I was on the phone today with someone who described himself as “an executive recruiter”. Being able to often tell a person’s approximate age by how they present and speak on the phone, my guess is this young man was about 8 months removed from his last college keg party. He assured me on the phone “that his company KNOWS sales”.
That was really interesting to me because I don’t have the faintest idea what that means.
I’m not going to blame his lack of experience for making such a preposterous claim. I hear people and companies saying such things all the time.
If someone wants or needs what it is you’re “selling”, they will do so independent of anything you do or say. The sole exception is they believe you to be an utter nincompoop and request someone else to handle the transaction and subsequent account management.
Anything beyond that I will defer to the “keggar kid” whose company know sales.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Follow the Perfume Coyote onTwitbook
Bill Gates hired a guy from the perfume business to head up his marketing back when his fledgling company was called "Micro-Soft" and company-wide meetings could be held in four corner tables of an also fledgling company called Starbucks.
When you know him as well as I do, you called him "Billy" and ol' Billy Gates isn't worth more than the Gross Domestic Product of Portugal because he was rejected as an extra from the film "Sling Blade". He picked a guy from the perfume business because this person understood the psychology of why people want to buy things. And that is the primary reason a company succeeds.
Now for something essentially unrelated:
What was called "New Media" only a couple of years ago is now largely being called Social Media. Similar to the blind rush of creating a business website 15 years ago, companies have thrown money and people at Social Media marketing without the slightest idea on what to expect from it or why anyone with more than 11 brain cells would have any interest it.
An auto parts retailer I drove by today suggested I should "Like" them on Facebook. Really? A furniture company tells me it's a good idea to "follow them on Twitter". I would rather follow The Bugs Bunny Coyote off a cliff. Can someone explain to me why I want to read the inane marketing drivel from a chain sandwich shop or a shipping company in the little free time I have?
The Land of Opportunity also happens to be The Land of Are We Really That Stupid?
To paraphrase the brilliant,deceased Mark Twain, "you can keep your yapper closed and let a few people think you're not with the program or you can open your piehole and remove all doubt".
Mark Twain insists you DON'T follow him on TwainTwit.
When you know him as well as I do, you called him "Billy" and ol' Billy Gates isn't worth more than the Gross Domestic Product of Portugal because he was rejected as an extra from the film "Sling Blade". He picked a guy from the perfume business because this person understood the psychology of why people want to buy things. And that is the primary reason a company succeeds.
Now for something essentially unrelated:
What was called "New Media" only a couple of years ago is now largely being called Social Media. Similar to the blind rush of creating a business website 15 years ago, companies have thrown money and people at Social Media marketing without the slightest idea on what to expect from it or why anyone with more than 11 brain cells would have any interest it.
An auto parts retailer I drove by today suggested I should "Like" them on Facebook. Really? A furniture company tells me it's a good idea to "follow them on Twitter". I would rather follow The Bugs Bunny Coyote off a cliff. Can someone explain to me why I want to read the inane marketing drivel from a chain sandwich shop or a shipping company in the little free time I have?
The Land of Opportunity also happens to be The Land of Are We Really That Stupid?
To paraphrase the brilliant,deceased Mark Twain, "you can keep your yapper closed and let a few people think you're not with the program or you can open your piehole and remove all doubt".
Mark Twain insists you DON'T follow him on TwainTwit.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Funky Cold
Funks- business or otherwise-are inevitable. You're human and the world is a sea of uncertainty..that reality is not in dispute. And as certain as this blue pebble spinning around the Sun, the harder you try to get out of it, the worse it gets.
"When you find yourself going through hell...keep going" was once uttered by a great man who's problems were a helluva lot more intense that virtually anyone alive. Stop trying to change everything and carry on.
Consistent with most of these ebbs is the feeling that you are not enough. That sentiment will be echoed by every touch you have with any form of media. You can be more or you're not enough is a half a trillion dollar industry.
Unplug.
The world as it is vs. the world as it should be. You tear yourself up over this one. The moment you can get over this silent intellectualized battle is the moment you'll notice the ball starting to bounce your way-and when it doesn't- you'll attach no real ong-term importantce to bouncing balls anyway.
