Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Does Google Think Your Web Site is Malicious?

During my regular prospecting work this morning I cam across a web site for which Google Search offered an informative that the web site had hosted malicious software.

Well, say no more! A great opportunity to call the CEO and bring him bad news. (You can't Shoot The Messenger when the news arrives by telephone!)
Of course, he doesn't want me to email a screenshot to him; he is suspicious of an unsolicited telephone warning about malicious stuff, ("Sounds like a scam to me"), and that's GOOD NEWS because he is conscious of security.
He'd better look into that …..
I advise him to Google Search his company name and see; he can call me back if he wants to know more.
Then I wondered if my site was found to have anything out of the ordinary, so I replaced my prospect's url with my own:
http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http://www.chrisgreaves.com/&hl=en

The Good news is NOT that I have no malicious stuff on my web site.
The Good News is that I have found another way to determine how often Google checks my web pages.
Frankly, I think that 90 days is too long between visits.
I'd better look into that …..

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Click ENTER to CONTINUE

I think I will submit this for the dumbest item of web-fare on this planet; I don't know about Jupiter.
What on earth (to make use of an appropriate phrase) is the point of making a prospective client/customer jump another hurdle on the way to satisfaction.?
Are the ISPs of this world so strapped for bandwidth that we have to employ neurons, synapses and muscles to give them a fighting chance?
Lord knows, my web site(s) are nothing to brag about.
But I can't see that introducing a "Click HERE if you are serious about actually learning something" would improve them one whit.

Monday, September 28, 2009

The World's Slowest-Learning Networker

It is slowly dawning on me that my regular daily work is NOT writing programs, NOT writing essays, NOT delivering training, NOT telephoning people to find work.
NOT!
My regular daily work is establishing and building relationships.
Nothing else.
The programs, essays, speaking engagements, training delivery etc. etc. gets me money, which is nice.
But I'm a person, and my main activity has to be establishing and maintaining contact with other people.
I must establish myself as a part of the business community.
Here's what happened today: I picked up the phone to call someone, and found myself thinking "Oh! They won't have any work for me today".
WRONG. Utterly Wrong!
Believably (now) short-sighted.
I must pick up the phone and say "Hello, how are you doing? What are you working on?" and show an interest in that. I must bring up something which happened on a previous conversation (it's what the MEMO field is for in the contact database!).
Then they will ask me what I'm doing and I'll tell them.
And they may not want it.
But they will think of me next time they want something.
Or mention me to someone else over lunch.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

When the Presentation Fails

It will happen.
You travel downtown to a 3-hours seminar, five of those precious twenty-four hours (24 Hours in a Day) assigned to a presentation that turns out not to be what you had thought it would be.
Faint not nor fear not.
· (1) You got there way ahead of time with your business cards and made a point of having a five-minute serious chat with at least one other early-arrival ("serious net worker")
· (2) You got at least one useful point out of the three hours. Be honest now – if you can't harvest one new thing out of three hours, you are on the wrong planet. We would all like to gain a hundred ideas; be happy with one, just for tonight.
· (3) Use the boring times when know-it-alls interrupt to demonstrate their erudition (so how come they aren't the guy up in front, huh?) to jot down those ten things you'd rather be doing in your home-office than sitting here. That's the list that will get you going first thing tomorrow morning, an incentive to rise at 5 a.m. instead of 6 a.m.
· (4) You are, or are soon going to be speaking in front of such a group Real Soon Now, or you are going to make a presentation to ten senior executives of Global Conglobulations in three weeks time. Use tonight to build a list of what not to do: speak too quickly; end each sentence with "right?"; start each sentence with "So, .."; rattle coins in your pocket; interrupt the questioner before they have finished answering the question; wear a peach colored-shirt with part of a Quizno's sandwich on the left-hand panel.
· (5) In short, make good use of Your Time, for it is Your Time, not theirs, that is being burned up.
Grab it while it's hot.
P.S. I run a course on Time Management as part of my "Business Communications for the Mature Professional" series.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Google Analytics

http://www.google.com/analytics/
Now that you have your own domain and a web site, learn from Google how you stack up.
The Google Analytics web site is simplicity itself. In under five minutes I had
· (1) Signed in using my FREE gMail account
· (2) Keyed in my name and telephone number
· (3) Keyed in my domain name (www.chrisGreaves.com)
· (4) Pasted a snippet of code into a Notepad text file and saved it on my hard drive
· (5) Pasted the same snippet into the Footer.doc whose contents appear on every page of my web site
My theory is that a week from now I can obtain text and graphic reports from Google telling what pages are being visited, how much time people are spending there, ….
I'll post an update to this page once I have a report.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Why I Joined

