Category Archives: StartUp
Data Visualization
With proliferation of websites like FlowingData, and an increasing emphasis on making of otherwise obscure and inaccessible data in my own professional life, I’m thinking about learning more about how to create beautiful custom visualizations.
Excel works well for most quick tasks – but how cool would it be to be able to create interactive, colorful charts that [...]
Simply Honey
A few weeks ago I had to pleasure of being able to visit Simply Honey, a Colorado bee keeper in Alamosa, and given a personal tour of the honey making operation.
Simply Honey’s owner and sole employee is Brent Edelen, a third generation bee keeper. He has between 500 and 600 colonies that he moves to [...]
Also posted in Life Tagged bee keeping, honey, interview, local business, road trip, weekend 5 Comments
Inside Sales Analytics, Tracking Daily Activity
As a data geek who’s recently switched careers into sales, I can’t help but think about analytics in my new role as a Lead Gen Rep. To me data is crucial in understanding what’s effective and what’s not. So, I decided to be really diligent about keeping track of everything I do on a daily [...]
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 [...]
Asking for time in a business call
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, [...]
Change of direction at No Excuses Tutoring
Check out my post about the change of direction at No Excuses Tutoring.
On Gaining Your Prospect’s Attention, or the “IBS”
Wendy Wiess has a good post on IBS (Initial Benefit Statement), here is a quote:
The point is that you need to get into your customer’s heads and figure out what differentiates you (your company/products/services) from the competition and why your customers buy from you. Then in your cold call opening, lead with that differentiator and/or [...]
Cold calling (from the callee’s perspective)
I found a great blog post by Greg Reinacker, CTO of NewsGator who apparently gets cold called a lot at work. Greg took the time to write out in detail what it’s like to be the reciepient of a bad cold call. Here are some good quotes:
Imagine this, which seems to happen most of the time:
Greg: “Hello, this is Greg…”
Sales [...]
Update on my projects