In any distracted or competitive situation, you must compete for attention. Every time you write an email, or leave a voicemail, or make a speech, you compete with a thousand distractions. If you don’t make it easy for people to understand what you’re offering, they’re off to the next thing.
Now, the pressure is on YOU to fascinate your listener. You’re already familiar with this pressure. Ever tried to start a conversation, or fill out a LinkedIn profile, or introduce yourself at a networking event… and struggled to find the perfect words to describe who you are?
Sally Hogshead’s Fascinate Test gives you the exact words and phrases you need to describe yourself, and what makes you different. It’s based on over a decade of research.
Have you ever wondered how Fascinate came to be? Or how Sally developed the Fascinate Test? Look no further. Below you’ll find the story of our company (and how we got to this point).
How To Fascinate throughout the years:
1993 – 2005: Sally Hogshead’s career took off with a meteoric rise to international fame as an advertising creative director.
2005: Sally’s first book, Radical Careering, was released. The book gives 100 “truths” about personal branding.
2006: Sally discovered that “fascination” is the most intense form of focus, and drives decision-making. Sally began researching the forms of communication that “trigger” a response in the human brain. This research included neurology, biology, economics, history, and anthropology. By combining this research with her extensive background in branding, Sally discovered the seven “Triggers” of fascination. Sally prepared to publish her next book, FASCINATE: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation. The book identifies the types of brand communication that companies use to fascinate customers.
2009: While waiting for FASCINATE to be printed and released, Sally and her team experimented with the idea of a personality assessment based on the same brand system for individuals.
2010: FASCINATE launched, and the personality assessment (the “F-Score Test”) debuted as a free social media engagement tool around the book’s launch.
2011: After studying the results of the first 50,000 people who took that initial assessment, Sally realized that a personality could more accurately be described with not just one type of communication, but the top two. Thus, the “Archetypes” were born. Sally’s team created customized reports around each of the Archetypes, and began to segment participants with more specialized data.
2012: After significant investments in the algorithm and analytics behind the system, HowToFascinate.com was launched as an eCommerce site, and quickly hit 200,000 participants. Companies began purchasing the Fascination Advantage® System to identify how each employee is most likely to add value. By continuing to apply deeper marketing studies and research, Sally’s company began selling group assessments to corporations with “heat maps,” custom analytics, and follow-up training. Incorporating this learning into her speaking engagements, Sally is inducted into the Speaker Hall of Fame.
2013: HarperCollins partnered with Sally on her new book, How the World Sees You, based on the Fascination Advantage system, extensive market studies, and proprietary research inside some of the world’s top-performing organizations. Sally’s company released their training curriculum for entrepreneurs, as well as a range of online study courses, one-on-one coaching for professionals, private mastermind events, and a range of national programs for brands and small businesses led by with certified speakers.
2014: HarperCollins published How the World Sees You. The Fascination Test is re-launched to sync with the book. Sally releases an extensive online training course and in-person series of live events conducted by certified trainers. The focus becomes helping people learn their “Anthem” — the tagline to their personality.
We hope you enjoyed this snapshot into the history of our company. Do you have any stories about when you started your business? Or maybe an event sent you down a completely different path than you thought you would go. Let us know in the comments!
To the most fascinating you,
Team Fascinate