So I joined LinkedIn.
I received two invitations from two colleagues with whom I am working, but since I was meeting one for lunch today, I held off responding until I'd asked her about it.
Despite all the hype that surrounds LinkedIn, here is how I see it affecting my business.
I am struggling to work out what to do with 300 contacts, 200 of whom could be considered "weak", and I'm struggling to establish new contacts, better prospects, of whom I know nothing.
· LinkedIn is a catalyst mechanism that gets the conversation started.
Example 1: Gillian is one of my 200 "weak" contacts; she receives a card from me each Christmas, and I try to phone her once a year, but the bottom line is we have never gotten around to getting any business done, and I feel that either we should meet, or I should just politely drop her from my list.
For all I know my annual mailing is just more junk mail from her point of view.
But if she is on LinkedIn and if I send her an invitation to join, one of two things will happen.
(1) She says "No thanks" or ignores me; bye-bye Gillian.
(2) She says "Hi! What are you up to?" or similar, which gets the conversation started.
Example 2: Heather, John and Angus (not their real names) work for Global Conglobulations, a firm with apparently very deep pockets who have been spraying contracts and cash around like ….
If any of them are on LinkedIn and if I send them an invitation to join, one of two things will happen.
(1) They say "No thanks" or ignore me; maybe I should try direct mail, or a cold call.
(2) They say "Hi! What do you do?" or similar, which gets the conversation started.
It's worth a try.
(Cheryl Scoffield is on LinkedIn)

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

So You Want a Fancy Web Page, Huh?

(they may have changed it by the time you read this but …) Check out http://www.intellipharmaceutics.com/contact.html
(You may want to kill your volume before clicking on that link)

It has to be seen to be believed.
Each bubble represents a web page.
As your mouse hovers over the menu, the bubbles agitate, move, shift, grow, think.
It is more like an arcade game than a help for navigation.
And this is a web site for a multi-million dollar pharmaceutical corporation!
If you look near the top of the image, the various menu items overlap as they jiggle around.
To their credit, the foot of the page reads:
THIS WEBSITE IS UNDERGOING RENOVATION TO REFLECT CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS PLEASE CHECK BACK LATER
I hope they get to it soon!

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

I'm Trying to Make Everyone Happy

That's a quote from Toronto's mayor David Miller in the Toronto Star.
Disclaimer (I think): This is NOT about politics.
It's about reality.
A search of the web for "all of the people all of the time" turns up more stuff than I care to read, but the quote "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time" is attributed to Abraham Lincoln, and he's not telling where he first heard it.
Someone else, more recently, could have been Gerald M. Weinberg in one of his books talked about a triangle, the apexes being Dollar Cost, Time, and Features of a project.
Both sides need to (not "ought" or "should", but Need To) agree that a project will contain such-and-such features, written down, quantified, spelled out to the best of all parties abilities and with the utmost sincerity.
Both sides need to (not "ought" or "should", but Need To) agree that a project will be completed for so-many dollars, with the contributing sums identified against specific features, written down, quantified, spelled out to the best of all parties abilities and with the utmost sincerity.
Both sides need to (not "ought" or "should", but Need To) agree that a project will be completed by such-and-such a date, with milestones, or objective dates, written down, quantified, spelled out to the best of all parties abilities and with the utmost sincerity.
An overview team meets once a month, or once a billing cycle to compare target dollars and target dates against those in the specifications. Any discrepancy raises red flags and can prompt a project meeting.
Chances are strong that we really did not recognize a problem (feature/dollar/day) when we sat down in good faith. If it really was good faith, we should correct our mutual misconceptions now, not tomorrow, not when the final bill comes in and swords are being drawn.
You can change the apexes on the triangle, one, two, or all three of them, but you can't do that without changing the area of the triangle, and hence the impact of the project.
Anyone who thinks a change in features, dollars or days doesn't really change the project is one of those being fooled this time around. And chances are strong that they are fooling themselves.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Should I Join?

