Leadership - Off the Wall

Here's a thought-provoking guest post from Paul Thornton, a regular guest writer for Great Leadership. 

As a leader, what should the sign on your wall or desk say?

W. Clement Stone began as a shoeshine boy and became a multimillionaire. He credits his success to three words: Do It Now. He required everyone who worked for him to write those words on index cards and post them in their work area.

Over the past twenty years I have collected and analyzed many of the quotes leaders post on their office walls or keep on their desks. Many of these quotes are the guiding principle they followed to achieve success. Here are my top 15.

1. “It can be done!” —Sign President Ronald Reagan kept on his desk in the Oval Office.

Leaders are optimistic, upbeat, and positive. Reagan was known for his optimism and the ability to express ideas in a clear, eloquent, and quotable fashion.

2. “No Whining” —Sign on the desk of James Parker, former CEO, Southwest Airlines.

Victims wine and blame others. Leaders may get discouraged on occasion but never play the victim role.

3. Bill Gates had a picture of Henry Ford in his office. It was there as a reminder to not do what Ford did. Ford didn’t listen to his customers. He knew his customers wanted the option to buy cars painted other colors besides black. This “fatal attitude” caused him to lose market share to upstart General Motors.

4. “The Buck Starts Here!” —Sign on the desk of Donald Trump.

Leaders see opportunity and take action. Non-leaders only see the status quo and sit still.

5. "Be brief. Be Brilliant. Be Gone." —Former sign on the office wall of Mark Goodman, CEO, Twist Image.

Leaders who are clear and concise are more credible and more brilliant.

6. “Start Talking and Get to Work” —Sign in the office of Alden Davis, former Business Effectiveness Consultant, Pratt & Whitney Division of United Technologies Corporation.

Leaders spend a significant amount of time talking and listening. Advocating, proposing, nudging, selling, questioning, listening, probing and digging are what leaders do.

7. "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." —Antoine de Saint-Exupery”—Sign above the desk of Michael S. Hyatt, CEO, Thomas Nelson Publishers.

Michael states, "Leaders remove the clutter so their big ideas stand out."

8. Hatim Tyabji, former chairman and CEO of VeriFone, Inc. —On his office wall there was a poster that consisted of twelve blocks, each with a photo of an Irish setter. The first 11 blocks show the dog standing, not responding to a command to "sit." Finally, in block twelve, the Irish setter sits. "Good dog," reads the poster.

Hatim states, "That is the essence of leadership. I can't get disillusioned when I say 'sit' and nobody sits. So I just keep repeating the message. Leaders must be clear, consistent, and repetitive. Keep repeating the message until it sticks.”

9. “Be Realistic, Demand the Impossible” —Sign in the office of T. J. Rodgers, founder and CEO of Cypress Semiconductor.

Leaders are demanding! They expect more than others think is possible. Leaders believe most people have underutilized talents and abilities.

10. Strive for Excellence. Signed photographs of Frank Sinatra, Mohammad Ali, Albert Pujols, Ted Turner, and Donald Trump are on the office wall of Jim Stovall.

Jim is president, Narrative Television Network and author of The Ultimate Gift.

Jim states, “These are people who I’ve worked with and respect. They remind me to always strive for excellence.”

11. “A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.” John le Carré  —Sign in the office of Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., former CEO of IBM.

Seeing the problem, touching the part, talking directly with employees and customers provides a reality you don’t get sitting in your office. We want to see our leaders directly involved in the problem like Louisiana Governor Bobby Gindal has been involved in the Gulf Oil Crisis.

12. “Prove Your Groove.” —Sign on the office wall of Peter H. Reynolds CEO/Owner, FableVision Enterprises.

Peter states, “It means don’t just say it—do it. Show us your passion in action. Leaders use the media, storytelling, and technology to foster the development of each person’s potential.”

13. “Just because it worked once, doesn’t mean it will work again!” —Sign on the desk of Shaun Coffey, CEO, Industrial Research Ltd., New Zealand.

Shaun states, “Every situation is different, and this is particularly so when dealing with change. People are different, and people change. An intervention that has been spectacularly successful may not work in a new situation. It may not even work in the same company/organization again because the people will have changed as a result of the experience. Keep changing your tactics, staying aware of how people are responding. Attack from different angles. Look for signs that something isn’t working, and try something else—don’t get stuck in your ways.”

14. "The time is always right to do what is right." Martin Luther King Jr. —Sign on the office wall of Michael Jansma, President GEMaffair.com.

Leaders consistently stand up for their values and beliefs. It’s not a once in awhile thing.

15. “Leaders should be able to Stand Alone, Take the Heat, Bear the Pain, Tell the Truth, and Do What's Right" Max DePree —Sign in the office of Brian Morehouse, coach of women’s basketball at Hope College, 2006 Division III National Champions.

