be no new rule—whether to go gray or not, to reject aesthetic medicine or embrace it. The aim is not to replace one norm with another, but to leave room for choice. What we desperately need is more diversity of the ways of aging. Wrinkled faces and smooth ones. Gray hair and dyed hair. Bodies that show time in different ways. Making this diversity visible expands what is socially imaginable. Every woman who chooses—when she can, when she wants—to show her real, aging face widens the spectrum of the visible. She sends a simple but powerful message: I am here. I am aging in my own way. And I matter. In doing so, she not only challenges stereotypes today—she also helps shape the images, datasets, and representations that will train the technologies and imaginations of tomorrow. Older female role models at work are not a niche demand. They are a condition for fairer careers, healthier organizations, and a society that can finally accept women’s lives in their full length—not just in their youth. View the full article

Have you ever watched someone try to come up with a creative idea: Post‑it notes, coffee, laptop, a determined glint in their eye and a solemn expression on their face? If the idea isn’t coming, add a few sighs, some squirming, and the magical rearrangement of every object on the desk. Most workplaces still reward this “try harder” ritual. This is rarely where creative energy actually emerges. We all know the stories. The best ideas come in the shower, on a walk, doing dishes, or even during everyone’s beloved folding of laundry. Here’s the thing: it’s not a quirk. Movement helps foster creativity. It occupies the body in a repeating pattern that doesn’t require the brain to do too many mental pull-ups, which is why it reliably restores access to insight. When the nervous system settles even slightly, the mind widens its search and connects ideas that didn’t seem related a few minutes earlier. When employees end up performing creativity instead of accessing it, their attention often tightens around the problem. They start monitoring, judging, checking. That pressure narrows perception and makes it harder to notice new connections. If your team is struggling to find creative solutions, do not ask people to push harder. Instead, try to get your team to move so people can relax enough for their creative ideas to flow without force. Here are three moments when leaders should watch for and what they should do when they happen. 1. Red‑light: Reactive Pause Red-light moments are “fight or flight” situations, with “burn it to the ground” imagination at play. This looks like: Let’s scrap the entire project and start over, fire off an unprofessional email, or make an impulsive, on-the-spot “yes” commitment. Perception narrows, patience disappears, and rarely does acting or creating from that charge produce a positive, generative outcome. Red-light pauses call for brief, more vigorous movement to discharge the stress response. Build in a quick change of scene: a fast lap around the building, a flight of stairs, or shaking out the arms. The purpose is to burn off adrenaline, widen perception, and step back out of emergency mode so people can return their creative focus to the ideas and projects they should be solving. If your team is up for it, jumping jacks definitely give that destructive charge somewhere to go with some humor added. 2. Yellow‑light: Reroute Pause Yellow‑light moments are the “I’ve been staring at this for an hour and it’s not getting better” days. The mind is running the same idea over and over, the idea of the outcome is sabotaging the actual creating of it, instead of building the conditions for imagination to thrive. Normalize small, rhythmic movement that lets the mind drift. Unlike red-light pauses, which are brief and vigorous, yellow-light pauses are slower and sustained. Close the laptops and take a slow 10-minute walk outside, with the main intention of shifting attention to sensory input, like noticing different types of cars, sounds, or colors, or spend a few minutes doodling the same shape. The plan is to give the brain enough repetition to relax its grip so energy can reroute toward new options. Teams quickly learn that this isn’t slacking. It’s a practical way to refocus creative energy so work can move faster, not slower. When people step away without technology, they’re far more likely to return with a fresh angle instead of the same recycled thought in a slightly different font. 3. Green‑light: Proactive Pause Green-light moments are when you want to generate new ideas and can see the tank is empty: people are exhausted or viewing the unknown like it’s an uncertain void. This is where “move and think” brainstorms shine, because moderate movement feels spacious and supports idea generation. Instead of another conference‑room session, leaders can take a product question, culture question, or “what’s next for this team” question on a slow lap. For strategy days or longer meetings, consider gifting each person a small notebook for doodling or standing while they think. Making movement part of how your team creates Treat movement as a legitimate part of the creative process, not something people squeeze in at lunch. Many employees discover that language for what they think about a project arrives much more easily in motion than it does under fluorescent lights. Add “movement time” to the project’s creative process, especially for undefined work. Recognize and ask, “Is it a reach‑for‑the‑sneakers moment?” and then give clear permission to do it. Extra-long meeting? Book two conference rooms and switch at the halfway mark. Model it yourself. Take your own red-, yellow-, and green-light pauses and name them so your team sees that movement is part of how you think. When employees aren’t generating ideas, it’s rarely because they lack creativity. It’s usually because they’re trying to access it under the worst conditions. The most effective leadership move is giving people permission to step away and trusting that their best thinking often happens when they are given the freedom to move. View the full article

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