Colleagues have pestered me to join LinkedIn.
I have resisted, with a sense of cynicism beyond belief.
Generally I find that when something is hyped to hysteric levels, it is a fad, and it pays me to wait until the breaking wave has crashed upon the shore to see if any survive.
I am one of those who stand back from "the bleeding edge of technology".
Last month, you guessed it, two very respected colleagues urged me to join. Coupled with a new prospecting challenge, I joined.
LinkedIn.
Not Facebook, not Twitter, not YouTube. (A nasty rumor circled the internet a month ago that those three were about to merge and become YouTwitFace.com, but I ignored that).
In the past week I've searched names that appear within my prospecting data, with no success; I've had invitations to join a Circle Of friends – I think that's its name – from two people with whom I am already doing business.
And then yesterday I received a reminder from Facebook, of all people, that three invitations from last December, January and July are outstanding.
How did Facebook get a wake-up call?
Is it too late to step back from the brink and quit LinkedIn, or is the damage done?
P.S. Another reason I don't like LinkedIn is that it pops up as a spelling error in my typo-checker; I am reluctant to add it to my dictionary because I will want to type linked in as two words from time to time, especially as I deal with hyper linked documents, training, applications and so on and can't afford to let linkedin slip through the net.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Better Prose

Help turns up in the most unlikely places!
Various marketing blogs provide advice on writing good prose, amongst them http://bly.com/blog/, http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/, http://www.actionplan.blogs.com/, http://www.canadianmarketingblog.com/ and http://www.actionplan.blogs.com/.
"Reduce blah words", "Trim" and so on are words of wisdom scattered about the blogs like discarded metaphors on the cutting-room floor.
Then there are the formal corporate financial statements available through Canada News Wire (http://www.newswire.ca).
Boring, badly-aligned columns of figures by the year, quarter, cash Flow, and sundry other accountant-like gibberish.
But there at the foot of most reports I find paragraphs like this:
· Any statements that express, or involve discussions as to, expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance (often, but not always, through the use of words or phrases such as "will likely result", "are expected to", "will continue", "is anticipated", "estimated", "intend", "plan", "projection", "could", "may", "believes", "feel", "targeting", "look forward", "goals", "objective", "outlook" and similar expressions) are not historical facts and may be forward-looking and may involve estimates, assumptions and uncertainties which could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements.
What a great list of words and phrases with which I can populate my "blah-alert" macro.
A Big "Thank You" to the accountants and lawyers of Corporate Canada!

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Email Underwhelm


We all hear about being overwhelmed with email, but nobody really comes up with a solution.
Here's a solution!

You are looking at the contacts list in my choice of email client (Mozilla Thunderbird, since you ask).
Short, isn't it?
30 names.
How many names in your contact list?
To the nearest hundred?
I thought so.
You don't write emails to more than 30 people.
You THINK you do, but you don't.
You REPLY to more than 30 people a day, more than a hundred people a week, but you issue unsolicited emails to less than 30 people each week.
I promise.
So trim your contact list down to 30 names.
You'll thank me every time you issue an unsolicited email and don't have to spend 30 seconds scrolling through your contacts list, hunting, wondering, …..

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Ethics of the Coin Toss

When faced with an agonizing decision, the easiest way to resolve it is to toss a fair coin. Heads or Tails.
I can't decide whether to stay home and work for five hours on necessary administrative tasks or whether to spend two hours traveling and three hours networking.
Easy Solution:
Toss a coin. Heads I head downtown, tails I turn tail and stay at home.
The coin is tossed.
It comes down … it doesn't matter what it comes down.
You will know immediately what you ought to do by the way you feel about the outcome.
If you feel joyous, then that's what your subconscious is telling you and you are harmonious.
If you feel sad, then that's what your subconscious is telling you and you are wracked with guilt or remorse.
It always works!
Feeling good represents confirmation of deep-seated thoughts.
Feeling bad represents conflict.
Try it next time you are indecisive.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Ethics of the Gut