Brian states, “That quote covers everything a leader needs to do as they approach their day in terms of courage, integrity, focus, and perseverance. And, it closely meshes with my coaching philosophy which is –Do the right thing every day, every play, on and off the court!”

Summary

Leaders have a positive, can-do attitude. They are optimistic and believe there is hidden talent in each person. Their enthusiasm creates energy and excitement. Leaders may get down from time to time but they never play the victim role. They take responsibility. They are confident in themselves and the people around them. Many of the office wall quotes I have found relate to one or more of the following themes:

 Attitude

 Communicating Big Ideas

 Changing the Status Quo

 Setting Goals—the Steps of Change

 Confronting Problems—Making Decisions

 Taking Action—Making it Happen

 Living Your Values

What are your guiding principles? How about posting them on your office wall. Periodically take time to think about how well you are applying your leadership principles. Solicit feedback from people you trust. Keep improving.

About the Author

Paul B. Thornton is an author, and trainer. He is the author of numerous articles and 13 books on management and leadership. This article is based on his latest book, Leadership - Off the Wall published by WestBow Press a division of Thomas Nelson Publishing. His book is available at Amazon and from the publisher 1-866-928-1240.

Qualifications of an Efficient Data Acquisition Executive

Since we're in the business of generating leads, it shouldn't come as a surprise that we talk about the people who look and verify contacts. Data research and entry might seem mundane but when you have to handle searching, verifying and checking thousands of contacts on a deadline, it can be quite a complicated task, especially when you have to consolidate and double-check your data.

Someone asked what should be the parameters of an Industry Data Acquisition Executive. For a layman's term, that would be someone who does industry data research & encodes them correctly. Aside from having above average computer skills and expertise in using spreadsheet programs, such as Microsoft Excel, it wouldn't hurt if they also have the following qualifications:

1. Internet mavericks

Anyone can use the internet, but not anyone know how to use it efficiently. For a data researcher, knowing the right tools, the neat tricks in fast tracking and quickly getting data from the internet would make the job easier. It combines the knowledge of knowing what tools to use, where to go searching and what keywords to punch in. Google is only the first step in searching data and if an applicant knows about business online directories and more, you can bet they'll quite effective for the job

2. Quick eye, fast fingers

You can't have someone who can only give you 10 quality inputs in an 8-hour period. You'd want someone who can quickly search data and is quite nimble with the keyboard. Those who also know the shortcuts, who can type without looking at the keyboard and who can easily track the needed data at a quick scan would be great for the job as well.

3. Focused & Accurate

Its quite easy to get sidetracked on your goal when you're surfing the internet, looking for quality data, so having the focus and concentrating long and hard is also a requirement for data researchers. One who can get the job done at the shortest time possible would be an advantage for the company. Data research also needs to have a high accuracy rate so that factor along with keeping focus on the job is also a must.

4. Cheerful & Positive

Data acquisition can be quite a tedious task but when when you've got someone who knows how to take the task seriously and when to deliver the right punchline, that would be helpful to lower down everyone's stress-level. They don't necessarily have to be natural jokers nor are they required to be serious all the time, they just have to get the right mix of both.

Acquiring quality data will require getting quality data researchers as well so keep in mind the mentioned traits and you'll be able to find someone who can handle the job more than you expect.

What do you think are the other quality traits a data researcher must have? Share your thoughts by commenting below.

The Social Media Cheat Sheet

From Drew McLellan

Pre-approach & Dating: Why it Matters

Pre-approach is thorough research done to become more familiar with your prospects. It's necessary to obtain information about them beforehand to increase chances of closing a sale and gaining a new customer. 

Think of it as the dates and the "research" one has done before a marriage. They've either looked up the potential partner online (facebook, myspace, digg, etc), asked common friends then tested the waters. That way, you'll more prepared for the encounter, know what jokes to deliver, what turns on your particular date, especially if you want to get serious with them.

Pre-approach is exactly like that. It also shows your respect and consideration for your prospects by knowing their full names and how to address them, how to plan out your presentation for them, knowing their quirks and their nuances.

Pre-approach helps in qualifying prospects. It saves you from wasting yours and your prospect's time. Suppose you've already finished a sales presentation with someone and who seems willing and able to help you out, only to find that they are not the actual decision makers? Any response where you'd express the desire to meet the decision maker may not be taken well by the person and would show your lack of preparation. Suppose you found out at the end of your date, he/she is a close relative? Now that would be really uncomfortable.

