How Brain Training Games Can Help You Build Your Business

by Lindsay Lavine

Do you struggle remembering directions? Putting a customer's name to a face? What about staying focused for long stretches of time? If you find yourself easily distracted by your inbox or social media feed, you may want to give brain games a try.

Brain games have become a popular way to form better habits, with Lumosity.com, reaching 35 million users earlier this year. Brain games are designed to make you feel like you're playing a game instead of improving your memory or streamlining your decision making process. Joe Hardy, PhD and Vice President of Research and Development for Lumosity, says brain games are ideal for business owners.

"Owning a business is one of the most cognitively challenging jobs," Hardy says. Business owners have to process information accurately, balance projects, switch between tasks quickly and efficiently, divide their attention among tasks, and remember customers' names. We took a look at three popular brain game providers to find out what the buzz is about.

Lumosity.com
The largest provider of brain games, the site works to train your brain in five categories: speed, memory, attention, flexibility and problem solving. "Each exercise is designed to train a different cognitive function of the brain," Hardy explains. The games are based on neurological research performed by researchers from various institutions, including Columbia University and the University of California-Berkeley.

Lumosity's in-house team of developers creates games based on what research shows exercises various parts of the brain. For example, Memory Matrix requires players to remember which tiles appear in a matrix and recall the pattern from memory, which helps improve spatial recall and working memory. "Think of it as a personal trainer for your brain," Hardy says. He recommends that users spend 10-20 minutes every day playing brain games, as opposed to spending two hours one day and skipping out on the rest. "It's like going to the gym," Hardy says. "The more training you do, the better. The goal is to create a habit that's sustainable and keeps you engaged."

Lumosity offers a free limited membership that allows users to participate in some games, while the paid membership provides full access to the site and tracks your BPI (Brain Performance Index, a measure of cognitive performance) progress over time. Paid memberships range from monthly to lifetime options ranging from $15 a month to $80 a year.

Positscience.com
Positscience offers brain training in five categories: attention, brain speed, memory, people skills and intelligence. (A new category, navigation, will be available on the site soon.) Posit Science games include enhancing a user's ability to read facial expressions, from easy (happy or sad) to the more difficult (puzzled or embarrassed). Its games also help users improve facial recognition as well as matching names with faces and remembering facts about people you meet, an important skill in networking and business.

Posit Science has developed games in collaboration with researchers from nearly a dozen universities, including Yale and Stanford. You can try some of the games out for free without having to sign up. Posit Science offers memberships at $14 a month or $96 a year.

Cogmed.com
Cogmed is designed to improve working memory to allow users to learn new skills in academic or professional endeavors. Users are encouraged to spend up to 30 minutes a day, five days a week on training exercises over a five week period. Training is only available through programs offered by accredited coaches who monitor user results and provide motivation. Many programs are supervised by doctors or psychologists who specialize in attention problems.

Prices vary according to the program selected and the professional coach's fees. The program is best for people who have working memory issues caused by ADHD, anxiety in social settings, or adjusting quickly to new tasks. Visit this section of the site to find a coach in your area.

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How to Do Business in China

by Randy Myers

Yum! Brands, the fast-food purveyor whose brands include KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, generates approximately half of its global revenue in China. Lots of other U.S. companies do good business in the world's most populous country, too. Could your small business learn -- and earn -- from their example?

Yes, says China expert Stanley Chao, especially if your firm sells primarily to other businesses, is in good financial shape, and offers products superior to those already available in China. It also will help if your company supports an industry that China's government is trying to grow right now, such as aviation, nuclear power, biotechnology, automobiles or medical care.

Still, going to China is quite a leap. Why traipse halfway around the world in search of sales?

China, ho?"You can do well in the U.S., but if you're looking for the kind of growth we saw in the U.S. maybe 20 or 30 years ago, that's happening now in China," says Chao, managing director at All In Consulting and author of the recently published "Selling to China: A Guide to Doing Business in China for Small- and Medium-Sized Companies." "You're talking about potentially increasing your business by 25 to 30 percent, and sometimes 40 percent. There's nowhere else in the world where you are seeing the kind of growth we're seeing in China, and this is the time to tap into it."