People ask me "What do you think [I should do]?" when confronted with questions of ethics.
I've done it.
You've done it.
I don't do it any more.
Here's why:
I have recognized that questions of this type are always seeking parental confirmation.
Example:
We are only going to be three minutes in the store/bank/florists/dry cleaners. Do you think it will be alright if we use the spot reserved for handicapped people?
You are asking because you KNOW it is not alright. You KNOW that you are able-bodied and can walk fifty yards from a regular spot.
You ask because you want ME to be the parent and condone the behavior. That is abdication of responsibility.
If anything goes wrong you can point to me and say, "Well, You thought it was OK".
Example:
I could travel downtown and attend a networking seminar this morning – one hour each way and a two hour seminar plus 30 minutes for chatting plus getting dressed etc. Five hours. Minimum.
But there is much else to be done in the office today, and I'm scheduled to meet Norma for a movie at 4:45 this afternoon.
Should I attend the networking event? (Loose translation: is today a good day to goof off for five hours?).
That I ask that question of myself indicates that I am uneasy about attending, and seek any rational excuse, any rational excuse will do, to avoid the meeting.
Deep down I know I must file my taxes, pay the rent, make those phone calls BEFORE I goof off with Norma at the movies.
What is Going on?
I'm not certain of the mechanics of the brain, but I recognize the situation; whenever I find myself asking for approval, I reason that something tells me it is NOT OK to take the action; I am looking for an excuse to take the action. Any excuse will do.
By the way, it's not always easy. Consider this:
Example:
I could spend five hours this morning filing my taxes, paying the rent, making seventeen phone calls BEFORE I goof off with Norma at the movies.
But there is a networking meeting downtown, 'Cold calls", something I need to know, and I am sure to make two or more useful contacts before or after the seminar.
The seminar is a one-time event, once it is gone it won't come again.
I can do my taxes etc late tonight – it's a mechanical process.
Should I stay home and work? (Loose translation: is it smart to lose an opportunity to make useful contacts?).

Monday, September 14, 2009

Your Networking Schedule

Your schedule may not be like mine.
I am bombarded with advice – "meet people" – urging me to climb out of my home office and hit the streets.
Or at least the convention centers.
Here's the good news: there are far too many free seminars and events where you can establish face-to-face serious-conversation contact with like-minded people.
A few of these contacts may result in sales down the road.
Most of them will result in friendships, relationships, and self-help assistance.
I know.
Because it happens to me.
If you haven't yet got a plan, feel free to borrow mine.
Once a month
I visit the web sites of the half-dozen or so organizations that schedule regular seminars and browse their offerings.
Calendar

For each interesting offering, I make an entry in my calendar – a Word-processing document table is all it takes. Each cell holds a date and none, one or more organization names and times:
The hyperlink takes me to the web page for that organization.
Email Signature

I paste the events into my email signature:
EVERY email that I issue contains information of value to the recipient.
Sometimes by reply I get '"See you there!", and can be prepared for more work.
Daily Sheets
For each event I plan to attend, I print a single sheet with the details – address, date, time, speaker etc. – and then clip these together and hang them from my bulletin board.
The top sheet shows the next scheduled event, and can be "torn off" as I swoop out the door.
I take the sheet of paper to remind me of the address and to show to a puzzled concierge.
The sheet also serves as a note-scribbler, recording name sof contacts, who and what they supply.
Diary
I live through my store-bought diary; "If it ain't written down it don't exist!".
Each event gets the time slot braced out, and an acronym that serves to remind me of the organization and location.
Weekly
In preparation for the week ahead, I scan my schedule for networking events, note the location, and contact someone in the vicinity.
Downtown is easy.
If I'm planning to be at City Hall on Thursday, September 03, 2009 between 10 a.m. and noon, I start asking contacts for a meeting for coffee before 10 a.m. or lunch after noon.
If I am persuasive enough, I'll meet a contact before the seminar, make two good contacts during the seminar, and meet a contact after the seminar.
That's four face-to-face contacts for the price of two subway tokens!
Fail-to-Show
Of course some days (September 16th is a good example), there are FOUR events. I might make one in the morning and one in the evening. Or I might go to none.
My schedule is not a contract to the outside world; it is not an appointment book between me and you.
My schedule is a commitment to myself.
By taking half an hour each month to map out a plan, by writing it down, and by printing it out in tangible tokens of duty, I encourage myself to get out of my home office and meet people.
Face-to-face.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Who is Responsible?

