The importance of attraction and win-win
What do you do when three companies try to book you on the same Autumn date? When this customer found out that there was competition over my calendar, he certainly did what he could to make me feel welcome. And I have to say that his determination was quite convincing – and he won the day. But more importantly, I want to share how well his approach plays with my key business principle ATTRACT: To attract and say “yes” to new customers who really “get” why applied neuroscience makes sense and have light in the eyes:
“I will try to make a solid case for the most exciting day for you,” he wrote. “This year we would like to have a full day with a ‘Masterclass with Anette Prehn’. We look for a keynote in three parts, or to put it in another way – three workshops on the same day. The focus of your workshops may be:
- BrainSmart Leadership
- BrainSmart Learning
- BrainSmart Change
It will be an intense day – perhaps the most intensive day you will ever deliver (or a format you decide to do many more times)! We think this will be SO cool. Hopefully, we can manage to book you on the day. It is one of those situations where we all just looked at each other and agreed that it should be you. We have no Plan B and we don’t want one either 
“
Since I started my second company in 2009 (I’ve been an entrepreneur since 2005), I have followed the business principle I call ATTRACT (as an alternative to TRY TO CONVINCE). I invest my time, skills, passion and energy in delivering premium courses and speeches – and I send out books, feature articles, thoughts and methods into the world which are based on “the rules of the brain” and give the people who “get them” many insights and clear pictures of how to make them useful. And then I simply wait!
I spend absolutely no time convincing anyone that they should hire me (but of course I catch the moment and the possibility of creating win-win collaborations when it seems obvious in a conversation). I don’t do face-to-face meeting with potential clients either. I have converted the time spent on transportation to and from physical business meetings to writing books instead. And this goes independently of how “important” the client is. This has allowed me to have 10 books and minibooks published in three years: 1,000 pages in total.
My trust in ATTRACTION enables in other words a high productivity and focus on delivering premium quality in speeches, workshops and courses, thus attracting people with light in their eyes, like the senior manager quoted above and his team. They capture the importance of the rules of the brain for human and organisational development and it really is a win-win to say “yes” to contributing to them.
To be honest, throughout the first years the business principle of ATTRACTION didn’t pay off that well. But today, it means a full calendar more than half a year ahead. And it means contact with passionate and talented people and organisations, that I would like to help.
Anette Prehn is on a mission to make neuroscience available to all, i.e. easy to understand, remember and apply.
She is a keynote speaker, trainer and author who has inspired hundreds of thousands across the planet. People call her “the Cruyff of applied neuroscience”. She is a female entrepreneur who has been running her business for more than 13 years.
Her clients include Siemens, Bosch, Ericsson, Roche, Lego, Novo Nordic, Man Diesel and Turbo and Danske Bank. Throughout these many years, her clients have been powerfully inspired to apply neuroscience to work situations, but they have also asked her: “How do I more specifically apply the logics of the brain to parenting?” and “I can see my kids gaining from knowing this as well. What’s the best way to introduce them to these tools?” Being the mother of two and the stepmother of two, those questions got Anette Prehn going. She has started adding to her portfolio how parents, teachers and nursery nurses can become more brainsmart, thus nuturing an environment that helps kids learn, thrive and regulate emotions relevantly. And most recently, in her Brain Friends series, she is sharing with children and teenagers how to strike up a friendship with one’s brain rather than being at the receiving end only of its impulses and habits.
Anette Prehn is also a diligent creator of Danish songs, primarily in collaboration with composers Rasmus Skov Borring and Kristian Bisgaard. You can see / sing all her published songs here.