Pre-approach also gives you some essential background on how the prospect might respond. Knowing beforehand how to communicate with them will give you the upper hand. Some might see the need for your product but are just too busy to spend time listening to you. Others might be willing to talk but are not really the customers you're looking for. The most challenging types are those who haven't identified their needs yet and also keeps slamming the door at you. So determining how to handle and how to communicate your message regarding your prospect's needs would really be an advantage. Apply that knowledge as well in dating and you'd be able to widen your circle and get to know more potential partners.

Pre-approach also provides a way to easily relate to your prospects. You might share an interest with them, have read the same book, are rooting for the same basketball team. Use that as an opener, pique their interest by genuinely sharing those similar topics, create that small talk.Connect with them as casually as possible. They'll be more open and more willing to listen to you once you've gained a bit of their respect & trust. And that also includes dating.

Blind dates might be fun but for a professional activity, particularly for a sales prospect, that could be a real turn-off. So pre-approach, date around, do your homework and know your prospect.

No one can resist the The Boy Who Lived

Not even us. We have our quirks too. And apparently, Dobby has been a trending topic for the last few days on Twitter.



Who has already watched it? Raise your hands or better yet, post a comment on how much you enjoyed the film. I know I did. :)

What B2C and B2B Marketers Can Learn from Each Other

An interesting article from Janet Jessen of Garlock Sealing Technologies

For a preview:
"Notwithstanding a much-heralded convergence of business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) marketing techniques, significant differences remain. Those most frequently cited (which I can confirm from working in both worlds) have to do with the nature of the products and services offered, target markets, purchasing processes, sales cycles, branding, and communications."


Read more here. 

Have that Entrepreneurial Spirit

It's quite easy to become an entrepreneur nowadays, especially with the proliferation of social media, giving us thousands of ingenious ways to connect with the market. But what's hard is sustaining that entrepreneurial spirit, one of the most important factor in getting successful in a business.

I know some friends who've started businesses on their own. All of them are not yet in their 30's, worked for several years in industries that somehow, fueled their desire to start their own company. But not all succeeded in retaining their businesses. A few closed down because of small profits, some didn't handle employees well while the others simply got tired of being a boss and at the same time, an employee.

However, someone managed to make it in the business. She said it probably was in here genes because their family had a business too or she knew all along she was never meant to become an employee. Either way, being an entrepreneur was her calling and she was able to snag one of the top pharmaceutical companies in the country as a regular customer. Her job before in an advertising agency feed that desire to become successful in her own design studio and that made her a remarkable entrepreneur who wears multiple caps; salesman/ copywriter/ graphic designer.

What made her successful in her endeavors? Here are just a few lessons I've learned:

1. Have passion.

When everything is leading to an awful result and quitting seems to be the only option, your passion will save your face, your ego and your business. Having passion in what you do will help you get over obstacles. Assuming you love what you're doing so much, you'll be able to do anything for it to become a success. 

Profits gained will just be a plus compared to the knowledge that you are able to do something you love everyday. It won't even feel like you're working at all.

2. Meet people and love meeting people.

Any business won't be successful without its customers. And any business will suffer if they fail to love, even like their customers. So being a great salesman also counts when creating a start-up company. Enjoy the opportunity to meet a potential client, talk to someone, be enthusiastic around people and genuinely listen to them and enjoy their company. 

If you're not really the social type, then start practicing. Attend a few business meet-ups with friends and start having small talks with strangers. You'll eventually get the hang of it and once you focus on your business goals, you'd start clamoring to meet new people.

And last, but not the least:

Sustaining a start-up also means undergoing your own business training. So with every successful bidding, every lost account, every met sales goal and every loss of your company, learn something from it. Experience is the greatest teacher anyone can ever have.

Update yourself on the latest tools and business trends as well. Learn what the customer are saying, know what to anticipate when hiring employees, read books on managing finances wisely, join organizations where you'd meet and learn from other entrepreneurs. Learning never stops in school so pick up something from everything that you encounter in life.

Having your own business won't be easy and at the start, you'll probably experience more hardships  compared when you were just a regular employee. The days would be long, the phones won't be ringing at first and the money won't be pouring in. Be tenacious, be persistently clever and arm yourself with relevant information and most importantly, have passion for what you're doing and you'll eventually become a successful entrepreneur.

Create a Business Model first before your Company

An interesting presentation on how a business model makes or breaks start-ups.

An intricate process presented in the simplest way possible.

Ikea on Facebook: You Tag It, You Get It

There's nothing more refreshing than seeing a campaign using available, simple tools and succeed in marketing its product. Take the case of Ikea for example.



You tag it, you get it.
How cool is that? I wish they'd have that here in Singapore. :)

Finding New Prospects Online

Prospecting is crucial to any business as it further increases your chances of making a sale or at least making it known to your target that you have something to sell. It might seem easy especially with today's technology but knowing where to quickly locate new, quality prospects would give you an upper hand among your peers.