Then there's the time you just have to cold-call some organization and try to make your way through switchboard-hell to locate a real person who might understand your call.
You definitely don't want to speak to anyone in HR.
And the CEO isn't prepped to pay any attention to you.
You want to speak to Robert Millings who is in charge of - whatever it is you'd like to promote.
Here's where a few well-chosen "niche" phrases come in handy.
Let's suppose I fancy myself as a go-getter when it comes to getting out-of-control projects back on track.
"Could you please tell me who is responsible for making sure that projects are completed on time?'.
"Could you please tell me who is responsible for making sure that computing projects are completed on time?'.
"Could you please tell me who is responsible for making sure that word-processing documents are up to corporate standards?".
Whatever it is that you do well, whatever reason you have for thinking that this organization will benefit from your knowledge and skills, you want the name of the person most likely to maintain an intelligent conversation at your level.
You won't always get the meeting, sad to relate, but at least you'll have a good idea of why you didn't get the meeting.
And that's better than a brush off with a voice-maul (sic!) to HR.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Two Sorts of Web Pages

The talk today was about web pages for novices.
My web site has two types (or groups) of web pages, each of the two types serves a different purpose, a different audience.
Store Front
First off I have my "Store Front" or "CEO" pages. These are the pages you see when you type in my web domain www.Chrisgreaves.com
Called "Store Front" because they are nice to look at, traditional, and warmly inviting. I hope. There's not a shred of technical stuff there. Nothing that would overwhelm a CEO, a CFO, or even a CIO.
Just plain good stuff; I'm a nice guy, I wear clean clothes, I provide solutions to business problems.
When I hand my business card to a CEO, they will see a nice corporate entity, and will, I hope, be encouraged to hear from me over the next few months.
Technical Stuff
Secondly I have my Technical Stuff, also known as "everything else".
Pretty well everything I write now gets uploaded to my web site. Blogs, training material, white papers, eBooks, applications software, Videos. Everything.
My theory is that a technical person, unlike a CEO, will use a search engine to search the web for a specific topic. They will find one of my pages and see instantly that I know the answer to their question, and they will contact me (or grab the material and remember me, which is almost as good).
Technical people and mid-line managers looking for a solution TODAY want to know that there is a solution available right now. "I see you do document conversion; we have 200,000 Word Perfect documents and I was wondering if …."
Technical people are happy wandering around, exploring, and are not hesitant to email or phone and get right to the point. They find me by a web search.
CEOs move slowly and ponderously and have minions to evaluate the technical aspects.
CEOs need to know only that they can get someone else to contact me and bring me in.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Canada News Wire

I've known of this for a couple of years, but this morning everyone went ooh-ah, so I thought I'd share it here.
[ Disclaimer: I wrote a little program to automate all this stuff, so I'm promoting it as a freebie, if you are interested. It is called Weather-Vain].
Canada News Wire, http://www.newswire.ca, is the source of news for many of Canada's daily papers. That's probably why so many stories are duplicated in content.
Each morning I run a little job that searches through all 250+ stories from yesterday and downloads them as text files to a named folder.
For any news story that satisfied MY criteria, a copy is placed in a separate folder.
Those special copies are then automatically "cleaned up" and turned into word-processing documents.
Every day; at first reboot; automatic; un-attended.
My criteria are:
· Must have at least one of Mississauga/Toronto in the body of text
· Must have at least one of CEO/CFO/CIO in the body of text
· Must have at least one of bank/financial/investment/pharmaceutical in the body of text
· Must have at least one of millions/billions in the body of text
You can see where my interests lie!
Out of 250 to 300 stories each day, I harvest 2 to 4 prospective clients.
Here's the good part: Most stories are ended with a "For more information contact" text, and the name most often given is the CEO of the company.
And the telephone number given is the direct line!
No, I'm not suggesting you call at 10:15 a.m. and say "I'm right by your place; wanna graba coffee?", but you are getting past switchboards and HR departments.
After all, the CEO wants a journalist to get any questions of qualifications handled right on a short deadline, so please call me for the truth.
Right!
What a contact list I have!
Assembled rapidly from the panel of spokesmen at the foot of every critical news item.
Plus I have a good topic of conversation handed to me on a platter.
So Do I Ever Call a CEO?

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Prospecting for a Team

I know that I'm supposed to be prospecting for clients, but I've learned that I also must prospect for a team.
I can't do this by myself; I just don't know enough.
But in some of the networking groups are people who have trodden this path just before me, and other people who will tread my path.
I don't need any $1,000/hour consultants, but I sure can use bits of advice for other people in the same boat.
Just when I think I've got a pretty good deal on training facilities, Cheryl tells me of a place at 1/3 the price!
Just when I think I've got a handle on web design, Jim shows me just how professional I could look.
Just when I thing my applications install and run perfectly, Julia comes along and demonstrates that they don't.
And all these people help me along the way to do a better job with my image, and with selling myself to prospects.
It is a team effort, and we all seem to take turns with knowledge and tips'n'tricks.
I must prospect for a team and surround myself with useful support.
And be prepared to support them.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