While the opportunity in China may be enormous -- it is the world's second-largest economy, after all -- capitalizing on it can be hard work. China presents a stiff language barrier to U.S. entrepreneurs, and a business culture far different from the one most U.S. business owners know.

Consider the Chinese take on contracts. In the U.S., they're binding legal agreements. In China, they're more like an expression of good faith, one that symbolizes a desire to do business together but remains open to revision and reinterpretation as business conditions change. Chinese business partners will happily sign contracts, Chao notes, but those agreements are largely unenforceable under China's legal system.

Still intrigued? Make an honest assessment of your prospects, Chao advises, beginning with a close look at your balance sheet. "You've got to be financially stable and have some money in the bank," he warns. "You can't go to China to make up for your losses in the U.S. It's not a quick buck. It's going to take two to four years to get established, build sales and generate profits."

Next, ask whether your product already has a competitor in China, or if it can be easily copied or pirated. Beating the indigenous competition can be difficult without a clearly superior product, and selling something that can be easily copied could doom not only your China business but ultimately your U.S. business, too. Finally, make sure that you think China can become a meaningful part of your business. "If you're only going to add 5 percent to your revenues, don't bother going," Chao advises.

Get an inside lookAnswering questions like these can be difficult, especially if you're a China novice. To make it easier, Chao says, attend one of your industry's trade shows in China or even in another Asian country, where all the important Chinese players are sure to be represented. Then, if the early indications look favorable, begin studying the market in earnest.

Spend two to three weeks in China meeting potential partners, government officials and competitors. The latter are surprisingly open to Western visitors, Chao promises, especially if they see a partnering opportunity. Take along your business development experts or engineers if you think they'll be helpful, and pay special attention to finding a good translator. For your translator to be both effective and efficient, you'll want someone who not only speaks English and Chinese fluently but also understands your industry and its terminology.

If you don't have the time or confidence to do all this on your own, consider hiring a consultant, preferably one with extensive on-the-ground experience doing business in China. Campbell, California-based GraphOn Corp., a software company with about three dozen employees, hired Chao four years ago when it wanted to establish a foothold in Asia, including China, Japan and Indonesia. The company still uses Chao to help manage its business relationships there, says John Dilworth, GraphOn's vice president of sales and marketing.

Dilworth says that like many companies breaking into the China market, GraphOn has had to be patient. While the company is now generating about 15 percent to 18 percent of its annual revenues in Asia, its China sales still rank only about third or fourth in the region, owing in part to the challenging language barrier. Still, Dilworth says, his company is pleased with its prospects there.

"We have four major distributors in China, all of them stocking distributors, and we're doing very well," he says. "And in the past two and a half years we've tripled or quadrupled our sales. Our biggest challenge has been getting those distributors, or integrators, up and running. Once that is done, I think China is going to do much better for us."

For many entrepreneurs, China is the ultimate foreign market: big, complicated, exotic. But for those in the right industry who are committed to aggressive growth, its potential rewards may be too alluring to ignore.

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Richard Branson: To Be Successful in Business, You Need a Little Luck

by Jason Fell

Luck. Perseverance. Success.

These were all topics billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson discussed recently in a video interview with LinkedIn executive editor Daniel Roth. Branson was the first among the professional network's "Influencers" to cross the million-follower mark.

LinkedIn launched the Influencer network in October, allowing a select group of thought leaders in business to write posts and LinkedIn members to follow them. Other LinkedIn influencers include Barack Obama, Deepak Chopra, Arianna Huffington and Guy Kawasaki.

In the interview, Branson answered a sampling of questions submitted by LinkedIn members. Here are some highlights:

On luck in business: "You need lucky breaks to be successful. ... To create a business you've got to, initially, work day and night, weekends. It's really hard work. But lots of people do that and do not succeed. And, so, those who have succeeded do need to thank our lucky stars for the breakthroughs that got us to the top."

On women leaders: "I would encourage companies to work really hard towards getting a 50-50 [ratio] of women on their board. ... In countries where they've done it, like Norway and Sweden and Scandinavian countries, the companies seem to have benefitted from it."

On defining success: "To me, I've spent a lifetime creating things that hopefully I think can make a difference in people's lives."

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