Using the internet is probably the most popular if not the easiest method. But where exactly do you start? Here are a couple of ways to start finding those prospects:

1. Linked-in

There are thousands of individuals & companies from around the globe in this professional network. You can easily connect with someone by joining a group & its discussions. Searching for a specific individual is narrowed down by selections such as designation, location, industry, years of experience & more. 

You can follow your prospects activities once they've added you in their network. You might find your prospect posting a message in a similar group, asking for assistance or more information about a product or service and you might be the one that they are looking for. You can also directly message anyone in your group or network. Either way, you can connect with them easily on a professional level.

Think of it as Facebook but more for business activities.

2. Facebook

Although networking here might be more casual than Linked-in, still you'll never know if your market is out there until you start searching. They could be friends of friends. They could have liked a relevant Facebook groups/pages. Either way, someone is bound to discover your services.

3. Twitter

Look for groups or individuals by interest (entertainment, business, art, technology, etc). You can also type in a particular hashtag, which categorizes or "tags" twitted topics. Find people with such tags and look at their profile. It might a potential prospect who might also be connected to other prospects in the future.

4. Discussion Forums

Find a suitable forum where there a lot of useful content related to your business and try having a discussion with it's members. 

If you aren't familiar on how to join online discussion forums, try "lurking" around. And by lurking, I mean just observe first. Don't jump in if you're still not sure how it works. Just read the topics and how the discussion goes first, get a feel of the forum environment. Then if you're really itching to discuss something, introduce yourself first and dive in.

4. Publications

Industry leaders who have blogs, newspapers, journals and any written publication online will also have more followers that could be commenting on those articles. Try to see who seems to be the most active commentator, check out their profile and gauge if they can be a potential prospect. If not, maybe they'd know someone who's in need of your product so don't ignore them just yet. 

Communicate with them through commenting in the said online article. If you think you're already comfortable talking online, message them personally. You never know what their response might be until you do so.

5. B2B Contact Database

Dozens of companies offer a customized way of getting massive leads. But what if you could just easily select and download those contacts, without having to go through the long process of negotiating and getting data? Try an online contact database. Download a few contacts and see if they are that really accurate. If you've gotten a 95% accuracy rate, that probably means that the database is consistent in delivering accurate, validated contacts. Start picking & getting contacts would be as easy as 1-2-3.

There are a lot of ways to look for prospects; trade shows, phone/building directories, referrals, community organizations and such. The internet though, is an easier method and social media is also a great help in reaching out to those prospects.

Hilarious/ Horrifying Interview Stories

I'd just like to share a few amusing stories I got from a Linked-In group, Recruitment Consultants & Staffing Professionals. (Please join that group, very insightful and very helpful, especially if you're in the recruitment business.

Anyway, the stories are quite funny so I suggest you go ahead and join that group. But if you don't have a Linked-In Account, here are a few of the "horror" stories:

________________________________________________________________________

I've worked in recruitment for a long, long time and have seen some funny ones. I think one that sticks in the memory was the foreign chap who'd been coached by his friend on what to say in the hope that we wouldn't realise that he couldn't speak any English.

The conversation went something like:
 

Consultant: Hi - How can I help you
 

Applicant:  I'm looking for a job.
 

Consultant:  Ok - where abouts do you live?

A: I live in Portsmouth

C: What sort of work are you looking for?

A: Want Job

C: I see - what sort of work have you done before?

A: Job

C: Any particular sort of job?

A: Job. (nodding)

C: How long have you been in the UK?

A: Job

________________________________________________________________________

The oddest one that I have had in my many years was a gentleman that was interviewing for a financial IT job. There was a very limited pool of candidates but after weeks of searching, I found this gentleman with the right skills. I had him into my office to interview prior to submitting him to the client. He sat down and immediately his arms went out at a 90 degree angle (like an airplane) and stayed that way for most of the interview (once in a while he would reset). He was everything that the client wanted, what to do? Sufficed to say, I called the client and explained the unique nature of this candidate and the client agreed to interview. He did the same thing at the client interview. He got the job, but they put him in a small office instead of a cubicle for a little more privacy. 

________________________________________________________________________

A good candidate was interviewed by two client executives.
After the interview he told me he had let me down because the interview went really badly; he had a tough time staying focused on answering the interview questions.
When pressed as to why he told me that about five minutes into the interview one of the interviewers leaned back in his chair and fell asleep. He spent the rest of the interview worrying about how he could wake up one (sleeping) interviewer while staying focused on answering questions from the other (awake) interviewer.
He didn't get the job. We recruitment consultants have to keep our sense of humour. 