24 Hours in a Day

Given that I have to prospect, that is, to identify potential clients, how do I go about it?
All the usual stuff: specify criteria, search for those organizations (on the web, in hard-copy directories, by networking and so on) and once I have identified them, establish contact to build a relationship (telephone, mail, email or whatever), and so it goes.
I was told today to spend 70% of my time prospecting, that from every 100 contacts, 10 might respond, and 1 might lead to a sale; quantities may vary.
But 70% of what time?
I need one day a week, really I do, to go canoeing or to clean the kitchen floor. Or take books back to the library. Also laundry.
At best that leaves six days.
I ought to read in bed or sleep for seven hours, and making breakfast etc occupies at least another three hours. I have to live!
At best I have six 14-hour days to hand, but let us not kid ourselves – there's always the phone call from Bill or Norma, or solving a simple problem drags out to 45 minutes because at the other end they still don't know their way around Office 2007.
Bottom line, when I nut it all out, even using my automated web tools to glean 2 or 3 contacts from 250+ news items on Canada News Wire, I'd be lucky right now to churn out ONE well-built letter per day. By the time I've chosen the candidate, searched the web for more information, created the contact record, decided my primary product for a point-of-entry, drafted the letter, revised it etc, I'll get one prospect a day.
Perhaps when I've been doing it for a couple of months I'll get two a day.
In the meantime I'd do well to remember that each day has but 24 hours, and some are needed for eating, sleeping, and a 30-minute walk.
"70% of my time" starts to sound more like "5 hours".

Monday, September 7, 2009

What Makes Me?

Niche Marketing.
What a funny phrase. Who markets for a niche?
Oh.
I see.
Find your NICHE and then market to/into that niche!
So how do You discover your niche?
Easy!
Look back over the past five years, ten years at most and then answer two simple questions:
· 1) What work made you happy?
· 2) In doing that work, what makes you unique?
Whether working as an independent or working for a company, over the past five years, of all the jobs/projects you were assigned or adopted, which (of the paying!) ones were fun?
Those are the sorts of tasks at which you will probably be happy for the next five years.
Given that others were doing the same sort of project as you (albeit in Tucson AZ or Bismarck ND), why are you different?
· You live alone and start work at 3 a.m.?
· You have a sense of humor?
· Tenacity?
· You are "good with words", a "fast thinker"?
Roughly speaking, your niche is doing what you enjoy doing (and hence do well) for those organizations or individuals who appreciate your unique qualities.
Of all the projects going in this city, those that satisfy me (I love challenging puzzles, solving impossible problems, and working with lively open-minded people) and can use my tenacity and long experience are the jobs I want to get.
I am not interested in mundane repetitive work. I am not interested in by-the-book staff.
I need to look for tasks with which I can mesh my gears.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

So Do I Ever Call a CEO?


Yup!
From my point of view any excuse will do, as long as it is a rational excuse.
I am a prospector, trawling Canada News Wire for leads.
This morning my automated procedure Weather-Vain picked up on an announcement by a gold-mining firm; I read the announcement, trotted off to their web site (as listed in the press release) and received the following screen:

Maybe a real-live reporter got there first, but one of my roles is a technical support guy, so why not call his direct line and leave a short voice mail?
He hears my name at the start and at the end of the message. I bring him something of value, news. Bad news, to be sure, but better he learns about it sooner than later.
And someone should be calling me back Real Soon Now!
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
The CEO called me back. We had a nice chat and established contact.

Friday, September 4, 2009

Needs of Networking Nerds

We meet once a month; a group of like-minded individuals of various grades of aptitude, learning how to get out there and make business.
I'm trying to launch a series of six business training modules, she is trying to find her niche, he is struggling to determine …
And in our month away from the group, we amass acres and acres of information, most of which we won't use.
We arrive at the monthly meeting with a sack full of needs and desires, most of which we won't, or won't be able to communicate to our colleagues.
· A table with 3-inch by 5-inch cards on which we could write, five words or less, what we need RIGHT NOW would serve us well.
Pay your dues, Get your name badge, Wander over to the table and write "Training Facilities Oakville" and your name and phone number.
While you are there, scan the other cards; if nothing else it's a good introduction to another member who must, by definition, be present at the meeting.
· As part of the group's announcements, the secretary reads, quickly, the cards. Should not take more than 30 seconds.
As your card is read, you SAY NOTHING to interrupt the flow, but you DO raise your hand, HIGH, so that anyone who happens to know about "Training Facilities Oakville" can identify "Cheryl Scoffield" at a glance, and pass them a business card later in the meeting.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

I *Hate* These Web Pages


I finally got around to joining LinkedIn, but got as far as their dreadfully awful web page and am considering instead re-heating leftovers from last night's supper at The Montreal Deli.
I *hate* web pages that provide a menu of items, but do NOT offer it in list form.

