Category: Archive

License Fees vs. Linux Hype: and the Winner is…

Don’t Believe the FUD … or the Hype

While Microsoft spreads fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) over free software, the advocates often oversell community software on pure enthusiasm; there are truths on both sides. You can’t blame the geeks who laboured years without recognition, budgets or marketing: By their ideas alone, whole governments are now choosing their work over wares honed by the world’s richest vendors! Between the FUD and the hype, there are community alternatives for most business needs, but there are also rough edges.

My PDA, Myself

I used to be one of those people who kept everything in their head. I prided myself on my ability to memorize phone numbers and birthdays, and knew my schedule without writing anything in a calendar.

Then I became a mom.

I am now one of the most forgetful people on the planet. I don’t know if it’s due to the fact that I am no longer responsible for just myself (keeping track of my schedule, my daughter’s schedule, the school’s schedule, the play dates, the after school lessons and more)… or if I lost brain cells during pregnancy … but my short term memory has turned to mush. These days, I need to write everything down… more than ever, now that I have a business of my own.

The ART of Business Operations: Rules, Tools and Glue

Ok, so you’re growing the business but have you paid attention to its infrastructure and the extent to which it can support this growth? In today’s technically dependent work environment attention must be paid to the tools and glue that binds and keeps a business operation functioning efficiently while preventing it from falling apart under the pressure of expansion.

Personal computers have become to the office of today, what hand calculators were thirty years ago, you’ve got to have them. They are the tools for today’s highly efficient operation, permitting team members to organize, communicate, manipulate and produce a number of products efficiently to support the business.

Relationships Work Far Better Than Techniques

For the most part, people prefer to do business with people they like and trust. That’s why personal relationships are far more effective when it comes to getting people to say yes than the mastering of any sales technique. Let me give you an example: Eighty to ninety percent of the people who go into the business of selling insurance leave the field within a year. Now let’s take a look at a typical beginning insurance salesperson: Jill, a college graduate who has just completed an insurance company’s three-week training program at corporate headquarters. During this training program, Jill is thoroughly coached on the latest selling techniques.

Capitalizing On Your Moments of Truth

A territory sales rep for Upjohn communicated with her actions when she was denied the opportunity to communicate with words. She was making a joint sales call with her boss, the district manager. The doctor they were calling on worked at a medical clinic that was located on the twelfth floor of a high-rise office building in downtown Los Angeles. It’s important to remember here that most doctors don’t like to meet with pharmaceutical sales reps. The reason is there are lots of them, they are young and aggressive, they think they know everything so they insult the doctor’s intelligence and often promise things on which they don’t follow through.

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