________________________________________________________________________

(this one is really horrifying..good thing she had the presence of mind to use her recruitment skills..)

I had an horror interview with a beggar...He simply had entered my office, the security didn't see anything, as they were focused in other issues, therefore I had to deal with a very choleric 2 meters tall and strong beggar that was shouting to me: "I'm gonna burn your office down, I'm gonna kill you right now if you do not hire me!" and he was all over my desk, so that I had to push my chair back to the wall, while calling security. Security was busy talking on the phone, so I said:"Ok, Adina, now is the moment for you to survive or ... to die!". I was at the beginning of my HR career, so I had to use my entire human communication skills in order to make the candidate calm down. I do not remember what I have said, there was a long discussion between us, while my eyes were looking for some knives he promissed to use, and my mouth was saiyng words he wanted to hear, such as: "you are a good person", "you are a wise person", "it is very good tha you are looking for a job and want to work", "here are not many people that really want to work these days sch you are", ect. In he end, he start to listen and finally my words went directly into his heart. Still, he wanted to make sure that I AM afraid of him, so he left the office, shouting: "I'm going to burn this company down".
Security came later and found me pale, but happy to be alive. 

________________________________________________________________________

This is not an "interview" horror story, but a direct quote posted by someone looking for a job:

"I have absolutely no ethical boundaries and am willing to do anything. I don't believe in god, so that opens up a lot of possibilities right there. Need someone to put down adorable puppies? I'm your man. Want to break up with your significant other but can't find the guts? I will do that for you too. . ."  

________________________________________________________________________

Many years ago I used to work in 'New Deal', the UK jobcentre's answer to the chronic unemployable. After more than three years of unemployment, jobseekers move to 'New Deal'.

I once interviewed a jobseeker who informed me that he was taking 9 ml of methadone every day.

Another jobseeker wanted to know if we offered any training for her to become an actress.  

________________________________________________________________________

Not an interview horror story but pretty good. I got this email from my consultant whom after several weeks of work disappeared and didn't answer phone calls or emails:

Sorry I have disappeared on ya, but it's for my own safety. I have been receiving threats from various levels of the local police dept. due to an argument my roommate and I got into. He has a friend who is a cop so I am being bullied into disappearing. I am unable to get any of my belongings from my apartmet; and if I return, I will be arrested or "worse". I am completely homeless with only what I have on my back. I have basically run away to a city where nobody can find me and am hiding out until it clears, if ever. I was so excited to be working with *client*, and pictured myself with them for a long time to come. 1 week later I am basically a drifter looking over his shoulder. I did work 32 hours last week, but am still unable to sign in and enter it. Anything you can do to help me get paid would be enormously appreciated. I'm sorry about all of this, but I'm not going to sit around and wait for some corrupt cops to handle business their way. I will get an address for you to mail the check to as soon as I can. I am not using my phone in case they are searching for me. 

________________________________________________________________________

I had a candidate interviewed by a restaurant chain. When they asked him what counties he had lived in prior to doing a criminal background check, Bill told them they wouldn't find any record of him as Bill, but if they checked Nancy(same last name) that he/she would get a clean report. It seemed Nancy has decided she was a man trapped in a woman's body, and changed her gender. 

________________________________________________________________________

I bet there are a lot of anecdotes about the recruitment industry, what are yours?  :)

Marketing Sherpa B2B Marketing Summit 2010

An interesting presentation on B2B Marketing

View the pdf presentation here.

Stop Hesitating and Start Prospecting

Sales prospecting is considered an important yet a dreaded, fearful task. The lack of knowledge in effective prospecting often leads to a variety of invented fears (fear of cold calling, fear of rejection, fear of wasting yours & the prospect's time). It can be quite a frustrating process, especially if you're just starting out in the sales industry but for the pros, looking for prospects is a fun yet challenging task.

Without proper know-hows on prospecting, you might view it as a burden rather than a helpful task. But how would you sell if you have no buyers, not even a prospect? So consider first how to overcome those prospecting reluctance:

1. Believe in the power of prospecting.
Yes, again, its all about the attitude. If you believe prospecting will never work and that you'd just be wasting your time, then a sales profession might not the be right one for you.

If you're eager to sell, you must be also eager to prospect. Psyche yourself up, give yourself a little pep talk everyday, make it a daily affirmation. You don't have to necessarily tell yourself that you love prospecting but it would really help if you do. "Fake it till you make it" or in this case think about it as a "need/want" until it becomes a habit.

2. Stop making excuses.
It will lead you to nowhere. If you find yourself thinking of something that would prevent you from even starting prospecting, stop immediately that trail of thought. Stop rationalizing those excuses and just start prospecting. Just plunge in. Just do it.