The image shows the entry screen.
One has to scroll down a humungous list of possibilities one at a time.
LinkedIn does NOT allow me to make use of my eye/brain tool to scan quickly. (Maximize Every Window)
LinkedIn reduces me to the level of a scrolling robot.
Why do firms do this?
It is
· (a) unnecessary
· (b) wasteful of my time
· (c) error-prone (I'm more likely to pick something, anything, just to get ON with the process of registering)
· (d) insulting (to thinkers).
Maybe I'm upset because I haven't eaten .....

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Corporate Or Personal?

Filing some papers this morning I discovered something about myself; more correctly, I discovered something about my attitude towards my business relationships.
I am doing business with many firms, some of them one-man firms.
Jim Maybee of eBusiness Solutions and Julia Wooster of Prime Admin Solutions.
Out with the hanging folders, plastic tabs, slips of paper, and I find myself writing "Jim Maybee" and "Julia Wooster" on the slips, rather than "eBusiness Solutions" and "Prime Admin Solutions".
Why is that?
I know all names well; they are equally accessible to my brain.
I think it is because my view of the world is people-oriented. I think of Jim and Julia as people who are helping me to achieve my goals, rather than as representatives of corporate entities.
So what happens with the larger firms with which I do business?
I know that the name of the firm is ESBE Scientific, but I still think of myself as doing business with Ari Pires.
I am not sure if this is knowledge, and if it is, I am not sure what to do with it (report it!).
I suspect it tells me that my attitude is indeed a warm person-to-person style, and that I am being ME if I maintain slightly-personal relationships with business.
In the long run it is why I feel comfortable greeting and thanking the bus driver, rather than treating them as an employee of the TTC.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

How to Bill Members of Your Networking Groups

I put this forward as a suggestion only.

If your start-up business is still weak and you are worried about next month's rent, PAY THE RENT, don't take action on this – but do make a note to consider following this path when business picks up.

If your business is humming along, then please consider the positive impact on YOUR business that the following strategy might achieve.

I am, often enough, approached by members of my networking groups to perform a bit of computer maintenance, or document recovery and the like. I am known for my technical skills. You might be asked by friends, family and colleagues to create a small graphic in a familiar theme, or to proof-read a resume or a web page.

Your contact honestly want to pay you for your services, and that is good; they recognize that you have a skill that they lack, and that your services are of good value.

You feel a little (but not totally!) uncomfortable about Making Money off someone who improves your marketing efforts, encourages you at networking meetings, invites you over for supper when the pace if frenetic, and so on.

Their value is recognized by you, but it is NOT the mercenary value of their business route.

What to do?

Your contact wants to keep this action professional, as do you, but neither one of you wants to take advantage of the other.

Here's the suggestion:

Agree on the dollar amount, and take 10% of that amount. That's a whopping 90% discount. Let's say that document recovery would take 7 hours and I bill at $110/hour, yielding $770. Ten percent of that is $77. If your contact refuses to quibble and round sit up to $80, let them do that. The ten-percent was an arbitrary ratio anyway.

Then your contact pays you the $80, and you pay that immediately into your networking groups coffers for a cash door-price, guest memberships, or whatever the executive committee decides to do with it. That's not you decision, your decision is to turn it over to the group.

(if your contact is a domestic contact, shoot the money to your favorite charity, animal shelter, etc.).

What happens?

You and your contact have reinforced the value of your services. You really ARE worth $110/hour for what you do, and your contact respects you for delivering $770 of value to them.

You respect your contact and keep their sense of worth intact. Nothing so cheapens a relationship by a patronizing donation. You haven't turned your contact into a begging pauper; you have recognized them as a willing client.

The networking organization, of course, loves you both, and can state that the donation was made by two members (no names are used, of course) thus reinforcing for the organization, and for you all, the value of belonging and taking part.

All in, I can't see a downside to this approach.

We all feel good about paying for and being paid for services without feeling that anyone is taking advantage of anyone.

Our business relationship is worth much more than $693, and we all know it and confirm it this way.