You got dealt a helluva good hand.
"When you find yourself going through hell...keep going" was once uttered by a great man who's problems were a helluva lot more intense that virtually anyone alive. Stop trying to change everything and carry on.
Consistent with most of these ebbs is the feeling that you are not enough. That sentiment will be echoed by every touch you have with any form of media. You can be more or you're not enough is a half a trillion dollar industry.
Unplug.
The world as it is vs. the world as it should be. You tear yourself up over this one. The moment you can get over this silent intellectualized battle is the moment you'll notice the ball starting to bounce your way-and when it doesn't- you'll attach no real ong-term importantce to bouncing balls anyway.
You got dealt a helluva good hand.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Both Atlas-and I- Shrugged.
It all evens out; at least that's what I tell myself.
I read all 776,981,442 pages of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged about two years ago for the first time. It got me so fired up that I wanted to land my Taggart Transcontinental helicopter in Harvard Square, find the first Academic Socialist I could find (.09 seconds) and furiously debate them. The problem is-then and still sometimes now-I have a tendency to read other people's ideas and take them as my own.
Not smart.
It's hard sometimes to reconcile a system that pays gazillions to schmucks who do nothing more than move blocks of highly dubious financially engineered capital around while an exceptionally skilled critical care nurse might just get by. Spare me the bullshit that defends or rationalizes the above. I've heard it in 90 different flavors.
The problem, however, with any form of collectivism is it is managed by humans and we are prodigiously flawed. Any form of it has never worked and it never will. All collectivism has ever accomplished is the wholesale slaughter of hundreds of millions.
"..The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.." might be the most brilliant thing ever said about economic systems. Google its author. He said many smart things.
I won the lottery at birth but I don't have the stomach for this world sometimes.
I read all 776,981,442 pages of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged about two years ago for the first time. It got me so fired up that I wanted to land my Taggart Transcontinental helicopter in Harvard Square, find the first Academic Socialist I could find (.09 seconds) and furiously debate them. The problem is-then and still sometimes now-I have a tendency to read other people's ideas and take them as my own.
Not smart.
It's hard sometimes to reconcile a system that pays gazillions to schmucks who do nothing more than move blocks of highly dubious financially engineered capital around while an exceptionally skilled critical care nurse might just get by. Spare me the bullshit that defends or rationalizes the above. I've heard it in 90 different flavors.
The problem, however, with any form of collectivism is it is managed by humans and we are prodigiously flawed. Any form of it has never worked and it never will. All collectivism has ever accomplished is the wholesale slaughter of hundreds of millions.
"..The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.." might be the most brilliant thing ever said about economic systems. Google its author. He said many smart things.
I won the lottery at birth but I don't have the stomach for this world sometimes.
Friday, December 31, 2010
The Teacher
This space is usually reserved for my thoughts on the world of business or an occasional semi-coherent rant about assorted nonsense.
Today I wanted to mention my finest teacher on how to be a decent and better human being.
That teacher is my only child, my eight year old son Sam. Sam has Autism. Sam is verbal and can show affection. For parents whose autistic child can do neither, my heart breaks for you. I'll never know nor feel your special type of sadness.
My son is very different from other children his age. Because of this, Sam does not really have any friends. Though he very occasionally mentions the loneliness this brings , he is a very happy child. He is unflinchingly kind to others, regardless of how others may react to him. He is, literally, incapable of judging others. He is almost entirely unaffected by praise or criticism. His "disability" allows him to live without any regret for the past or fear of the future. He's the ultimate Zen Master, living only in the present. He appears to be incapable of employing guile to trick or misrepresent in any way. His literalness- a trait of all people on the Autistic Spectrum- renders him incapable of baldface lying. (He can fib a bit..though he spills the truth after a few seconds).
Much of what I mentioned above is true for all Autistic people. It's part of the reason why many people close to Autism insist the search for a cure is wrong. I have mixed feelings. I'm scared to death of him one day being alone in this world.
