Recent Entries
Breaking tasks into manageable chunks
Jun 15, 2009 Business Insights, Learning, Life Leave a comment
A good friend of mine told me over lunch today about how she recently re-discovered the importance of breaking huge, nagging tasks into bite size pieces. I completely agree with her, and found that whenever I don’t do just that, I end up procrastinating and not working on the problem at all. It’s interesting that both of us were math majors, and both of us are only now beginning to apply the lessons we should have learned in school, in the math and engineering classes.
As any engineer would tell you, to begin to solve a large and complex problem, the first step is always to break it up into multiple individual simple steps, that on their own pose little challenge, but summed together accomplish seemingly impossible.
Of course, this strategy is not new (aka Divide and Conquer), but I find that I struggle with having enough self-awareness to recognize a complex problem for what it is, and thereby fail to solve it effectively, piece by piece. Instead, it’s easy to get mired in the minutia of daily life, and not step back, think it through and attack the problem more strategically.
Engineers break it down
Picture of the Day, 6/15/09
Jun 14, 2009 Colorado Leave a comment
Tent city at Hotchkiss, CO for the Ride of the Rockies (this about 1/5 of all the tents).
Picture of the Day, 6/8/09
Jun 8, 2009 Picture of the Day, Startup 2 Comments
SpotGrab.com apparel
Is this too much?
Business ideas are cheap
I was talking about startups and business ideas with a co-worker yesterday, and was amused when he suggested that I keep my business idea private because he thought it was a good one. Being secretive with a business idea seems to be the initial gut reaction of most people I meet.
The reality of course is that ideas are cheap. Everyone has ideas – and just about everyone’s got that one killer idea they will someday implement and be wildly successful. But almost no one does.
The reason is that acting on an idea is very different than having one.
Implementing, even seemigly trivial ideas, takes time, money and tremendous amount of effort.
And the best way to make sure that your idea has any chance of succeeding to get help from other people, which requires you to share the diea with others.
I may be naive, but I think that the best thing you can do with an idea is share it with anyone who is willing to listen.
Picture of the Day, 6/1/09
Jun 1, 2009 Picture of the Day Leave a comment
Grant Park (and the bean) in Chicago as seen from the Aon Center.
Asking for time in a business call
Jun 1, 2009 Sales Leave a comment
When making a business call, whether it’s cold or warm, I’ve learned to always ask for the person’s time before bothering with whatever I have to say.
I find it a professional, and a polite thing to do.
But it’s a surprising easy question to mess up.
Word Choice
For one thing, the words you use matter. For example, if you say “Did I reach you at a good time?”, it immediately begs the question – when is a good time? There is never a good time.
Conversely, you can’t ask if it’s a bad time (even worse “Are you busy?”). It’s always a bad time.
So what I say is “Did I reach you at an OK time?” and most people, being reasonable, submit to me that yes, it is an OK time.
Tone
Another important aspect of the question is tone. If I sound at all scripted, I can almost hear the person on the other line shut down: here we go, another annoying sales call. To avoid this, the question must come out naturally – not too fast, and not too confidently. It has to sound genuine.
Sentence Structure
How you position the question also matters. For example, if you say “Hi, this is Joe Shmoe calling from such and such, did I reach you at an OK time?” it sounds almost too pushy. I find that it turns people off because they can’t honestly answer that question. OK time for what? If I don’t give them an idea of why I am calling before asking that question, I am implicitly suggesting to them that they are about to be sold to. In fact if you use this form, the most common response that you’ll get is “OK time for what?” which puts you in the defensive position.
Instead, I try to give a hint as to why I am calling “Hi, this is Joe Shmoe calling from such and such. I am following up with you from such and such a conference. Did I reach you at an OK time?” or “Hi —. I was referred to you by John Doe. Did I reach you at an OK time?”
Of course, this forces you to have a reason to call. What if you are cold calling? What if there is no conference to mention, and you are not callilng on a referral? Just a straight cold call? I still try to condense the purpose of the call “I am calling regarding [insert topic]” or “I am calling to follow up on my emails”. I find that almost anything is better than not giving them a heads up as to why you are calling.
At least these are the things that’ve worked for me. What do you guys think?