3. Set a goal and push yourself towards achieving it.
Have you ever been late to an important meeting? Think of those things that you had to do in order to arrive on time. Think of the urgency, the need to do it because you have to; skipping breakfast, driving like a maniac, running like someone is after you, pausing for a few seconds to fix yourself while inhaling one deep breath and telling yourself that you can do this, you're the man, you're the best and so on and so forth then slowly calming your nerves and smiling while walking to your important meeting.

That's how your goal for prospecting should be like. If you're just starting out, set a manageable goal for the week. How may contacts SHOULD YOU, NOT CAN, make in a week? How may contacts SHOULD YOU, NOT CAN, get in a day? Get a calendar and cross out the dates every time you meet your goal. Put that calendar in a place where you can easily see it. You'd be surprise at your progress and at the number of prospects you've made at the end of the month. If you're feeling already the weariness or prospecting taking its tolls, stop for a bit and tell yourself  "I can do this, I am the master of my own universe.." and other similar affirmations that would psyche you up. Think & say every inspiring thought that comes to mind. Get a coffee, listen to an upbeat music, relax for a while, do everything you can to not stop prospecting, even for day.

Prospecting at first, would not an enjoyable experience, especially if you have no idea how to do it. But once you've learned the basics, applied that and you do it on an everyday basis, you'd eventually get the hang of it to the point of even making it into a habit. Eventually you'd feel incomplete when you haven't done even a single prospecting for a day and you'd actually look forward to doing it, everyday.

So just do it. Start prospecting right now!

The Importance of having the Right Attitude in Life (Especially in Selling)

Attitudes counts a lot, especially when you're in the sales industry. You might have read every single book about sales techniques, learned by heart the effective negotiation tips, constantly following up on your customers, but if you lack the right mental attitude, you'd still get frustrated about reaching your sales goal.

Getting in the right state of mind is the the most important element to succeed in the sales business. Anybody can get there, you just have to believe you can do it and practice these simple steps:

1. Be and stay positive.

Find a reason to be positive. Try seeing the brighter side of things. You might have been presenting and engaging a customer for weeks on end, without seeing some results but look at it this way; at least you can polish your presentation skills. 

Avoid negative people, those who belittle and mock your ambition. Try to read inspirational quotes or books on a daily basis, watch & listen to materials that would uplift your spirit.

2. Fear nothing.

Aside from death that is. 

"Nothing in life is to be feared.  It is only to be understood."  ~Marie Curie

Fear of cold calling, fear of rejection, fear of presenting..there are a lot of fears that might have been existing in your psyche. But if you try to understand the reason behind those fears, you'll be able to overcome those. Say, you dread cold calling. Identify & list down the reasons why you hate it. It could be because you don't know what to say, you don't have a script, you haven't practiced your script and all kinds of things that will sound like lame excuses. 

The best way to overcome it is phrased used by one of the famous brand in the world, "Just Do It." Just plunge it, do it and you'll realize how silly your fears were in the first place.

3. Be and stay committed. 

You don't bail out at the first sign of trouble. You work things out, you do everything in your power to make it work. That trait makes a mediocre man vastly superior to someone who has immense talent, smarts, looks & finances. 

Consider Thomas Edison. As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, "How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?" Edison replied, "I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps." Now that's commitment. The hardcore way.

4. Follow the Golden Rule

"Do unto others what you want others to do unto you."

Put yourself in other people's shoes, in your customer's shoes particularly. Try to see their way, if you were in their position, what would you do, how would you react? Focus on treating other people the way you also want to be treated. That way, you'd eventually get their trust and form a genuine relationship, maybe even becoming friends.

5. Have a passion for selling.

Always think of how you can improve in sales and what can you provide more to your customers instead of thinking of the quota or other financial aspects. The money won't come rolling in unless the customers come.

 

One can be apt in the art of communicating, selling, persuading, negotiating and other related sales-skill but having the right attitude will make you a winner in the sales industry.

Cleaning messy data using Google Refine

Wow, quite a promising, extremely useful tool, especially if you have loads of inconsistent & messy data. I haven't really tested it out but based on its video, I'd think lots of data researchers would find this really, really helpful.

Watch.




Interesting, right? :)

Finding Leads in Southeast Asia

TheNewLead Way

CRM Data Cleaning, the painless way

I've once heard of a sales employee who was working for a call center company, bragging about how she just surfs the net all day, occasionally chatting with colleagues while at work. Her technique was she'd pretend to contact leads (which are mostly outdated) for the whole day and present only half of her quota, complaining that the leads were inaccurate and how it was hard to sell to people she'd already called 5 times a week.