Sam has a VERY hard time doing numerous mental and physical activities that most children his age have either mastered or are becoming quite adept at. I don't know if Sam will ever be able to live what society calls a "normal" life. In some respects, he has a tough road ahead. We're a social species and everything that falls under that realm is exceptionally difficult for him. He does not posses any savant-like abilities so he will need to be interdependent if he is one day to be independent. (Roughly 10% of Autistic people have a savant-like talent. Most people not close to Autism think that number is much higher...not so).
I would be lying if I claimed to never feel self-pity about certain things that will never be part of Sam's life. It doesn't last long, however, because spending just a few moments in Sams' presence morphs that self-pity into boundless gratitude.
Today I wanted to mention my finest teacher on how to be a decent and better human being.
That teacher is my only child, my eight year old son Sam. Sam has Autism. Sam is verbal and can show affection. For parents whose autistic child can do neither, my heart breaks for you. I'll never know nor feel your special type of sadness.
My son is very different from other children his age. Because of this, Sam does not really have any friends. Though he very occasionally mentions the loneliness this brings , he is a very happy child. He is unflinchingly kind to others, regardless of how others may react to him. He is, literally, incapable of judging others. He is almost entirely unaffected by praise or criticism. His "disability" allows him to live without any regret for the past or fear of the future. He's the ultimate Zen Master, living only in the present. He appears to be incapable of employing guile to trick or misrepresent in any way. His literalness- a trait of all people on the Autistic Spectrum- renders him incapable of baldface lying. (He can fib a bit..though he spills the truth after a few seconds).
Much of what I mentioned above is true for all Autistic people. It's part of the reason why many people close to Autism insist the search for a cure is wrong. I have mixed feelings. I'm scared to death of him one day being alone in this world.
Sam has a VERY hard time doing numerous mental and physical activities that most children his age have either mastered or are becoming quite adept at. I don't know if Sam will ever be able to live what society calls a "normal" life. In some respects, he has a tough road ahead. We're a social species and everything that falls under that realm is exceptionally difficult for him. He does not posses any savant-like abilities so he will need to be interdependent if he is one day to be independent. (Roughly 10% of Autistic people have a savant-like talent. Most people not close to Autism think that number is much higher...not so).
I would be lying if I claimed to never feel self-pity about certain things that will never be part of Sam's life. It doesn't last long, however, because spending just a few moments in Sams' presence morphs that self-pity into boundless gratitude.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
You are "this economy"
Wifey sells Real Estate. Her breathren are on verbal AutoLoop, prefacing each dialog with "in this economy!". I tell her, for the love of all that is sacred, PLEASE STOP. Don't listen to them and NEVER internalize what the doom-n-gloomers say ad nauseum.
For those who can remember a couple decades back, many of the A-List musical acts got together to raise money for the world's least fortunate. Many of us remember them singing "We are the World" as part of their efforts. They didn't invent the concept that humanity and soceity are not just the sum of its parts. The world's greatest sages have been explaining this to us for centuries.
The idea that the individual also represents the whole sounds like some esoteric metaphysical gobbleygook....It's not. The world is you and vice versa. You are the economy you speak of.
Instead of whining about "what is" (the economy and/or other unpleasantries), save your lungs and take some form of action. Not only will there be a micro yet measurable effect, you'll feel a helluva lot better.
For those who can remember a couple decades back, many of the A-List musical acts got together to raise money for the world's least fortunate. Many of us remember them singing "We are the World" as part of their efforts. They didn't invent the concept that humanity and soceity are not just the sum of its parts. The world's greatest sages have been explaining this to us for centuries.
The idea that the individual also represents the whole sounds like some esoteric metaphysical gobbleygook....It's not. The world is you and vice versa. You are the economy you speak of.
Instead of whining about "what is" (the economy and/or other unpleasantries), save your lungs and take some form of action. Not only will there be a micro yet measurable effect, you'll feel a helluva lot better.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Barney
People do not like to be interrupted. People doing important or time-sensitive work are especially hostile to interruption.