Sounds familiar? 

One thing to stop hearing excuses like that is through CRM Data Cleaning. The other one would be to hire more efficient & hardworking employees but that's a different story. Bad data within your CRM system can drastically reduce the effectiveness of an organization's sales & marketing efforts. Erroneous data often includes:

1. Duplicate companies/ contacts

2. Incorrect/outdated information of addresses, phone nos, designations,business email addresses, etc.

3. Incomplete information  

These inaccurate data often creates conflict within an organization, is considered as a wasted investment and are underutilized and as you've read above, abused by most employees. 

However CRM Data Cleaning is not that simple and would require an enormous amount of time, money & effort, not to mention manpower. Basic steps to focus on would be the following:

1. Reducing multiple records

Analyze carefully the data and look for similarities & connections through the power of effective research & common sense. Pay attention to postal codes, addresses, email domains and even spellings.

2. Manual power

Automated technology offers a huge help in data cleaning but your own employees, people, still plays the most essential role in data cleanup. Technology will sometimes fail and when it does, the "humans" would be there to fix things up.

3. Unified communication

Reduce redundancy. Keep things simple, consistent & cooperate with one another as clearly as possible regarding organizational efforts. Distributing different work to different employees would be a great example.

4. Make it a Habit

Ensure that data cleaning would always stay on everyone's list of things to do. Practice it, preach it, be as diligent as possible and your efforts would not be wasted.

If however, CRM Data cleaning seems a lot of work, we do offer the following services:

• De-dup data and merge duplicated records based on clearly defined business rules.
• Remove garbage data to reduce time wasted by your staff
• Standardize and clean up addresses, phone numbers, and other existing data
• Add new emails, phone numbers, and titles to your contact database
• Add detailed company data such as assets, revenues, employees, and addresses
• Identify parent-subsidiary relationship

While we're doing these things, we're also focusing on continually growing our B2B database, www.thenewlead.com by adding 2,000 contacts every week and updating, verifying & tracking erroneous data.

Think of CRM Data Cleaning in the most compelling, low cost, painless & fastest way ever.

For more information, please visit our website, www.thenewlead.com or you can also call our sales hotline: 62229970

What is Rockmelt?

Ever heard of a web browser that can pretty much sum up your social media life in one neat package?

Introducing Rockmelt.



It's not officially out in the market but I'd gather everyone would be looking out for it, especially those working in the social media field. Its pretty cool, quite an innovative, exciting concept. And it looks pretty sweet too, the user interface is top-notched, well according to that nice video.

Check out their site at http://www.rockmelt.com/

Look for Passive Job Seekers, fast & easy

Passive job seekers in general

Recruiting passive job seekers can be quite a challenge but essentially yields the most rewarding result for they usually encompass employees who are fulfilled & would be considered highly successful in their careers. These so-called candidates don’t even post their CVs online, has a record for excellence & career-longevity, are highly-motivated by doing a great job as oppose to earning incentives and would be considered the best talents to hire.

Active seeker comparison

Compared to active job seekers, they are hard to reach and harder to negotiate with. They might be open to new opportunities but unless the “other" pasture is greener & your business is generating high-growth opportunities, one would have to devote more time and effort in wooing a passive job seeker. So why hire them?

Why go for passive job seekers

If you are keen in looking for someone to fill in a highly demanding, highly specialized position and you’re willing to wait, select & catch the best candidate for the job, a passive job seeker is your best bet. In the long run, they’d definitely be worth it.

Initial Challenge

But finding them would be hard. It would be rare to see their updated CVs posted in jobsites and they might be too busy to frequent and actively join online communities. Probably one of the best way to contact them is by referral which isn’t easy to come by. Another is by using an online B2B contact database, like www.thenewlead.com

What is www.thenewlead.com?

TheNewLead is an online contact database of hard-to-reach decision makers, who conveniently & eminently are your passive job seekers. Our extensive database carries over 150,000 complete contact records of varying professional levels; C-level, VP-level, Managerial & Directorial Level. These contacts can be found in different parts of South East Asia and in other countries such as India, Brunei & Hong Kong.

By complete contact database, we mean complete contact information that includes the following:

1. Full name of contact

2. Job title

3. Business email

4. Direct phone no.

5. Main phone no.

6. Full name of current company

7. Business address

We also offer tools that allow you to plan & manage your weekly & monthly sales and marketing-related campaign. In this case, your recruit-that-damn-passive-job-seeker campaign.

Benefits

Thenewlead offers a compellingly low-cost solution that allows you to seek & reach passive job seekers who mostly, turn out to be the decision makers. Our directory allows you to target and contact these individuals in the quickies, easiest way possible. No more blind requests to social networking sites, no more extensive researches to be done, no more scouring for personal references. All you have to do is register at our website, search & view your selected candidates and contact and woo them immediately. That fast, that easy.

We also offer a customized data request which allows you to access highly specialized list of decision makers, that are not available within the database, but is a must have for you. You just provide the list of target accounts or the criterion for building the required target account list and we’ll take care of the rest.

For more information, head over to our website at www.thenewlead.com. You can also call our Singapore sales hotline at 62229970

Manage and Share your Contacts Online

I came upon this small business community forum wherein a a member is asking if anyone is using an online (preferably free or low cost) contact manager. He wants to store all his contacts online so his business partner & colleagues can access & update their contacts anytime they want.

It's quite amusing to read something that we're already producing as of the moment. Actually, we already have that in our site, www.thenewlead.com. But we're just making it better in the newly revamped site which we'll hopefully be able to launch before the year ends. Why redesign the whole website? You'll see.

In the current website, just submit your contacts and you'd be given points for the the accurate & valid ones. Once your contacts have already been approved, you'll be able to check them in the Contact Library >> My Contact Shop.

Do you want to ask again "Why redesign the whole website?" or did that image above answered the question?


Anyway, you'd be given a summary of your uploaded contacts in your TheNewLead account; the total number, how many you've submitted for this month and for today. You can also view your submitted contacts, purchased ones & also those which you have updated in the website. Yes, you can update contacts and get points for those but lets focus first on managing your contacts online.

Now click on a particular contact, lets say "Contact 1" and you'd be immediately transferred to this page:

This page allows you to keep track of a specific contact, you can edit the information and you can also schedule an activity regarding that particular contact, eg., call contact on tuesday.

Contact information would contain the following:

1. full contact name

2. contact's job title

3. direct phone no. of contact

4. business email address

5. contact's full company 

6. company address

If you want share your contacts with someone in your company, just create a sub-account and they'll be able to view those contacts immediately.

Keep in mind that we're making total, huge improvements in thenewlead website so it'll be easier to use and will also be easier on the eyes. 

If you do have any suggestions, don't hesitate to post them here in our blog or visit our forum, www.thenewlead.activeboard.com.

Wanted: Freelance Front-end Web Developer

We are in need of a front-end web developer for a large contact database website:

The job entails:
1. Translating design files to interactive interfaces with hand-coded, semantic XHTML and CSS
2. Revising/Fixing of existing web pages
3. Developing prototypes using HTML 5, CSS 3 and JavaScript, jQuery.
4. Ensuring that the prototypes work in all browser such Firefox, IE 6, 7,8, Safari, Opera and sometimes iPad and iPhone.
5. Adhering to Web standards, best practices, and accessibility and usability guidelines.
6. Making sure that site is fully functional and be willing/able to fix bugs & provide support
7. Coding/building of the HTML Emails and Newsletter.
8. Provide bulletin board-support (registration-integration, link & design/code modification for forum, newsletter-subscription, link & design modification for blog, etc.)

We’d prefer someone who has extensive experience in developing large-scale database sites but if we do welcome other creative-based web designers as long as you can handle the job.

Desired Skills
HTML & CSS (Cross-Browser), JavaScript, jQuery, AJAX, JSON, XSLT, XML , JSP
MySQL, MS Access
Photoshop CS2, CS3, CS4,
Dreamweaver 8, CS3, CS4, Notepad++, Front Page


Work Process
1. Flow of webpages will be explained through a powerpoint presentation.
2. Email and chatting on YM would be the primary forms of communication
3. Please take note that there are layouts that can be used more than once. There are about 55 UNIQUE pages to be done.
4. We’re targeting for a 3-4 weeks completion date.
5. All pages will be kept confidential and should NOT be advertised in any forum or talked about in any publicity release
 

Please forward you resume and portfolio links to julie@thenewlead.com with the subject message: Application for Freelance web developer

Is Singapore included in the top growing countries on Facebook?

Nope. Not yet anyway.

 Read the rest of the article here.http://www.facebakers.com/blog/82-top-growing-countries-on-facebook-in-october/

Incredible Website by a Jap

I may not be a full-pledged web designer/developer but I do know the basics of coding, CSS, HTML. Javascript so I'd say I can gauge if a website is quite hard to do or not.

This one is just incredibly insane, in a good way. And I've never handled a flash site so I'd say this one tops my list of most innovative and hardest sites to do..well for me anyway.

Sample Page:

Yes, that's a sample page.

Apparently its done by a leading designer from Japan, named Yugo Nakamura.
The Japs are really something else..

Be blown away and visit the site here: Wonderwall

How a One for One Contact Exchange Works

Why recycle leads when you can get new leads instead? Here's how:

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