Think about it. You’ve got the TV remote control in your hand, you’re watching your favorite TV show “Barney the Asinine Purple Dinosaur” and it’s interrupted by some insane man trying to get you to walk into his Chevy Dealership. What do you do? Zap…you change the channel, IMMEDIATELY. Tivo, Comcast’s DVR service and other such services and gadgets are wildly popular for a reason…nobody wants to be bothered by your marketing message. Pop-up/Pop Under windows on The Web…those are a big hit, huh? Can’t get rid of them fast enough. It’s the same with Radio, Print advertisements and all other media. You may find the commercials on Super Bowl Sunday amusing (more on that later), but you tune EVERYTHING else out. The telephone consumer DO NOT CALL list, on its first day of online registration years ago, had tens of millions of people register.
If your job is to find new customers, it has become exponentially harder than it was a generation ago. It’s just the way it is. There are still people out there who could sell insurance dialing from the White Pages but they are incredibly rare (and rich). Why? Because it requires an exceptional talent AND one needs to be BULLETPROOF from constant rejection and even verbal abuse. If you don’t have both and you plan on mindless smiling-and-dialing all day…good luck with that.
There is good news. There are several new ways of reaching people that didn’t exist a generation ago. Of course people seized on some of them in the worst possible fashion and turned what could have been an asset into a hideous liability. (Best example: SPAM). This lack of creative thinking continues in most of the iterations of new media.
(No, Iggy the IT Services Guy…I don’t want to be your friggin’ Facebook “friend”). Good grief.
If you’re one of those rare creative/entertaining types, you can use new AND old media to get a foot in the door. If you’re an expert on a subject important to your prospects, that can be weaved into your approach to the market. There are dozens of ways of combining what is uniquely “you” with all forms of media….and that very much includes the telephone.
Think, people. Think and then act. Think, act, consistently modify and act until enough people find what you do valuable. With persistence and just a sliver of ability, you’ll never worry about money again. And you’ll never again have to interrupt an overworked manager to tell them how INCREDIBLE your company’s stuff is.
Think about it. You’ve got the TV remote control in your hand, you’re watching your favorite TV show “Barney the Asinine Purple Dinosaur” and it’s interrupted by some insane man trying to get you to walk into his Chevy Dealership. What do you do? Zap…you change the channel, IMMEDIATELY. Tivo, Comcast’s DVR service and other such services and gadgets are wildly popular for a reason…nobody wants to be bothered by your marketing message. Pop-up/Pop Under windows on The Web…those are a big hit, huh? Can’t get rid of them fast enough. It’s the same with Radio, Print advertisements and all other media. You may find the commercials on Super Bowl Sunday amusing (more on that later), but you tune EVERYTHING else out. The telephone consumer DO NOT CALL list, on its first day of online registration years ago, had tens of millions of people register.
If your job is to find new customers, it has become exponentially harder than it was a generation ago. It’s just the way it is. There are still people out there who could sell insurance dialing from the White Pages but they are incredibly rare (and rich). Why? Because it requires an exceptional talent AND one needs to be BULLETPROOF from constant rejection and even verbal abuse. If you don’t have both and you plan on mindless smiling-and-dialing all day…good luck with that.
There is good news. There are several new ways of reaching people that didn’t exist a generation ago. Of course people seized on some of them in the worst possible fashion and turned what could have been an asset into a hideous liability. (Best example: SPAM). This lack of creative thinking continues in most of the iterations of new media.
(No, Iggy the IT Services Guy…I don’t want to be your friggin’ Facebook “friend”). Good grief.
If you’re one of those rare creative/entertaining types, you can use new AND old media to get a foot in the door. If you’re an expert on a subject important to your prospects, that can be weaved into your approach to the market. There are dozens of ways of combining what is uniquely “you” with all forms of media….and that very much includes the telephone.
Think, people. Think and then act. Think, act, consistently modify and act until enough people find what you do valuable. With persistence and just a sliver of ability, you’ll never worry about money again. And you’ll never again have to interrupt an overworked manager to tell them how INCREDIBLE your company’s stuff is.
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